FANTASTIC FOUR (2005) review

The Fantastic Four has survived many terrible onslaughts in their years of fictional existence and they did so again tonight.

I just got out of the FANTASTIC FOUR film from Fox – and while it is mediocre, pedestrian, badly designed, lit and in some cases acted… The jewel of what the Fantastic Four can still be seen. It’s like a diamond compacted by the shit of the monkey over-seers in charge of this production – but in the course of throwing that shit-encrusted diamond… a few shiny spots shine through to show you that there’s a bit of Marvel’s greatest superheroes in there.

So… What stinks?

1. Jessica Alba – Sue Storm – Invisible WOMAN. She’s annoying, but beautiful. At no point would you get an iota of a clue that she was Von Doom’s lead geneticist. Not an ounce of the dialogue, her actions or even the way she holds herself leads you to believe that she would know a genome from a lawn gnome. She is used almost exclusively as either a nag or cleavage. Neither of which was really Sue Storm. I don’t think she was quite Halle Berry in X-MEN bad – but she was very very close.

2. Julian McMahon – Victor Von Doom – Dr. Doom. I know he’s allegedly a well loved actor from NIP/TUCK, a show I’ve never seen – and this performance doesn’t really make me want to see him in anything again. He comes across as sleazy bitchy villain #928. From that lame scar to his just smug look. He’s just a waste of screen time. Seeing Victor Von Doom all torn up in regards to proposing to Sue Storm… it’s just dreadful. Just about every aspect of this character is a complete and utter waste of time. I felt the ticks of an unseen clock clacking away everytime he was on screen. Then there’s the Latveria references – which I suppose is the bone they were throwing to all of us fans of the “real” Dr. Doom. This past 4th of July weekend, I had the immense pleasure of spending HOURS upon HOURS with Marv Wolfman chatting about his work on Marvel & DC’s adaptations of JOHN CARTER, WARLORD OF MARS, New TEEN TITANS and his work on FANTASTIC FOUR – and he went on and on about how he felt Dr. Doom was the greatest villain in the history of comics. How elegant and nuanced his back-story and creation was. How he wasn’t sure where any of it came from… Kirby, Lee… somebody else – but that it was the great glorious accident of the Marvel Universe. All of which was thrown out here.

3. Special Effects – The space stuff was dreadful. I’m not even sure if I can really express how shitty this stuff was. I mean – it was so bad I was longing for MOONRAKER or SPACE CAMP. There seemed to be a haze over it all. It screamed rushed and under-financed… except – it couldn’t really be under-financed, cuz you know they spent more money on the space effects in this film than 2001 cost in its entirety. It was just badly done. The Invisible Woman fx almost kicked ass – they had this wonderful air-brushed invisibility look going that had the soft balance light highlighting curves – but it seemed they wanted to also do the whole COMPLETE invisibility bit – but that just felt like a cop out. I understand the difficulty they had here – but the quasi-invisible look would have allowed her to still be a character whom we could relate to and observe – while the actors on screen wouldn’t have seen her at all. Then there’s Mr Fantastic… By having nearly all of his “cool bits” as a hero take place at night, I found his stretch stuff to be kinda lame. Especially during that last fight with Dr. Doom, though it was cool seeing him direct the FF at last.

4. The look of the film. Other than the Baxter Building – everything looked cheap and knocked off. The film had the cinematic depth of an episode of SEINFELD. Sets that weren’t textured. Nothing really had a sense of history or place to it. Much of it just seemed wasted. Like – you get this distant shot of Doom’s launch pad area – but there’s no launch. We’re told Johnny and Ben are pilots, but you won’t see it. Not really sure how they got back to Earth – but we didn’t see that flight or return. They set up placing flowers in outer space to be exposed – but we never see them again. The space station has gravity – somehow. Their uniforms kinda do look like leotards from Richard Simmons’ show. All the “matte” shots looked bad. Like half-assed GHOSTBUSTERS shots – and that isn’t a slight at GHOSTBUSTERS – cuz the matte shots of New York with weird shit happening there were excellent… Here, they seem very badly done. Frozen Reed – whew. Bad.

