Double Review: 1 for Newcomers, 1 for Fantastic Four Comic Book Fans
Written: Jul 08 '05 (Updated Jul 12 '05)
Product Rating:
Pros: Felt fun and exciting, by and large, while I was actually watching it.
Cons: Not much combat. Also not very intellectually challenging.
The Bottom Line: As superhero movies go, better than average. Some changes in characterization could grate on a comic book fan's nerves. Not a very cerebral flick.
I'm going to follow the approach I used for the Daredevil movie a few years back. First, a review meant for those of you who know little or nothing about a superhero group called the Fantastic Four and are just wondering what type of bang for your buck you'll be getting if you wander down to the theatre to see it over the weekend. Second, a review meant for those of you who already have read enough of their comic book adventures to have a very clear idea in your mind of just who the Fantastic Four are supposed to be - not just their names and powers, but their different personalities and how they usually interact with one another and with the world around them.
Ideally, of course, everybody will read the entire piece straight through, since I don't want to keep repeating myself in each half. But you've been warned - the first part is more of General Interest; the second part concentrates on similarities to, and differences from, the "traditional" Fantastic Four who have been published in the comic books for over 40 years now. (Granted, in those 40-odd years, they've gone through some changes, and sometimes had original members disappear for awhile and be "replaced" by other superhero types for various lengths of time, etc. But key elements of the basic character concepts keep coming back to the surface in new stories, again and again.)
The Review for Normal Human Beings
Calling this an "action movie" is a stretch. Only in the final scenes do we see the Fantastic Four actually fighting evil as embodied in the person of Victor Von Doom (more commonly known as "Doctor Doom" in the comic books, though I don't recall his using that exact name for himself in this movie). We do see some earlier "action" in the sense of the Four discovering and learning to use their powers, and managing to prevent some deaths after a middle-of-a-bridge traffic accident and fire which was partially caused by Ben Grimm, The Thing, without any malicious intent on his part.
But when I compare this film to what I've come to expect from movies in the Star Wars or James Bond franchises, for instance, it doesn't feel like an action movie at all. It feels like a movie about some people discovering they have gained superhuman powers, and starting to learn how to use the silly things - with an obligatory sequence of fight scenes toward the end.
There are only five characters in this film who really amount to anything. Others are lucky if they get to pronounce a few lines of dialogue in two scenes instead of just one. The Big Five are (not surprisingly) the Fantastic Four of the Title, plus the man who (in the comics at least) is destined to become their greatest enemy.
The Big Five are:
Reed Richards, later known as Mister Fantastic (played by Ioan Gruffudd)
Susan "Sue" Storm, later known as The Invisible Girl (played by Jessica Alba)
Ben Grimm, later known as The Thing (played by Michael Chiklis)
Johnny Storm, later known as The Human Torch (played by Chris Evans)
Victor Von Doom, later known as Doctor Doom in the comics, but I don't think he uses that exact name in this film (played by Julian McMahon)
A quick rundown:
Reed Richards is, like Victor Von Doom (an old classmate from MIT) one of the most brilliant scientific minds on the planet. However, he lacks both the social skills and the business skills of Victor. Whatever Richards has actually spent the last few years working on, prior to the new project he persuades Victor to finance at the very start of this film (and nobody gives us any details on Reed's past career achievements), it has apparently left him filing for bankruptcy (or else about to - I'm not positive on the details) with multiple mortgages on the office building he uses as his home and laboratory space. A visionary experiment conceived by Reed, involving go up to a space station just in time to see what happens under controlled conditions when some sort of cloud full of cosmic radiation sweeps through the area, is the plot device used to irradiate the future Fantastic Four (plus Victor Von Doom) so that they will later develop superpowers. Evidently Reed's timetable and other calculations for the experiment weren't quite as foolproof as he'd hoped - although you have to admit he got some fascinating results for his trouble!
Reed gets the ability to stretch his body remarkably. Useful, but not one of the most aggressive superpowers in the book. (In the comics, his key contributions often come from his brilliant scientific knowledge and ability as an inventor who can come up with all sorts of really nifty gadgets for a particular emergency. That side of him doesn't get a full workout in this movie, although we do see him succeed with at least one really important invention.)
