"That's a nice-a donut."

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Fantastic Four (2005)

After the success of comic-based movies such as X-Men, Spider-man, and even Blade, Marvel Comics pushed forward and developed for the big screen their first superhero title from 1961, the Fantastic Four. Casting aside the stigma around the title wrought by the colossal bomb and unintentionally hilarious version - still never officially released - from 1994 wasn't going to be easy. Heck even Batman, one of the three biggest superheroes of them all, struggled to regroup its luster after one man (that would be Joel Schumacher) single-handedly ruined the original movie franchise. And that was even after Batman Begins was loudly acclaimed, as it only became a certified hit after significant word of mouth. So how was Fantastic Four - generally just a mid-level comic title these days - ever going to succeed? Well, it doesn't hurt that not a lot of people have actually seen the '94 version. Sometimes low expectations can go a long way.

Let's just get this right out of the way: this Fantastic Four has a paper-thin plot, which generally rambles on and only gives very vague details about anything specific. That often doesn't matter too much in a movie, but when you have four bozos who are supposed to advanced astrophysicists (or whatever the heck kind of scientists they are actually supposed to be) you naturally want to start asking some questions. Anyway, we have stereotypical socially inept scientist Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffold), his longtime partner and muscleman Ben Grimm (The Shield's Michael Chiklis), cover girl Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), and her brother Johnny (Chris Evans). There is also the diabolical Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), an adversary of Richards, who is financing an expedition into space to do something very unspecific. An even more unspecific radioactive "cosmic ray" hits them while in space and, back on Earth, the five all begin to notice unusual powers. Richards becomes the very elastic Mr. Fantastic and gains the ability to stretch any of his body parts. Ben becomes The Thing, a super strong man made of rock. Sue becomes Invisible Girl, who can become invisible, and also can create powerful force fields. And Johnny is the Human Torch, with the power to fly. Doom slowly turns metallic and also has lightning-like power.

Much of the story revolves around the characters coming to terms with their newfound powers. Surprisingly, for better or worse, there is actually very little fighting or intense action. The eventual showdown with Dr. Doom is relatively brief and doesn't occur until the very end. Perhaps because of this, and also because any dislike you are supposed to harbor for Doom is forced, the fight is a letdown. The deepest aspect of the story involves Thing and his determination to become human again (for some reason he is the only one who cannot switch back at any time). This part had the potential to be quite good, but ultimately just feels like a throwaway. For instance, Grimm's wife doesn't take it to well when she discovers what happened to him - then is never seen again in the film.

The movie is saved from being really bad by fairly liberal use of rather humorous one-liners and gags. The showboating Johnny Storm becomes the public face of the group and Evans attempts to steal every scene that he is in. He's over the top and it works. It's fun when he's hamming it up but, comic book or not, just makes me wonder even more what this surfer boy was doing in space?!

It's safe to say that Alba isn't going to win any acting awards in the immediate future - and neither is Gruffold, Chiklis, or Evans, for that matter - but they all seem to do the best they can with a poor script. And the special effects are good. I'm not sure about its potential as a franchise, but I can think of worse ways to spend a mindless and forgettable 100 minutes.

The Verdict: C-.

Michael Bentley 12:35 PM

"That's a nice-a donut."

Sunday, January 08, 2006

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