Review of "Fantastic Four"

I guess it's really not fair for me to review a film version of Marvel Comics" "Fantastic Four" series. It was one of the first comics I picked up as a VERY young child back in the late sixties, and as such is really a seminal part of my youth and comics experience. I have read it off and on over the past four (groan) decades, too, so obviously I am bringing with my review a fair amount of personal historical baggage and emotional investment. There is almost no way I could be totally pleased with the film, I suppose. But then again the same could have been said for the "SpiderMan" and (to a lesser extent, "X-Men") films and they were so perfectly on target with the spirit and intent of the comics' series that one can always hope for the best. And, as in the case of "Daredevil", prepare for the worst.

Happily, "Fantastic Four" while far from a perfect film, comes closer to the success rate of the former than of the latter.

This "Fantastic Four", unlike the comic, posits a world where Reed Richard and Ben Grimm are nearly broke business partners who both believe in Reed's project to study cosmic rays in order to help cure disease (I wasn't too clear on that concept myself) and must go hat in hand to Victor Von Doom for financial assistance. Here Von Doom is NOT the lord and ruler of foreign Latveria, but a modern day Donald Trump magnate with his filthy rich hands in lots of pies. He employs Susan and Johnny Storm, a brother and sister who work for him despite the fact that Susan has has a romantic past with Richards. Von Doom agrees to finance Reed's project at a substantial benefit to himself of course, they all take off and are exposed (thanks to Doom's greed) to the rays that transform their bodies and give them all extraordinary powers.

Besides the twisting of Doom's origin (and the addition of his powers; in the comic, he has none besides his armor and his knowledge of the occult which was not mentioned here), we all see some deviation in the romantic involvement of Doom and Susan. Though my first reaction was disappointment at the heresy of perverting the pure and treasured memory of my FF's origin, the more I thought about it the more I realized I was being selfish. The filmmakers had to tailor this story in such a fashion so that people unfamiliar with the comic could still enjoy the experience. The cold hard truth is that including all the FF's and Doom's true origins into one movie would have probably taken upwards of four hours of film time, and that is just time that they did not have. Condensing and streamlining the origin stories was really the only way to make the story not only more palatable to new viewers but feasible within a two hour time frame.

Actually, so many things were done right with the movie it seems a shame to dwell on the negative anyway. The tension and bickering that were always such a hallmark of the FF "family" are recaptured wonderfully here; Reed and Sue's conflict over his need to overthink everything (even though here it is done in the context of ex-lovers, not a married couple), Johnny and Ben's constant and humorous warring, Sue's frustration over Johnny's inability to grow up and get serious, Ben's understandable but misplaced anger at Reed for his awful physical state; all are done very well and in perfect keeping with the tone of the comic.

None of this would be possible of course, without a strong effective cast. I'm not familiar with Ioan Gruffold, but he did a great job of capturing Reed's character; deeply intellectual, moral, a bit timid and oblivious to emotional issues. Likewise Chris Evans , who played up Johnny's impetuousness and thrill a minute personality. Actually, the script bordered on making Johnny a bit of a jerk at times, but they always seemed to reign him in just in time before he lost our sympathy. I loved the camaraderie of Reed and Ben, too. The casting of Michael Chiklis was really a masterstroke; it's hard to imagine anyone else playing this difficult role. Ben is by turns loyal, angry, funny, dark humored, prideful and immensely generous. It's a terribly difficult role and Chiklis absolutely nails it. And I must say I was pleasantly impressed with Jessica Alba. I was a little afraid she was cast simply for her "va va voom" appeal, but she brought a real intensity and maturity to the role, a real surprise for a 23 year old. Sure, she was nice to look at too, but she made Sue come alive in all the right ways; a strong female presence to smooth over some of Johnny's rough edges, a friend to Ben and an emotional inspiration to Reed. And if I may be forgiven a moment of male chauvinism, she looks hot as hell in a fight scene! Julian McMahon was fine as Doom. If anything I would have wished for a bit MORE theatrical performance. Doom was always known for his florid speech patterns and grandiose descriptions of himself (generally in the third person; he and Bob Dole would have gotten along swell!). But McMahon did have an imposing, appropriately menacing presence that worked well. It was a bit jarring to see Doom as a "hunk" competing with Reed for Sue's affections, but again, it did work in the context of making the film less cluttered with backstory and more accessible to non-comics fans.

I was a bit disappointed that the threat the group faced was basically just their own deaths. While obviously real to them, I kind of missed the typical "earth is in jeopardy" threat that the team generally was saddled with. We didn't see nearly enough of the team protecting people; basically just the one scene on the bridge and that was it. I think the film's surprisingly short length (just about an hour and a half) kind of torpedoed a lot of opportunities for action. While I applaud the filmmakers' decision to concentrate on character scenes, I think it still would have been possible to include more action and interweave action and character. But if something had to be sacrificed, I guess I'd rather it was action; the "family" scenes were really key and memorable.

I guess I'd give "FF" a good solid "B". And I think they've laid some nice groundwork for a sequel; they have a great feel for the characters and the acting ensemble was great. Now for an encore they just need to relax a bit on the running time and allow for some more jim dandy fight scenes (really liked the Torch's look and wanted more, for instance) and who knows; "FF2" may be right up there with "SpiderMan2" as a sequel that outdoes the original!

Flame on!