Sue Storm is a geneticist who's a department head in Victor Von Doom's company as the movie starts. Two years ago, she and Reed broke up after a love affair fell apart. We gather that she thought it was time to move in together, he panicked, and she gave up on him as afraid of commitment. (Those are not the exact words she uses, but that seems to be the gist of what happened.) Her powers involve the ability to turn herself invisible and also to project very strong invisible force fields, either as defensive shields or as hard-hitting offensive weapons to knock people over. Unfortunately, her powers didn't come with an instruction manual and she has some misadventures based on the discovery that her own body may turn invisible, but normal street clothes don't, creating a weird effect where you can't see her face but you know exactly where she is because her clothes are still floating there in midair. This creates a couple of sequences where the screenwriters go for cheap laughs by having her do strip-teases to remove her visible clothing in order to become truly invisible (and naked) so that she can sneak past people. Her problem is eventually solved with a uniform of "unstable molecules" that automatically adapts to the use of her powers.
(Note: In the Fantastic Four comic books, the original version of Sue Storm did not have to do impromptu strip-teases as she turned invisible. Her power seemed to work on anything she was wearing or carrying, and later she learned to extend the effect to other people and objects, so that she could turn the entire team invisible simultaneously if necessary.)
Ben Grimm is a very capable and tough-talking pilot who is a man of action, and an old friend of Reed's and Sue's. He ends up getting the most socially awkward transformation - into a large figure of a man covered with an epidermis that is made of solid, orange, bullet-proof rocks. As a bonus, he is incredibly strong and durable, but unlike the others, he can't just turn his powers or weird appearance off anytime he feels like it. His wife Debbie screams in horror when she first sees what her husband now looks like, and never reconciles with him after that. You can imagine the effect on his morale. (We never actually learn if she filed for divorce, but it seems likely.) Chiklis plays the role very well, and he is definitely the character I felt the most sorry for. Little things like the trouble involved in drinking without shattering the glass with fingers that were much thicker and stronger than before, or trying to dial a number on a telephone with those same clumsy fingers, accentuated the fact that his problems were more pervasive than those of his friends Sue and Reed (and of Johnny, who definitely did not come across as being any friend of Ben's, but rather taunted him on various occasions.)
Johnny Storm is Sue's brother. He is a pilot who formerly worked for NASA (which would seem to suggest he was an Air Force officer, if I understand NASA's recruiting policies). Then they tossed him out for misconduct involving smuggling two young women into a flight simulator and somehow crashing it into the wall. (We only hear about this long after the fact, in a critical comment from Ben Grimm - we don't have a clue how Johnny managed to crash a flight simulator.) This little anecdote tells us quite a bit about him, and later evidence tends to point in the same direction. Johnny is obnoxious, insensitive, a practical joker, hot-tempered, self-centered, a womanizer, a glory hound, and tends to make sweeping statements on behalf of the rest of the Fantastic Four without bothering to get their approval or worry about how they'll react. (He's the one who creatively dubs Ben Grimm "The Thing" in a TV interview. Ben is not thrilled by this new nickname.)
He showed most of those character flaws before he developed the powers to burst into flame, throw fireballs around, and fly through the air. The powers don't improve his personality any, and certainly not his level of maturity. When he later snaps at his sister to stop treating him like a little boy, she understandably suggests that this would be much easier if he'd stop acting like one. Perfectly true, but I sure didn't see any sign that he was making measurable progress in that direction by the end of the film.
Interestingly enough, initially Johnny is the only member of the group who frankly enjoys having these weird powers and doesn't want to be "cured" and put back to "normal." At one point he asks Reed if Reed has considered the possibility that there's a special reason they were gifted with these powers as part of some higher calling? Reed says (approximately): "You call the pursuit of women and money a higher calling?" and Johnny says without missing a beat, "Is there any higher?"
(One note: The Human Torch in the original comic books was not a womanizer, and was only a high school student when he got his powers, with the result that his impulsive attitude and practical jokes and so forth seemed more understandable in a legal minor who still had a lot of growing up to do. When we see them in a grown man, they arouse the frustrated feeling that he ought to know better.)
Victor Von Doom is, along with Reed Richards, one of the smartest minds on the planet. However, his intelligence apparently had more business administration skills involved, with the result that he is (as we first meet him) the CEO of Von Doom Industries, a very large and prosperous corporation. Unfortunately, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, the radioactive disaster in outer space that endows all five major characters with their powers somehow causes a collapse in the value of his company's stock, in the confidence of the bankers who had lent money to the company, in the board of directors, etc., and he finds his empire crumbling. The shock of this, combined with the changes in his own metabolism caused by the cosmic radiation, cause him to rather suddenly go bad with very little detail provided on just what he expected to achieve after the preliminary goal of crushing the Fantastic Four. The movie could have used some extra material here detailing whatever megalomaniac ambitions he had presumably developed (or was finally admitting to having had all along, or whatever).
