Fantastic Four - The Review

There have been a few hundred reviews of the Fantastic Four movie. I've read some from people that are familiar with the comic, but not a single review from a Fantastic Four fan.

That's where I come in.

Fantastic Four is my favorite comic and I have followed it for 35 years. I've seen the good and I've seen the bad. When the cast toured to promote the never-released Corman movie I was at one of the stops. There isn't much in the way of promo stuff from the first movie, but what there is I have it. Not only that, but it's signed by the cast. More on that in a later blog.

So what about the new movie?

First of all The Good:

Michael Chiklis is outstanding as The Thing. I doubt anyone could have played the part any better. The costume is great and Chiklis plays the part like a long time fan of Ben Grimm (which he is). The costume deserves an Academy award for makeup, but considering the critical drubbing the movie received it'll never happen.

The Origin. Introducing characters to all the newcomers is the part that drags most "first" super hero movies down. What you really want to see is the characters adapt their hero personas, not all the stuff leading up to it. Fantastic Four wastes little time getting to the point and the origin sequence flies by. I thought the re-imagining of Doom's origin would bother me, but the truth is it works better this way. For those that worried that his Latverian roots would be forgotten, never fear the Latverian Doom is alive and well.

The Thing/Torch relationship.  This would have been easy to ignore for the sake of time constraints, but the movie spends a lot of time on the brotherlike love/hate relationship between Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm.

The Powers - One thing that bugged me about the X Men films is it seemed like the film makers tried not to use the characters powers. It's a superhero movie, let it loose! I loved the battle scenes in Fantastic Four and especially how Reed was portrayed. The battle between Reed and Ben in the Baxter Building lab is classic, straight from the comics page. All of the powers are portrayed well in the film. I've read a number of comments about the "low budget" look. Considering how much they actually used their powers, I never thought low budget.

The Costumes - I've mentioned this before and I'll say it again. They got the costumes right. This is tricky as most super hero costumes look dumb on the big screen. The Fantastic Four costumes have always been pretty basic and the costumers did little more than tweak them a bit. Here's the best part, none of those stupid Batman rubberized chest plates! There has been a lot of talk about the amount of cleavage in Jessica Alba's costume. That's modern comics for you. You never saw that in the sixties, but it had already taken over by the seventies and today it is a part of ALL female comic characters. Besides you know Jessica Alba was chosen to sell tickets. FWIW, after seeing the movie, I still like Jessica Alba as Susan Storm. I'd like to see them expand her role in the next film, there is so much you can do with the character.

Stan Lee as Willie Lumpkin - Just a cameo, but it was great to see Stan The Man with the team that started it all. I wish there was a good wide shot with Stan and the entire Fantastic Four.

And now The Bad:

Doom's Voice - Julian McMahon really does a good job as Doom, especially in the portion of the movie leading up to the transformation. But after the transformation, and once he dons the mask, the voice is just ... wrong. Similar to the change in Ben's voice when he becomes The Thing, Dooms voice needs to become deeper - more menacing.

Reed ignoring the change in Doom - Okay this bothered me more than anything. Doom comes to the Baxter building and Reed explains he is keeping Sue, Johnny and Ben for testing because of their exposure to cosmic radiation. He mentions nothing about Doom being exposed to the same radiation and lets him walk right out of the building. No way would Reed Richards have missed this.

Yancy Street - Something that had to have been a victim of time constraints. I would have loved to see The Yancy Street gang. I suspect this would mean little to the general public and is probably why it didn't make the cut. Ben does go to the bar, where he meets Alicia, but it's not the same thing.

The Music - The music was just one step short of awful. Not memorable at all. This film deserves a much better score. Once it comes out on DVD I'll give the score another shot, but at the moment I think it's just bad.

What needs to be in the sequel:

The Fantasticar - You gotta have Reed's flying "car". Not the flying bathtub, but the second version where each member got their own cockpit.

Latveria and the Doombots - Even if Doom isn't the main villain, he needs to appear and it needs to be in Latveria. And what would Latveria be without Doom's army of robots? The good thing about Doombots is they give the opportunity for lots of superhero type destruction. What better to clobber than a couple of dozen robots? The X Men could seriously use some sentinels (or something) to beat up. As much as I enjoyed the X movies, at times I found myself wondering, do these guys even have super powers? Go ahead and bash something.

The Silver Surfer - The surfer is rumored for Fantastic Four 2 and aside from Galactus, there is no better choice. Plus the Surfer ties in well with a Doom storyline.

