Review 111: Fantastic Four
Based on the Marvel comic superhero team Fantastic Four by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.
Five people, Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), her brother Johnny (Chris Evans) Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) and Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), get superpowers, then they have superpowers - and they deal with having superpowers.
Now I know what your probably thinking-your thinking "Come on, were's the real plot synopsis"
Look this really is the actually plot of this film - which is to say there really isn't one. I might sound facitious but that's really all there is to the plot of this film.
In short Fantastic Four has got to be the stupidest superhero movie ever made.
It's a film where nothing happens. It's just a string of stupid, annoying, repetitive sitcom-esque gags that don't amount to anything when you think about the film in retrospect.
Yes, Reed does study their powers and tries to cure them but... well... again that amounts to absolutely nothing.
In fact the entire crux on this movie rests on the Fantastic Four lounging in an apartment and bickering and doing nothing like a bunch of doffises.
Look I know the Fantastic Four are supposed to be a family and occasionally they will have they're occasional disagreements and the family dynamic is the meat of the comics but this gets dragged out throughout the entirety of the film and gets old real fast and tiresome to watch. You know that famous quote from Edmund Burke: "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing"? This film really takes that to heart.
They show no actual interest in being superheroes, even when the media dubs them so and spend most of the film trying to get rid of their powers instead of using them to help people, expect for Johnny who instead uses his powers for selfish and irresponsible purposes.
The majority of the film is as follows: Ben mopes around about being a rock monster, Johnny relishes in his powers and acts like a jackass and Reed & Sue squabble like a boyfriend & girlfriend having a relationship crisis.
In Robert McKee's book: Story, he writes: "True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revalation, the truer the choice to a character's essential nature". Fantastic Four never gives its titular heroes a moment that defines who they are as people.
Tonally, Fantastic Four seems very inspired by Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films, a joyfull adaptation of a beloved Marvel Comics character infused with a light feel, but it comes off as a cheap knock-off of those films rather than feeling inspired by them.
Director Tim Story's directing is flimsy, the production design is low rent, the costumes are cheap (at one point Ben says that they "look like an 80's rock band" which they do sans the flair).
The pace drags and never picks up steam and gets moving - stuff just happens with no sense of flow or pacing and one scene dosen't necessarily flow into the next.
The cinematography is cheesy, the score by John Ottman ranges from generic to ok and is not up to composer Ottman's usual standards, the action scenes - or lack thereof - are uninspired and dull, the jokes miss more than they hit, the special effects are crummy, the make up is hideous, The Thing, for instance looks distractingly like a rubber suit and it mostly feals padded out.
Overall I found Most of the comedy and gags in this film, to be mindlessly fun at best and annoyingly, immaturely, juvenile at worst.
The acting is not Fantastic, Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans are wretched in their roles as the titular Four. None of The Fantastic Four are likeable, they're eaither stupid or have serious social issues. This is the biggest group of sad, annoying, unsympathetic dooshbags, ever to have graced the silver screen. I wouldn't want to spend 40 minutes in an apartment with them let alone an 1h & 40 minutes. These four heroes are given powers and they take NO pleasure in having them or give two sh*ts about them. The so-called Four don't do anything that benefits anyone but themselves.
The acting and casting in this film is just a smorgasbord of failure. I mean almost every single actor in this film looks like they were just plucked out of acting 101.
To start with, Chris Evans' Johnny Storm/Human Tourch is an annoying, irresponsible dooshbag (which is what he is in the comics), yet he's the only member of the four who actually seems to appreciate or enjoy the powers or take any joy in using them.
Evan's is very smug in the role. Johnny spends the entire movie breaking rules, being a hothead and using his newfound powers to make himself a profit. He's brash, arrogant, cocky, impulsive, confident and immature and he likes it that way.
He has no sense of responsibility and never thinks about the consequences of his actions.
Throughot the film we get scene after scene of him of him making reckless and immature decisions and at times they're actually quite fun and clever but by the time an opportunity presents itself where he's forced to take a good long look at his actions, it feels it could have come much earlier in the film.
