Fantastic Four (2005)

Fantastic 4 (2005)

Release Date: July 8, 2005

The Fantastic Four are the next heroes to make the transition to film (they would have come a decade earlier, but that was film was made only to keep the rights and never intended to be released.) However, the foursome tried to pull a fast one on Trading Standards, as the title is only half accurate. Unfortunately, the second half of the title is the accurate one.

This movie wastes no time in kicking things off as soon as possible. Genius scientist Reed Richards pitches a space expedition to corporate executive Victor Von Doom (with a name like that, you’ll be surprised to hear that he is in fact a pillar of the community, spending his Wednesdays feeding the homeless at the soup kitchen and reading to sick children at the hospital.) The experiment is to study a solar flare in order to see how this could be used to alter DNA for better health and so on. Doom agrees to the proposal and puts together a team consisting of himself, Reed, Reed’s friend Ben Grimm, Doom’s secretary (and Reed’s ex) Susan Storm and her younger brother Johnny. Doom has the hots for Susan himself, and dislikes Reed, so he removes the protective shielding on the space station to show Susan the world, before asking for her hand in marriage. Before he gets the chance to pop the question however, Reed cockblocks Doom to announce that the solar flare arrived ahead of schedule, and that Ben is currently outside the space station. Doom wants to lock Ben out and save everyone else, but he is outvoted and Ben is saved, at the cost of the solar flare hitting everyone without the shield.

Back on Earth, the group find that they have been mutated by the solar flare. Reed can now stretch his body, Susan can turn invisible and Johnny can set himself on fire without injury. Ben has it harder, as he has mutated into a giant rock monster. Unlike the others, he can’t hide his mutation or switch it on and off, and his horrified girlfriend dumps him when she sees what he has become. Ben accidentally causes a catastrophe on a bridge while saving a suicidal man, which results in the other three outing themselves to stop a fire engine from falling off the side of the bridge. The group are hailed as heroes, and Johnny plays to the cameras, being the attention whore he is, coming up with the name of their group, the Fantastic Four, and names for each of the members- the Human Torch for himself, Reed is Mr Fantastic, Susan is the Invisible Girl, and Ben is the Thing. The latter two are not happy with their names.

Doom isn’t too pleased either, as the space disaster has caused his company to go bankrupt, and he blames Reed for coming up with the idea (RICHARDS!!!!). In addition, he seemed to be okay at first, but in the days following the solar flare, he’s starting to get little cuts on his face, and electrics are flickering in his presence… The Fantastic 4 lock themselves away in Reed’s lab, the Baxter Building, as Reed works to invent a machine to undo their transformation, because Ben understandably wants to go back to normal, while Reed and Sue aren’t too thrilled either. However, Johnny wants to keep his powers, and gets agitated being cooped up in the lab all day. He eventually sneaks out to show off at a sporting event, prompting a fight between him and Ben. Sensing Ben’s growing impatience, Reed, who is usually cautious to the point that Susan dumped him over it, tests the machine on himself, but it doesn’t work as there isn’t enough energy powering the machine. Instead, the left half of Reed’s body droops. (This scene is going to be so awkward if Ioan Gruffudd ever suffers a stroke.)

By now, Doom has mutated to the point that his body has turned into metal, and his face has been covered in scars, so he puts on the iconic metal mask. He is also able to absorb electricity and fire Sith Lightning from his hands. Doom starts to put his revenge plan in motion. Phase one is to turn Ben against Reed by telling him that Reed is getting back together with Susan when he should be working. Phase two is for Doom to power the machine himself, which successfully turns Ben back to normal, and then beat Ben up.

 

With Ben out of the way, Doom is able to incapacitate the rest of the Fantastic Four. All seems lost when Ben arrives to save the day! Having met and fallen in love with a blind woman prior to Doom messing with his head, Ben had decided to use the machine again to go back to his rock form. The Fantastic Four work together to combine their powers and defeat Doom. The Four come to accept their new abilities, and Reed asks Susan to marry him, which she accepts. Meanwhile, the frozen Doctor Doom is put in a shipping crate and sent back to his home country of Latveria, where he is to be examined by top men.

 

In the group, we have characters on both extremes of likeability. On one side is the Thing, who is easily the best part of the film. As the member whose physical appearance is changed from the experience, Ben’s attempts at coming to terms with what happened form the emotional core of the film. Scenes of him trying to perform mundane everyday tasks like dialling a phone number or drinking serve to remind us of the struggle he faces. A big part of the emotion comes from the character being a costume instead of CGI, as was originally planned. Michael Chiklis was a big fan of the Thing and insisted on a costume and make-up instead of voicing a CG character. This decision makes a world of difference. It also helps that the costume looks pretty good. For this, Michael Chiklis gets a gold star.

On the other hand is Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. He is young and reckless, which gets him into trouble a few times. He doesn’t think before he acts and his insensitive, shallow behaviour makes him come off as unlikeable at times. This is particularly problematic in his interactions with the Thing, which is presumably intended as playful teasing but usually comes off as being mean-spirited. There are times when the teasing is pretty funny though, so it’s hard to stay mad at him for long.

Less successful is the villain. Doctor Doom is pretty lame here. In the film, he becomes a weaker version of Norman Osborn, instead of being a character in his own right. This is disappointing, as Doom is one of the great comic villains. A genius scientist and wizard, who is the dictator of his own country with an army of robots, Doom is extremely arrogant to the point that he speaks in the third person, yet manages to come off as classy and intimidating instead of stupid like most characters who refer to themselves in the third person. The film unfortunately fails to convey his grandiose nature, which makes him such a joy elsewhere. This was probably done intentionally, in order to ground the villain in reality a little more, but I think that with the relatively light tone of the film, they could have gotten away with making Doom a bit hammier. I imagine if Doom were to watch this film, he would be most displeased at his portrayal.

One of the main criticisms against the film when it was released was that the Fantastic Four don’t do a whole lot of superhero things. The only major instances are the bridge rescue (an incident that the Fantastic Four accidentally caused,) and the battle against Doctor Doom at the end. The rest of the film is dedicated to the four coming to terms with how they’ve changed. I actually didn’t mind this, as it made for a nice change. It’s also fairly well done with the Thing, so points for that too. One element that is pushing its luck in terms of characterisation is the scenes where the team members fight each other. While it can plausibly happen in the context of the film given how the characters are portrayed, the Fantastic Four are a family. While they do argue occasionally, they’ve never come to blows over it, and seeing that in a film feels a little bit wrong, like Superman breaking General Zod’s neck.

Yes, I am still mad at you, Man of Steel. I am madder than you could possibly imagine.

The effects are a mixed bag. On some occasions they look quite good, Doctor Doom’s electricity for example. Other effects are not as good, such as Reed’s stretching, which looks rather creepy. Then again, I don’t know how stretching powers could be done in live action without being creepy since it involves contorting the human body into shapes and sizes that are impossible in real life, so I won’t rail on it too much. Maybe I’m just a squeamish softie who needs to get over myself. I sang the praises of the Thing’s costume earlier, and that was the right decision to make. What if they had stuck to the original plan of a CGI Thing, and it ended up looking bad?

Overall, this film is average. It isn’t particularly good but it’s not awful either. The really positive things and the really negative things cancel each other out. This isn’t a film to actively hunt down, but it may be worth a look if it happens to be on television or something.

Next Time: Xpecting a sequel? You would be right to do that.

Stan Lee Spotter: Stan Lee appears as Willie Lumpkin, the Fantastic Four’s mailman. This is the first time he’s played a character from the comics in one of his cameos.