Wish List (aka as things that will never happen)

The Negative Zone - A long shot. Probably too confusing for the casual fan and way too confusing for the average moviegoer. The other negative is Annihilus would probably end up looking like that awful Power Ranger version of Green Goblin.

Cameos - One of the great things about the Marvel Universe is it is just that--one big Universe. In New York alone you might run into Spidey, The Avengers or any of a number of super heroes. Matt Murdock (Daredevil) is the Fantastic Four's lawyer. So it would be nice if this was acknowledged in the films. I doubt it will happen, but wouldn't it be cool to see Spidey swing by?

Galactus - I just can't see how this would work. Galactus is great in the comics, but on the big screen a bunch of gnat sized heroes attacking a big purple guy would just look ridiculous.

The Inhumans - Another group probably too hard to explain. Their origin would take too much time.

Tom's Fantastic Four Grade

I give it an A-

This movie does exactly what it is supposed to do. It portrays the first super hero family from the Silver Age of comics and it portrays them as they appear in print. It's a comic book on the big screen and it doesn't try to be anything else. I hate to offend anyone, but for the most part I have found the Batman movies a big bore. It seems the batflicks try to be everything but a comic book. Thwack, Bam, Boff, Pow. That's what it's about.

So in summary there is nothing deep about this film, it's just plain fun. Grab the popcorn and enjoy the ride.

'til Agatha Harkness meets The Scarlet Witch

Keep the Adventure Alive,

Tom Calhoun

Comments

[Johnny Ferguson]

The Movie was great
to me the only draw back in the whole movie was Reed Richards I mean how stupid can a smart guy like him be>
Now Ben Grimm was perfect even down to the last pebble, Johnny Storm just plain goofball corny humor and everything that was expected. and Sue Storm (Droooool factor) what can I say she has more brains than Doom or Richards.

now on to Doom overall I think he was done pretty good he's not in the take over the world mode yet and is slowly getting into his domination kill Richards roll so maybe by the secound movie I do have my fingers crossed

[V. Briggs]

Flame on! This is one of the most creative and fun adventure movies I've seen in a long while. The comic series of the Fantastic Four was not something I had read, but the exciting trailers immediately snagged my interest. Having a stretchy rubber-band man in the story was loads of fun as that was my favorite as a kid, though from another comic series.

Our full-house audience was totally entertained by the exciting storyline and terrific character development, making this a bold exception to most action-hero movies. A sequel looks to be in the works so we can look forward to seeing the F-Four tangle with more challenges and bad guys.

The 12" action figures produced for this movie were pretty good, well articulated, and imaginative. Having an invisible Sue Storm is a real perk. I hope they'll do the Thing and Doom figures in a size and function compatible with Sue, The Torch, and Richards 12" figures.

Looking forward to F-Four Part 2. This is a movie the WHOLE family can enjoy together and play with forever. Flame off!

[Mark Lieske]

I've been reading FF since I was 5 or 6 years old. I loved the old Hanna-Barbera FF show, hated the H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot series, and was suprised at how well Roger Corman did with no budget and no release. I had high hopes for a decent Fantastic Four film. I was not disappointed.

I went into the theater accepting that there would be quite a few compromises in the overall story for the sake of story speed and continuity. I didn't know how I'd react to it, but I accepted it. I quickly realized the story/script was exceptionally well done. It retained enough of the true essence of the Fantastic Four for me and was nicely plotted and paced for the unfamiliar in the audience. I was particularly impressed with how well the Doom origin tie-in worked. A separate Doom origin story would have eaten plenty of screen time which was better used on Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben.

I won't bother recapping the entire storyline but I'd like to throw out my observations. When I saw the first FF film trailer I was almost sick about how bad the Thing looked. Must have been an early cut in the trailer because the Thing looked terrific in the movie. The studio made the right choice by going with makeup instead of CGI for Ben Grimm. I was unfamiliar with the actors who portrayed Reed and Johnny, but they were both stellar in their roles. In many ways, Johnny ran away with the show. I love Jessica Alba as much as any other guy, but I was not sure she could pull off Sue Storm in a movie. I'm delighted to say I was 100 percent wrong!! Everyone really threw themselves into their prospective roles. I felt they captured the essence of each individual character perfectly. The icing on this cake was that all four also managed to portray the team relationship unique to the Fantastic Four.