Overall, the movie felt good and exciting while I was watching it - things kept moving along, I felt sympathy for most of the major characters (Ben Grimm in particular), and I have to admit that Jessica Alba was very easy on the eyes in addition to giving a performance that did not actually strike me as wooden. She felt like a real person with real frustrations re: Reed Richards in particular (and also the childish pranks of her brother Johnny), although the performance was marred for me by the contrast with how "Sue Storm's" personality is normally presented in the comic books. (Some details on that point are provided in the review for diehard fans, below.)
The screenwriter shows quite a bit of humor in his work. Some of it is quips by Johnny Storm, others include incredibly "bad" timing - such as the way sensitive moments between Sue Storm and her two suitors keep getting interrupted at the worst possible moment by something else suddenly happening. And there's one sight gag I particularly liked when Johnny Storm is holding one of those containers of popcorn that're meant to be heated in the microwave, and just sitting on the palm of his hand the foil top is starting to expand out and further out as the (implied) heat of his hand heats the air inside the sealed package and presumably pops the corn.
In some ways, this film reminds me of "Unbreakable." In that one, Bruce Willis spent much of the film gradually accepting the idea that he was developing some superpowers, and only had one instance of hand-to-hand combat with a criminal near the end of the film. Guns were occasionally shown to us but never fired onstage. At the very end of the film, we got the feeling that Willis might end up building a superhero career for himself (although at the time, he had not yet selected an alias nor a fancy costume to use). After I saw the film, I read online that writer/director M. Night Shyamalan intended it as the first chapter of a trilogy, which cleared up several things for me about its slowly-developing plot and various loose ends that felt like they were meant to be followed up on in later installments.
Fantastic Four does not leave so many loose ends dangling, but it does a similar feeling of being meant as the "introduction" to other material, like a 90-minute TV pilot that's meant to jumpstart a TV series, or in this case presumably to jumpstart a movie franchise. As summer entertainment, if you just want something kind of fun and exciting and occasionally touching to look at, with a very low body count (Doom kills onscreen at least two men that I can remember, but I think that's about it, just off the top of my head), then this is worth a few bucks to sit and watch. If you're looking for something with a really complicated plot that will make you pay very close attention to every subtle little clue, or that will educate you about some important subject in the current events of the real world, then this film is not likely to be your cup of tea.
Assuming that something that lets you feel good without challenging your brain is what you're in the mood for, I have to admit it's better than average as that type of film goes; thus, 4 stars out of 5.
The Review for Fantastic Four Comic Book Fans
Stan Lee gets his usual cameo in any Marvel superhero movie, this time as Willie Lumpkin, the mailman whose route includes the Baxter Building where Reed hangs his hat.
Michael Chiklis is perfectly cast as Ben Grimm, the tough-talking man of action with a heart of gold underneath the rocky orange exterior. They add some extra tragedy to his life by making him a happily married man as the movie starts. His wife only gets to speak a few lines in one scene, after his transformation. She gets her first good look at his transformed self, screams, and runs away. Never gets over it, either, as we see in a later scene in which she doesn't even get a speaking part. (But is an unexpected physical transformation grounds for divorce in the state of New York? By the end of the movie, I get the feeling he no longer regards himself as a married man, but no one ever said anything about divorce court proceedings.)
I think the Chiklis performance will become one of my personal favorites in the genre. Christopher Reeve captured the essence of Superman (at least in his first film in the role); Hugh Jackman captured the essence of Wolverine; Patrick Stewart captured the essence of Professor X; Tobey Maguire captured the essence of Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man; and now Chiklis seems to have captured the essence of Ben Grimm. (Granted, in each case the screenwriters probably helped by providing the right sort of dialogue.)
My biggest gripe about the characterization of Grimm in this one is that - to give a minor Spoiler without giving away the plot twists that led up to it - by the very end, Reed Richards thinks he could undo the transformations triggered by the cosmic radiation, yet Grimm makes it clear he's in no hurry to change back now. The "real" Ben Grimm in the comics took a heck of a long time to become more-or-less accustomed to his appearance as a walking, talking figure covered with bulletproof orange rocks; and this about-face on Grimm's part so early in his career struck me as far too hasty and arbitrary.
Iaon Gruffudd is tolerable as Reed Richards. Remember, Reed is not supposed to be a very emotive, touchy-feely kind of guy to begin with - especially not in the early days before he actually broke down and asked Sue to marry him.
