Mark S. Allen .... Ralph
Somewhere in the distant mists of Fantastic Four's development there may have been a good script. Occasionally something good slips in that can’t have been written by the people who wrote the bulk of it. I didn’t mind that they went for a comedy approach. But having Johnny Storm doing dirt bike tricks isn’t comedy, it’s tragedy. However, I wasn’t bored, and at places I was even entertained. The only problem was that the movie was crappy.
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No one was applauding his rendition
of The Lady is a Tramp. |
As movie studios are in franchise building mode at the moment we get the origin of the Fantastic Four and the set up of their main villain, Doctor Doom. And while they do fight a bit, I would have liked to not have to wait until a sequel for something to actually happen. Sure, Ben Grimm can whine about looking like a monster. But let him throw more than a couple of punches somewhere in the two hour running time as well.
Our heroes are sort-of led by nerdy scientist Reed Richards, played by Ioan Gruffudd. Gruffudd isn’t even remotely close to being convincing as a nerdy scientist (just putting a signed photo of Devo on his dresser isn't enough). The guy is also being considered for James Bond, and I don’t think anyone is suited to both (he isn’t suited to either). Reed Richards wants to use rich industrialist, and ex-MIT classmate, Victor Von Doom’s space station to study a cosmic storm for DNA research. Von Doom’s Chief of Genetic Research is Sue Storm, Reed’s ex-girlfriend, and Victor’s current one.
Also going on the mission are Reed’s bodyguard (at least I think that’s what his job is) Ben Grimm, and Sue’s brother, cocky fly boy, and extreme sports bozo, Johnny Flame. Tragedy strikes when the cosmic storm arrives at the space station faster than Reed expected, they don’t have the shields up, and they get hit by it. They return to earth and find they have superpowers.
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The power to bend light can stop
electricity because it's a form of
light, apparently. |
Reed can stretch, Sue can become invisible, Ben is a big monster, and Johnny can catch fire and fly around. Von Doom also gets the power to produce electricity and the not so super-power of going bankrupt. Reed wants to study the Fantastic Four’s DNA, so they all sit around his apartment while he does it. Then some of them get bored and wander off. And Reed and Sue rekindle their romance. And Ben finds that his wife, who we’re lead to believe was a nice woman earlier on, isn’t cool with him being a giant rock.
Johnny goes to an X-Games event and does dirt bike tricks and scores trashy women. Ben mopes. Von doom decides to kill them all, ostensibly because they took everything away from him. People talk, silly things happen, and Jessica Alba’s cleavage gets filmed. All of this takes way too long, the Fantastic Four don’t really fight any crime or do anything major. It’s not boring, luckily, but it’s not good.
This film does have one of the plain dumbest scenes I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. It’s the first time the Fantastic Four use their powers in public. It doesn’t start off well when, while Ben is sitting on a bridge, a pigeon land’s on his shoulder and poos on him. Then a guy comes along to jump off and Ben scares him. They guy falls back into traffic and causes a big pile up.
But somehow, the rest of the Fantastic Four are in a taxi stuck in the traffic jam caused by the pile up. They decide they need to get past the police to see what’s happening, because somehow they know Ben is down there. Of course we have an invisible girl, so she turns invisible and starts taking her clothes off. But, she does this in the middle of a circle of people who are watching her, including police.
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Those just look like early character
designs from Doom. That guy's no
Super Scientist. |
Then to sneak by, she just goes running along smacking people out of the way. Then, when she gets to the front of the pile up, Reed and Johnny are standing beside her anyway. Did she have them inside some sort of invisibility sphere? It’s so unclear I don’t know. What I do know is that it came across as fucking stupid.
Oh, that’s not the end. Then as everyone is celebrating Ben saving a fire truck from plunging off the bridge, his wife comes along. How are all these people conveniently on this bridge? People in the audience started laughing at the film at this point. Then his wife took off her wedding ring and put it on the ground and walked away. People shook their heads in disbelief. Ben Grimm’s wife is a FUCKING BITCH. But like the film, the bitch isn’t boring.
This is a case where a sequel may be better, because something might actually happen in it. I wasn’t bored during this movie, I was more incredulous. I have noted that Michael France’s name now appears on three bad Marvel adaptations, Hulk, The Punisher, and this. Maybe he’s the guy who wrote the good stuff that managed to survive, maybe not. It's not a great strike rate either, but at least this time his name's not attached to a film that's deadiningly dull.
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