And then there's Doom... I went in not knowing what to expect and in some ways may have even figured I would hate the film characterization. Again I was awed by the performance. I enjoyed every minute of Doom's slow downward spiral into...uhhm.. Doomness. My only criticism would be that I feel Doom should have had some sort of accent. Just to make him seem more "Latverian" I guess. Nitpicking, but a very small nit in the grand scope of things.

The overall story was incredibly well paced. My 8 year old told me afterwards that he was glad it wasn't a bunch of "jibber-jabbering, like the Hulk movie". I couldn't agree with him more. What's more, I'm still astonished at how nicely humor, team interaction, and personal conflicts were all seamlessly woven into a film packed with so much action. I never felt at any point that the film was dragging or flying too fast. The only thing I felt when the credits started rolling was that I wanted the sequel to start rolling after a 15 minute intermission.

Fantastic Four did a great job of satisfying the 40 year old FF fan in me, the vaguely familar fans (my kids), and the completely uninitiated fan (my wife). Everyone loved the story, the pace, and especially the action. How could you NOT like watching that semi fold up after running into the Thing?? Kudos to everyone involved for their acute attention to even the smallest of details.

How geeky is Reed Richards? Did anyone notice the signed picture of DEVO on Reed's dresser in the Baxter Building?? Until next time (and every other time after), make mine Marvel!!

[Andrew Smith]

I absolutely LOVED this movie! My 7 year old nephew and I saw it recently, and IMHO it struck a perfect balance between fanboy nods and retelling the story in a modern setting. When the casting was first announced I was dubious to say the least: An English Mr. Fantastic? That guy from The Shield as the Thing? But I WAS WRONG! For me the interaction between Thing and the Torch was cool to see, and Doom was awesome! For him the special effects and eye candy ruled! But the best thing of all?

It got a 7 year old into a 50 year old comic. And that's. . .Fantastic!

[Jeff Jordan]

Great site!

[Brent Fox]

Best thing about the movie is the lovely Jessica Alba. Really cool opening, showing the origin of the Fantastic Four. Good, fun movie.

[Duster1226]

My family and I really enjoyed the latest Marvel movie "The Fantastic Four". While I am the only comic book reader in our house, my wife and kids thought that this movie was truely Fantastic. As a comic geek I really appreciated the relationship between Johnny and Ben and Ben and Reed. I really liked the look of "the Thing", the softer, rounder and redish orange costume reminded me of Kirby's early rendition of the Thing's looks.
Having a bootleg of the original Fantastic Four movie from a few years ago I have to give a big thumbs up to the Human Torch's effects. Long gone are the cartoon looking flames and instead is a CGI fire that really looks like you could hold a marshmallow up to the movie screen and make some smores. The actor playing Johnny, Chris Evans, was outstanding and really shows Johnny's enthusiasm of his new found powers.
The things I didn't like about this movie was the strained relationship between Sue and Reed, and Reed and Doom. I guess I just couldn't see why they had to have Sue and Reed apart at the beginning. I also didn't like the changes between Doom and Reed. Doom is too much of a business man and not a scientist. Victor just wanted to make money off of Reed's discoveries and not to show who was smarter or more powerful.
Altogether I give it 3-1/2 out of 4 stars.

[Ken Lex]

As the summer movie season began, the movie I was most anxious for wasn't War of the Worlds,(classic Spielberg) or Batman Begins,(erasing the horrible Schumacher debacle) or even Revenge of the Sith (the long-awaited origin of Vader). The one I had my eye on was Fantastic Four. Why? Because I am an unapologetic comic book fanboy. I wear my nerd pride on my sleeve of my Captain America T-shirt. I root for all the comic book movies to do well - Constantine, Daredevil (which was underrated, I thought), Elektra, Hulk, you name it. Lately, I think the public may be giving a little more credit to comics than they have in the past. I tell people comics are the best movies you haven't seen yet. I think Fantastic Four will help cement that opinion.

There's always a risk in trying to take the comic book to the screen. Especially with a title like FF and it's over 40 years of continuity. In short, the crew did a great job. I always thought the Fantastic Four was more about the people than the powers. This is a trend I see popping up in the more recent comic movies - I credit Spider-man's box office success with this. Writers are putting a more human face on the super hero characters, making them someone the audience can relate to. Taking a page from Spider-man, the producers for Fantastic Four did some remarkable casting. Obviously, Michael Chiklis as the Thing is a perfect match. The costume is a Kirby's art realized in 3-D. Chris Evans plays the Human Torch as the cocky, reckless daredevil he is in the comics. I thought the extreme sports interest was a good way of showing his personality. Ioan Gruffudd made an excellent Reed Richard, a socially clumsy scientic genius. My only concern was the casting of Jessica Alba as Sue Storm. After seeing the movie, I'd say Alba was fine, but I've always seen Sue Storm as being more . . .plain, maybe? I can't say who I'd have cast . . .maybe Reese Witherspoon?

