Ossuary's Netflix: The Fantastic Four

This past Christmas my sister-in-law got me a 2 month pass for Netflix. I decided to hold off activating it until July since my fiance would be gone the entire month and I needed to keep busy.

Upon accessing my account, I began wondering what movies I should watch when I realized I could use this as an opportunity to catch up on all those superhero movies I missed either because I had no time, or I just wasn't interested in them. The first one I picked was "The Fantastic Four". I just watched it, and here is my way-too-late review. There will probably be spoilers. Also, full disclosure: I have never read a "Fantastic Four" comic, and really don't know much beyond the very basics of the team.


The Quick Overview:

This movie was poorly made and lacked any drama, despite it's valiant attempts. The pacing was way too quick (I'll explain), and the characters were all one note. The most frustrating thing (pun!) is that there were some good ideas and moments, they were just destroyed by the editing, pacing and lack of coherent scene jumping.


The Details:

There is so much I could say, and brevity is not my strong suit in writing, so bear with me.

Right from the get-go I could tell the movie was going to be poorly paced. Remember the first Tim Burton "Batman" movie? Remember how the opening involved a POV view of what looked like cave walls. The camera would slowly float around these walls while Danny Elfman's awesome score got me all hyped up. This opening went on for at least a minute, until the camera pulls back and you realize that you were flying through the Bat Symbol. Cool! Well, FF uses this technique, except that it lasts all of 5 seconds. No build up, no lingering, just straight to the action, and that about sums up the whole movie.

This film hearkens back to the time when Hollywood just didn't take superheroes seriously. They were just real life cartoons that go "Bang!", "Pow!", "Oompf!" and such. All writers thought to do was get some actors, throw bright colors at them, then have them toss CG at the villain. Profit! Granted, I'm watching this movie post "The Dark Knight", "Thor" and "Iron Man", so I can't really be too harsh about that, as that's just the way it was at the time. It came out in 2005. So did Batman Begins. I'm glad audiences roared approval of the latter and not the former.

I'm now going to stop comparing to all other movies save one, "The Green Lantern". The reason being it seems like "The Green Lantern" was made with the same mindset as FF. A big whammy-bammy picture with colorful heroes and not much else. Now, I enjoyed "The Green Lantern", but I'm fully aware that it could have been made better. I have also read the whole thread about it on this very forum, which is why I want to compare and contrast the two.

There were complaints about some of the editing in GL. Particularly things such as GL and Hammond fighting in a lab, then showing them in their separate apartments in the next scene. How did they get there? Why do they go on as if nothing happened? Well, "The Fantastic Four" has that problem throughout the whole movie. Characters are constantly in one spot, then decide to go somewhere else, and BAM!, they're there. It's like New York is exactly one block in size. For example, towards the end of the film Mister Fantastic is tied to a chair and frozen while Doctor Doom fights Sue. He looks over at the Baxtor Building and sees the lights going haywire. We know that means Ben has stepped back into the machine to become The Thing again. Doctor Doom fights Sue a little bit more when The Thing Kool-Aids straight through the wall. How did he get from the top floor of the Baxter building, across downtown New York, then to the top floor of Doom's building? All in about a minute, maybe 2? That's just an example, but this movie is really full of people jumping all over the place in no time flat. They must all have developed the ability to teleport.

Then there are other problems, such as at the bridge scene. Reed, Johnny and Sue want to get past the people to see what's going on up ahead. Reed tells Sue she can get past the barrier of cops because she can turn invisible. So we get the fun little scene of Jessica Alb...Sue Storm disrobing so she can be invisible and sneak past. So, she can get past the cops because they can't see her. And...how does that help Johnny and Reed, who follow right behind her? Seriously, they all just apparently walked straight past any barricades, even though only one of them was invisible. I...don't get it. Why did she need to turn invisible if they could have all just walked in with no problems.

Oh, and The Things' wife/girlfriend/I-never-really-knew just so happens to be at the bridge too? Once again, New York is one city block in size.

And why does anything any of the characters do get instantly broadcast on live TV. And why are all the other characters in the movie always watching the right channel at the right time. The only time any character has a TV on is when the plot needs them to know something. In other movies, they usually have the TV on in the background or something, but here, televisions just appear in places they weren't before. Reed Richards, who wouldn't even leave his desk until he figured out how to reverse Ben Grimm's affects apparently still had time to watch the boob tube. Maybe he just couldn't miss his stories.