Overall I think Chris Evans was well-cast as Johnny Storm, and I suppose it's not his fault that my biggest gripe with the role is his womanizing. If not for that, I think I could tolerate the way Johnny is presented as a grown man (physically, though not emotionally) instead of the hotheaded legal minor who was still in high school when he got his superpowers in the original comic books. Evans also has dark hair instead of blond, but that's trivial and I won't be losing any sleep over it. (Just as I won't be losing any sleep over the way Chiklis apparently keeps his head shaved even though Ben Grimm had a full head of hair before his transformation. These things are not vitally important.)
Jessica Alba as Sue Storm is my pet peeve for this film. My first impression, which is still with me after I finished watching the film, was that she seemed too sultry and not sweet enough to fit my mental image of the young Invisible Girl (or even the later, more mature Invisible Girl after she had married Reed, or, as she finally renamed herself when it suited her, the Invisible Woman). I really don't like the idea that she already had a love affair with Reed a few years ago. (Yes, I'm a prude. Why do you ask?)
On the plus side, as the film moved along I realized that despite the way the word "Sultry" had spontaneously popped into my head the moment she first walked onstage, and despite the way just about any clothing she wore (except her blue FF uniform) was always arranged to bare at least a little of her cleavage, she wasn't actually playing the role of a promiscuous femme fatale as I first feared. There was no particular sign that she went out of her way to use flirtatious tactics to manipulate men in general on a daily basis - she had evidently gotten where she had gotten on merit rather than on good looks and/or brazen behavior. Victor Von Doom was her current employer and wanted to marry her, but there was no clear sign that she had ever consciously led him on to think she would say "yes" if he ever proposed. Something she said to Reed much later in the film strongly suggested she never had any such intention, if we take her protestations at face value.
To do her justice: I am not saying that any of my dislike for this movie's reinterpretation of the character of Sue Storm is Jessica Alba's fault. She may well have done the very best she could with the role as it was written. I'm not saying that I've decided she is a lousy actress; I'm saying I blame the screenwriters for writing the wrong sort of role and then attaching the name of "Sue Storm" to it.
Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom struck me as so-so. Not a lousy actor, but not an inspiring one either (at least in this role - I can't recall ever seeing him act any other role, so perhaps I'm underestimating him.) He did not seem to me to have the raw charisma that Victor Von Doom is supposed to have oozing from every pore. He did come across as a man with a talent for ruthless aggression when it suited him, however, but that's not the same thing as charm. Of course, in the comics Doctor Doom's origin was an entirely separate thing from the origin story that gave the Fantastic Four their powers, but for the sake of keeping things moving along at a brisk pace in a film, I am prepared to tolerate the alteration. It's interesting to see that although all five of the people exposed to the powers-granting radiation were merely human, with flaws and concerns of their own and making their share of mistakes in their lives, only one of the five actually went bad (and/or mad) after the nature of the physiological changes started to sink in. The other four coped much better than Victor, and are at least starting to look like heroes by the end of the movie even if they haven't clearly decided to make "superhero" a key word in their daily lifestyles.
Alicia Masters gets a few lines in two different scenes, but I didn't recognize her at first glance because she is played by a black woman. I guess they had to get some racial diversity into the script somehow, and that seems as good a way as any.
By the way, I didn't notice a single reference to any other superhero or supervillain concept that's already established in Marvel Comics - not even to any of the ones that have gotten their own movies of late, which would include Spider-Man, Daredevil, Hulk, the X-Men, and their various supporting casts and traditional enemies.
The early adventures of the Fantastic Four had much of their appeal in such elements as a "sense of wonder" and also a surprising amount of "family bickering" among the members of the group, particularly in the nasty comments that went back and forth between the Thing and the Human Torch (usually the Torch's fault, I would say). Those elements are also present here, right down to the Torch's sometimes merciless needling of the Thing, and unlike the Daredevil movie a few years ago, we don't have any of these heroes being drastically rewritten as laughing murderers. Another odd element of the Fantastic Four was their huge lack of interest in trying to maintain traditional "secret identities," and that too is reflected in this movie. Considering how many other things could have gone wrong beyond my objections to details of the characterizations of both Sue and Johnny Storm, I'm willing to give this one 4 stars out of 5 as an adaptation for comic book fans, as well as giving the same rating for people who just want fun entertainment but have no particular preconceptions about anything called "The Fantastic Four."
As a closing comment, Michael France and Mark Frost are both credited as writers on this one, and Tim Story as the director. I mention them in case it helps attract attention to this review in the search engines.
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