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.
