Movie Review: Fantastic Four

by Chris
       
I believe it was Nostradamus who predicted the ‘Summer of a Thousand Remakes’. He said the movie theaters in the summer of 2005 would be inundated with lame big-budget remakes. Really, he saw it coming. Don’t believe me? Bite me. Fortunately, he also saw the coming of the great battle between two comic book juggernauts, DC’s Batman in the revamping and the resuscitation of a series that went to Hell, and Marvel’s First Superhero Family, the Fantastic Four. Batman has received first-rate reviews and has given the box office a well deserved spanking, but is Fantastic Four worth your sixpence? That’s for me to know and those who can get through this garbled review to find out.

Fantastic Four has long been one of Marvel’s more popular comics from the mind of Stan Lee. Marvel is, after all, practically the innovator of the new age of comic book movies. They took what DC ruined with Batman and Robin and made movies like Spider-Man, X-Men, and Blade which are now practically ingrained into our pop culture. But Marvel is not without its blunders, you can always get a Daredevil or an Elektra (both underrated, but still only passable movies). So here’s what I was looking for as I stepped on a piece of caramel and watched Fantastic Four come to life.

Does it stay true to the comics? Not staying true to the source material can ruin a comic book movie, like trying to screw around with the story of origin or the character’s relationships. Luckily, Fantastic Four does keep things, like the origin story, intact. But what was a major misstep for this film as far as staying true to the source material goes was the character relationships. Johnny and Ben, in the comic book series acted a lot like feuding siblings, in the movie it’s taken a step too far. Johnny comes off looking like an obnoxious jackass, and oddly enough, I think we’re actually supposed to like him (I didn’t, but they want you to). Furthermore, Victor Von Doom is a wealthy American business tycoon rather than a kook from Latveria. (While he still is from Latveria it in no way affects the story) I suppose the guys at 20th Century FOX figured “Heck, it worked for Osborn in Spider-Man”. Of course Osborn was actually a rich businessman in the comics. Were these the same guys who made Daredevil a total rip-off of Spider-Man? Good comics can stand on their own as good movies without being poor imitations!

How about CGI and special effects? In a movie like Fantastic Four, where the characters are meant to exhibit such freakish anatomic anomalies as stretchiness, invisibility, bursting into flames, and super . . . rocki-ness . . . . (Yeah it’s a word!) The special effects have got to be top-notch and unfortunately . . . They really weren’t. The Thing looks pretty bad . . . Like hardened orange vomit I’d say. And it seems as though they spent so much money on the characters’ anomalies that they didn’t even have enough cash left over to show something as simple as a launch into space, or Ben Grimm actually turning into the Thing, which would have been neat. These things aside, the special affects weren’t horrendous but could have definitely been better for what this movie was supposed to be.

Let’s talk actors . . . You may or may not recall that I was not too excited about Jessica Alba playing Susan Storm (First Half of ‘05 Movies). I compared her to Kirsten Dunst (who I called Cameron Diaz), which was probably a mistake because Kirsten played Mary Jane, a high school sweetheart, while Jessica Alba is supposed to be a believable . . . scientist. She really isn’t. Which I suppose is why they reduced Susan Storm’s character into little more than Von Doom’s secretary. It works for Alba, since she doesn’t have to play a part that simply isn’t in her nature (Tara Reid in Alone in the Dark, anyone?) but to be honest it ruins an intelligent female role that wouldn’t have had to have been revised if it was played by someone who could properly play the character of Sue Storm as she is. Women will probably be offended by it, but the movie’s main viewer demographic, teenage and college-age comic book geeks (like myself) will just be ogling Alba in her skintight blue outfit. Chris Evans was entertaining as Johnny Storm - if a thoroughly unlikable character - and played the ‘little brother’ role pretty well. Ioan Gruffudd – who played Lancelot in King Arthur (crappy movie) so you’ve probably never heard of him – played Reed fairly well. And Michael Chiklis did a wonderfully angsty Ben Grimm who has to cope with suddenly becoming a freak. Together, even at the end of the film, they never really feel like the family that the Fantastic Four have always been, they do make a good (if sometimes lackluster) team.

So what have we learned? Well, nothing really. This was a good summer movie, even if it doesn’t stack up to Spider-Man or X-Men, it’s decent in its own right. It’s at least better than Daredevil and its spin-off ‘Hey let’s put Elektra in a prostitute’s costume’. But if Marvel wanted to send out someone to battle Batman, Spider-Man or X-Men 3 might have been more appropriate, because in the fight for super-hero supremacy, Marvel just got its arse handed to it, this summer.