There has been some complaints about Julian McMahon as Dr. Doom. He plays sneeringly sinister very well. The voice sounds too polished coming out of that metal mask. It's not how I read it in my head when I read the comics. I expected a metallic, robotic droning. But I think it works. It reminds me of Anthony Hopkins' gentle voice in contrast to the evil Hannibal Lecter. As with Jessica Alba/Sue Storm, just not what I expected, but still good.

As a true test of a good movie, I took along two of the harshest critics I could find - my son Ben and his buddy Nick, both age 9. They sat patiently through the introduction of characters,(enough to establish characters, but not to lose interest - it's what killed Hulk) and they wondered why Sue was being mean to Reed. They loved Johnny Storm's enthusiasm for his powers, and laughed at the Thing/Torch rivalry. (Chiklis and Evans are clearly enjoying themselves) The action sequences were "awesome", but the murder of Von Doom's business associate "freaked me out a little" - yeah, OK, Nick. A guy with a gaping hole blown through his chest. I could see being a little freaked out. I had to do very little explaining throughout the movie - Ben and Nick are new to the FF - which tells me the writers did a good job bringing new fans into the fold. The end-of-the-movie, still-in-your-seat review: "Loved it. Let's stay for the next show!" We didn't, but I could tell they liked it - Two Cherry Icees, and not one bathroom run.

Overall, it seems the summer movie audience is voting by going to see FF. That's good news, because the filmmakers left everything wide open for a sequel. As with X-Men 2 and Spider-man 2, I expect FF2 to bring more of what's good (action sequences, character development), and less of what's not-so-good (introductions of characters).

If I could make a suggestion? On the car ride home, me,Ben and Nick wrote the next great Marvel movie: The Hulk is rampaging through New York City,(no doubt under the influence of Doctors Doom and Octopus and probably the Kingpin) and only the combined forces of Spider-man, Daredevil, the Punisher and the Fantastic Four can stop him. We'll leave all the legal stuff to the Marvel lawyers, but that's what we're hoping for in summers to come. You listening, Stan?

[john Weaver]

I agree dooms voice was "wimpy not menicing enough. Thing was the strength of the film.
alway loved the relationship between thing and torch, glad that was in there.

[Lance]

Well I enjoyed the film and so did my wife. IMO Reed was a bit too young and naive, but the actor did well. I also didn't like how not a single one of them failed to even ask Victor how he felt due to his exposure. Johnny was handled perfectly. Ben was pefect except for his voice when he changed. It needed to be deeper. I also didn't like how quickly his wife left and he hooked up with Alicia. Kind of left one thinking his long marriage with his wife meant nothing at all. Sue was well done but seemed to not care much about Reed at the beginning and then fall deeply in love (again) with him for no reason except maybe his expandable body. Overall the film was good but seemed to be lacking time references. Ben's wife leaving and him meeting Alicia and falling for her seemed to happen in like 2 days. I feel there's a lot on the cutting room floor. But at least this time it was a good movie and enjoyable (unlike Daredevil, Hulk). Great effects, good version of the costumes, wonderful scene on the bridge.

Other than the climatic fight that seemed rather short and unclimatic, a worthwhile project and movie.

[justin O'Hogan]

I went tot this movie with my daughter.I asked before going what movie she wanted to see and it was this one .
She said that after seeing my comic books of them and rewading them she wanted to see more .I love the whole thing from Reed/Mr Fantastic to DR Doom .
I agree with you on the par of the Doom voice not being menacing enough but other then this I only had one other problem with the movie was that doom was turning into metal .
I like who they picked for Sue Storm----Jessica Alba and I like the Thing charactor I think they caught this down to a T on how much he did not want to be the Thing ,I like how they added the part of a girlfriend be fore Alica Masters but I did not like the part of miss out on the Yank street gang ,then again they would of had to spend more time explainin g that apart too . I did not have to take to much time telling my Daughter who everry on was and how there powers worked she caught on fast except on the DR Doom charactor this could have been a little diffrent
I cant real think of any other people that could have played any part better then who they chose for this movie like I do at som other marvel movie I have gone to .
Yes a camieo of one or two other Marvel people would have been great ,but I have thought of this since Blade.