5. The Action. Pretty bad. Other than the straight out of the comics – missile on Torch’s tail sequence – all the action is buried in shadow. If you compare this work to that in Brad Bird’s THE INCREDIBLES – it’s painful. In fact – comparing any of this to Brad Bird’s THE INCREDIBLES is painful. There’s nothing in this that even comes close to being that cool. When Reed begins his series of transformations to distract and mess with Doom – you’d think you were about to see something very cool. And… I bet that if you were to see what Reed was doing as a separate fore-ground element – you’d be impressed – but it so blends in and feels flat with the background that none of it is striking, impressive or in the least bit fantastic.

6. Dialogue. Dreadful. I really really hate all the cute dialogue foreshadows throughout this film. Well – and that Von Doom statue foreshadow. Whether it be Susie feeling unnoticed, Reed stretching himself too thin, Ben feeling solid or Johnny being a hothead… They speak like bad bad bad afternoon cartoons. The script work after France’s draft was pretty much a waste of time and seemingly no effort. I’d hate to think it was work for someone to maim this wantonly dialogue into cutesy poo bullshit like this.

Ok – so with the Look, Action, FX, Dialogue, the Villain and 1 of the primary heroes all sucking pretty badly how could the Fantastic Four survive for me?

Mainly it comes down to the intangibles. A few scenes working here or there – mainly direct lifts from the comics and France’s early draft. There is no elegance or sense of scope with any of this film. It would be easy for me to just hate on this film – there’s more than enough wrong here for me to just call it a load of shit unworthy of anybody’s time – but that’s not how I feel.

Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis kinda rule. I like the THING make-up as a “stage 1” Thing. I know some on-line folks love to show the “HOW TO DRAW THE THING” image as some form of critique of the make-up that the crew that made the THING did – but frankly… It really does look almost exactly like early Jack Kirby The Thing. Now – that look evolved into a more angular and classic THING – and if (as I hope) this series were to continue in better and more competent hands. (Which I don’t think is likely) Then evolving his look would be wonderful.

I hate the amount of wasted time on this film. By complicating Reed & Sue’s relationship, giving Doom this whole corporate and financial under-plot I felt the flow and rhythm of the film just never really took off. I kept waiting for the Pogo-plane or the Fantasti-Car or any given of Reed Richards’ inventions to be activated. That mess on the bridge was just a mess. Just remembering back to the elegant first “action” beats of France’s script – it really had the FF working as a team. I do like that they kept a bit of the ol ‘fighting family’ aesthetic going.

I hate the absence of Yancy Street, Alicia Masters’ sculpting studio. I get that they were attempting to make an “origin” film – but everything they did in this film feels like the 8 pages of a comic leading up to the actual Fantastic Four adventure. It’s like… The Fantastic Four with nothing to do.

I love Reed and Sue at the “first date” spot and Reed’s bit about her wanting a stronger man – and his little facial bit. I love most everything with Johnny Storm – though – technically… I hate his hair cut, but that’s a nitpick… Just… it’d be nice when Ben Grimm makes a Blonde joke at his expense.. if, ya know… he were blonde. I like quite a bit with Ben, don’t like the marriage thing – or his wife going out in a negligee in the middle of New York. But Thing/Johnny gags were great – though I would have loved to have seen Ben actually rolling up Johnny’s car… cuz, that could’ve been a cool thing to watch instead of watching Sue being bitchy… again.

I think LITTLE kids will dig it, and mundanes (aka people not really familiar with the FF).

The more that you love the Fantastic Four – the more disappointed you’ll be in the film. The more educated in effects, film and the human language that you are – the more disappointed you’ll be in the film.

This isn’t so bad that I felt embarrassed for my favorite heroes – instead, it’s just a sad as hell that Fox and Marvel wasted what could have been such a fantastic opportunity to really raise the bar across the film world in terms of the superhero film. It’s a mediocre beginning – but then – FF1 wasn’t the best issue of the Fantastic Four – it is a series that got better and better… till the world ceased being the innocent world in which they were so Fantastic in.

Of the big summer films so far, it is by far the worst. But if this is as bad as the “gotta see” Summer films this year can get, then we should count ourselves lucky. Sure we’re getting some shit, but there’s a diamond in there too. Somewhere.