For a time, films based on Marvel Comics characters were amazing pieces of entertainment. BLADE, X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN and HULK were all good to great. Then DAREDEVIL disappointed and ELEKTRA and THE PUNISHER were average genre crap. And let’s not even get started on the abomination that is BLADE TRINITY. So for the most part the real big name characters resulted in good movies. Therefore, if this scenario were to hold up, the first family of Marvel — The Fantastic Four — should be great as well. Didn’t happen.
As disappointing as ELEKTRA and PUNISHER were, they didn’t make me mad like F4. As silly as the seesaw scene in DAREDEVIL was, F4 was like watching that seesaw scene for two hours. What the successful Marvel superhero movies did right was that they weren’t written for 13 year olds. FANTASTIC FOUR is so juvenile it’s pathetic.
Dr. Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd, KING ARTHUR) is a brilliant scientist, who seems to be as clumsy at the Absent-Minded Professor. His best friend Ben Grimm aka The Thing (Michael Chiklis, TV’s THE SHIELD) is his de facto bodyguard. Reed and Ben pitch a new scientific experiment into space to the company of their old school mate Victor Von Doom aka Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon, TV’s NIP/TUCK), where Reed’s old flame Sue Storm aka Invisible Girl (Jessica Alba, SIN CITY), who is a 20-something, accomplished exec at a major company, works. Victor agrees to the deal, but one stipulation is that Sue’s hotshot brother Johnnie aka The Human Torch (Chris Evans, CELLULAR) will fly the mission.
During the mission, something goes wrong and the crew is bombarded by cosmic rays, giving them superpowers. Reed can stretch out his body like rubber. Ben’s body turns to stone. Sue aka Invisible Girl and Johnnie aka Human Torch are pretty easy to figure out. They get these powers, but really don’t think much of it.
The story plays on the issues that the comic dealt with, but in a completely superficial way. The screenplay and dialogue are laughable. The characters speak as if they are reading from the Tired Cliché and Obvious Pun Handbook. Everything that happens is predictable; nothing is surprising or entertaining.
Character-wise, the script gets the characterization of The Thing and Human Torch right, but then undermines any real emotional connection with cheesy, obvious developments. Because it’s driven by utter contrivance, the big emotional scene with Ben and the wedding ring on the bridge doesn’t make us cry, but rather laugh out loud. Reed is painted out as an utter nerd while Sue is not even developed at all. However, nothing comes close to the complete destruction of Dr. Doom. I won’t go into detail how different he is from the comics, but will say that as one of the best villains in comic history the changes to his character turn him into a cliché corporate crony instead of the new Adolph Hitler like he should be.
Even the production values for such a big budget release are weak. The effects for Torch and Thing are impressive, but Mr. Fantastic’s stretching looks bad. Director Tim Story (BARBERSHOP) and cinematographer Oliver Wood often choose weak framing for shots as well. It’s an utter shame that something like this did well at the box office and will get a sequel while THE HULK failed and now will be “redone” instead of expanded upon. SPIDER-MAN is great because it holds true to the comics with real emotion and smart humor. F4 fails at accomplishing any of those feats. I never cared about any of these characters. Cool powers aren’t what make great comic characters great. It’s their human flaws that we identify with. The scene that best describes FANTASTIC FOUR is when Johnnie shows Ben the prototype for a Thing toy and the marketing people thought the toy should say the catch phrase “it’s clobbering time.” That’s the film in a nutshell, nothing in it feels real — it’s been formulated by marketing people.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