All in al I think this was a great movie and no other villian / foe would really have worked better not even the Mole Man

[JA via JK]

Anyway, I went to the cinema again this weekend and I watched "The Fantastic Four", the recent cinematic adaptation of a Marvel comic book. This movie had gotten quite the panning from the critics who have been harsh but with ultimately superior comic-book adaptions like the X-Men movies, Spiderman and Batman you can't blame them. The movie is entertaining but it gets some aspects of the story and characters totally wrong. Dr Doom, for instance, isn't the most complex super-villain in the Marvel repetoir but he's easily the best defined. The original Dr Doom was the leader of his own country who takes revenge on Reed Richards for his face being destroyed in an act which was his own fault. He is both a scientist and a magician and the only chink in his armor is his massive ego. In the movie he's just evil for the sake of the action scene at the end and he's a Donald Trump wannabe to boot - in fact his motivations for wanting to kill Reed Richards are never well defined in any way. In fact his transition to evil is ultimately just a duplicate of Norman Osborne's road to the Green Goblin in the first Spiderman movie, almost scene for scene. At least you knew why the Green Goblin wanted to kill Spiderman in that movie. The guy who plays Doom does good in his role up until he dons the famous robe and mask - from there his portrayal is down-hill all the way. In the end they also beat him too easily using just their powers and not working on his weakness of being, well, totally consumed with himself. Jessica Alba was wrong also to play Susan Storm. Other than that I have no quibbles with the cast.

Another problem with the movie is the outrageous leaps in logic it can take either to get a joke or to bring the movie to a happy ending which is both mechanical and quite frankly a disgrace to the characters. It tries to do that slightly dysfunctional family routine that worked so well in the comic books but here it comes off just as plain nasty bickering. For a more in-depth discussion on why the movie sucks you'd have to see it as well. Its not as bad as the critics made it out to be, (the action scenes are quite good) but its not the Fantastic Four of the comic-books in this movie. I don't know what made 20th Century Fox give a multi-million dollar movie to director Tim Story who has made no real distinction as a director ("Taxi", anyone?). Bryan Singer, who directed the first two X-Men movies, made "The Usual Suspects" (unseen by me) which was considered one of the best movies of the 1990s (although Roger Ebert would disagree with that though). Sam Raimi, who directed the two Spidermans, had done some great movies (A Simple Plan) and some bad movies and some average movies while Christopher Nolan took the cake with "Batman Begins". Even Ang Lee, who made "The Hulk", a movie that was almost excellent, has a pretty impressive resumé. But no, they give it to the director of "Taxi" which was neither a critical or a box-office success. Once again the Hollywood system astounds us in its infinite wisdom.

[David Vosefski]

Everyone's a critic. I loved it. I left wanting more. With all the other long anticipated blockbuster movies this summer, I was worried that it might not do well. I guess there are plenty of FF fans out there to prove the critics wrong. I agree with what has been said about Doom. His voice could have been done better. Just a dab more menacing, but still his. I thought all the other characters were right on.
The thing was awesome. I have always been a thing fan. When Ben's gal dumped him, you could almost feel his big stone heart break. It really cemented the man/monster aspect of the character.
I would like to see Thing v. The Hulk. It was one of my favorite issues as a kid. Lots of good characters, too. Let's have an actor as Hulk. I was a bit let down by the CGI Hulk. Glad they didn't CGI the Thing.
Can't wait 'til the sequel.

Thanks for keeping the adventure alive, Tom.

[Craig]

Well Fantastic Four the Movie wasn't up to the standards of the first two Spiderman movies but it wasn't as bad a the critics had said. To be fair though I never expect much from the first of any superhero movie. The fact is there is a lot of setup that has to be done. You have to establish the characters, their powers, their relationships, the villain his origin etc. That's a lot for one movie. Spiderman had it relatively easy in this department. One hero, one villain and just a few more traditional relationships. The FF has a lot going on all fronts from the get go. Considering the size of the task I think they did an adequate job setting things up.

There were a number of things that could have made this better. There wasn't allot of chemistry between Sue and Reed. Maybe that's due to Reed being more of a physicist (not a chemist) but really it was due mostly to the inadequacies of Alba's acting. Yes Doom needed to be more imposing in the second half especially since he was wearing the mask. He was the original Vader and they needed a Vader sized voice.

The best parts were the action and Ben and Johnny. This will only get better in the second movie as we move beyond the tragedy of Ben's transformation.

All in all a good set up to what will hopefully be a very entertaining series.

Craig S.
AstroJoe62