He's continuously throwing caution to the wind over and over again with no real consequences or repercussions and yet he's still somehow the hero at the end. I never got the sense that he's learned anything and it makes him look like a complete dumbass.
His character is presented with a way to change his throw-caution-to-the-wind lifestyle he's living and be more responsible but naah the fans wouldn't like that. He'd better stick to being brash and irresponsible.
In addition to that, his arguments with Reed and Sue where they reprimend him for being reckless and irisponsible are annoying, tiresome, repetitive and border on hypocrisy. But to be honest I don't see why they bother to reprimand him at all as he never does anything that directly harms and mostly does things for his own gain while they try to find a cure for their powers.
Though admittedly Evan's does look like he's having fun with the role and he's actually quite entertaining when he's on fire. When the gags involving him work they did get a few genuine chuckles out of me.
He's also the only member of the team who actually have something of a personality and compared to the other three (Captan Whimpy, Blondie and Rocky) he comes off as looking like Kirk Douglas by comparison. He winds being the best actor in this film though really that's not really saying much.
If we think about it too much, all we take away is that Johnny was just fine the way he was.
As Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Ioan Gruffudd is really quite hopeless, he just doesn't come across as (both in character, performance and actor) as the sort of guy who commands that type of authority to lead a Superhero team. He always thinks and he never acts, there's not sense of productiveness in his character. The character and performance just comes across as shy, timid and pedantic as opposed to the highly intelligent, kind and noble hero fans will know from the comics.
Much like Johnny, his character's presented with an opportunity to change and become a less timid and better person and be a leader but naah the fans wouldn't like that. He better rigidly remain coucious and reactive to things.
The best thing I can say about his performance is that his American accent is at least convincing - for a Welshman.
Michael Chiklis is at best ok as Ben Grimm/The Thing and at worst, a joyless bore, even though his change into a giant rock monster is meant to be tragic, it's mostly played for laughs and we never get a proper, genuine sense of his inner turmoil about being rejected and sadly he comes off as a joke and not a funny one at that. Much like Johnny's storyline, we scene after scene of him being unhappy with his new condition and how it makes him an outcast yet we never get the sense of him growing/adjusting to his new way of life or a sense of him realising his powers can be used to help people. His backstory is oversimplified, he seems to have the perfect life and now he suddenly has it taken away from him, that just seems to straightforward and simplistic to me. It require more meat.
He's used for either one of two things: Muscle & Jokes. He bursts through walls and punches things. He gets angry at Johnny for playing pranks on him like a scene where Johnny tricks him into covering his face with cream.
Possibly the worst offender of the titular four (and I apologies for a lack of originality) is Jessica Alba as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman. Firstly, I do not buy her as a brilliant scientist and as the first lady of comics she's appalling. Never in the film do we see her evolve into the authoritative, brainy character who can keep the boys in line as we know from the comics. I think her character comes off as too uptight and shill and doesn't comes across as motherly enough to be honoured the title of the First Lady of Comics.
A "running gag" throughout the film is that Sue almost always ends up in the nude. I wonder if that was a showcase of her "talents" rather than her actual talents.
Her chemistry with Ioan Gruffudd is also pretty non-existent.
And as for Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom... Not a single thing about him is subtle... His very first scene is him hidden in darkness as if to spell out he's the villain, just in case, we as an audience are too stupid to figure out on our own that he's the antagonist. Overall, he's nothing more than just a one-dimensional cardboard businessmen and ultimately his character comes off as a rip-off of the Green Goblin from Spider-Man (a filthy rich businessman who funds an expensive government experiment that goes tits up which causes his board of directors vote him out of his own company as a result and he takes revenge all the while his humanity and sanity it deteriorating). It shows a complete lack of creativity and imagination. And is a radical departure from his comic book counterpart in which he is the Dictator of the fictional country of Latveria. There is literally nothing to this guy. And just to add insult to injury, his motivations and end games are mostly non existant. I honestly have no idea what his evil plans were. He mentions something briefly about the Fantastic Four being the only things between him and godhood but I honestly wouldn't expect that one line to lead to a killing spree. That's not a motivation, that's an afterthought.
Fantastic more like Craptastic, right? 1/5.
The Anonymous Critic.
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