I realize it might sound like I'm starting to nitpick. But to be honest, I usually overlook a lot of little things like everything getting broadcast live in movies. It's just that in this one, it's so blatant and in your face. Reed's lab never had a television, until the writers needed him to know what was going on somewhere else. Then suddenly, BAM! Huge flat screen in Reed's lab. It isn't there anymore after that.


The Action:

There wasn't any. Really, for a fast paced, we-don't-care-about-character-development story, I generally expect for the movie to be full of action. The FF fight Doom at the very end, and even that's kind of brief. Other than that, there's the whole scene on the bridge. Otherwise, it's a lot of characters talking and not doing much. This is not a problem if that's the kind of movie the creators were going for, but this just doesn't seem to be the case. All the elements of a mindless action flick were put in place, and then there really wasn't any action put in.


Characters:

Mr. Fantastic: I remember people having a problem with everyones age, particularly Mr. Fantastic, who I guess is sort of the fatherly figure. However, I really didn't have a problem with a younger Reed Richards. Of course, I never read the Fantastic Four, so there could be any number of changes that wouldn't bother me. I thought the actor did fine with what he had. Otherwise, any fault I have for the character belongs squarely on the writers.

Sue Storm: She is there to cause a love triangle. A very pointless, unexplored and meaningless love triangle. That's about it. She has no personality of her own other than being the mature older sister to the younger brother.

Johnny Storm: Way too much. I know what they were trying to do with the character, but he was so over the top as to be unbelievable. Bringing up "The Green Lantern" again, people have said that Ryan Reynolds was too child like or goofy as Hal Jordan. I think that exact character would have been great as The Human Torch. Ryan Reynolds was immature, cocky, playful but at all times believable. The Johnny Storm that I just watched was a child's idea of what being in a rock band must be like.

Ben Grimm: This is the one that kills me. I absolutely liked Ben the most. Unsurprisingly, he was the most developed, so there you go. What gets me is how they treat him. For instance, when he is in the lab towards the beginning and he starts changing. He's tossing and turning in bed, screaming in pain. And what is the music doing? Playing as if it were a comedic moment. The musical cues in this movie...suck. I'm not going to bother coming up with a better word. They just suck. Anyway, what should be a horrifying moment, especially with the way the rest of the movie is going to play it out, turns into a big "Ha ha! Look! Reed can stretch his hand under the door. Slowly. Then he can admire his hand through the window! Now he can unlock the door because...wait, why again. Oh, yeah! Ben! Yes, they need to get in because Ben something something!"

Ben's wife/girlfriend/seriously-just-have-someone-in-the-movie-say-so-I-know was the most unbelievable character of all. Did she really just waltz outside, at night, in New York, in her slinky lingerie? No robe? Ignoring how she managed to magically appear at the bridge, the whole shaking of the head and placing the wedding/engagement/carnival-prize ring on the ground was just so ridiculous.

All that aside, I like Michael Chiklis, and thought he was a great choice to play The Thing. I even thought his make-up was good. I just wished he was in a better movie. It sometimes seems like he was, and some editor cut him out and pasted him in this one, then added terrible musical cues to tone down the drama from the original, better film.

Doctor Doom: ...what?


Final Thoughts:

Yes, I'm actually getting to the end. Sorry about how long this must be getting at this point.

Overall, the movie wasn't terribly bad, it just wasn't terribly good. I can see fans of the Fantastic Four enjoying it for what it is but still wishing it was better, which is how I felt with "The Green Lantern", though I think GL got closer to the mark than FF. Maybe a lot closer.

When signing up for Netflix, I was told to put 6 movies in my queue, which I did. Next on my list is the sequel. Is the sequel better? Wait, don't spoil it!

Astonishing X-Men is on instant even though it's a motion animated movie. There's a number of DC animated movies as well.

The best thing about the sequel is Doug Jones/Laurence Fishbourne as Silver Surfer. And slightly less Dr. Doom, though that's unfortunately balanced out with more focus on Johnny. Everyone else is more or less the same.

And I wouldn't necessarily say that Sue was there to create a love triangle. She was there purely to be the love interest/eye candy. For some reason they decided to shove Doom in there as well to force a contrived love triangle. In any case, Doom and Sue were both poorly written and miscast, in my opinion. The rest were pretty much okay in their respecitve roles.

I never read the comics, but I liked this movie.