It never got to be clobberin' time!

I kept waiting for it to be clobberin' time.

But it never was.

We saw Fantastic Four at the drive-in the other night.  (Yep.  At the drive-in.  One of our favorite things to when we're down here.) and by the end of the movie I couldn't even remember if the Thing had ever roared his signature phrase.  I could only remember it being said once, and that was by Johnny Storm---or was it by the action figure the Torch was showing Ben Grimm?

How many times did the Torch get to say "Flame on"?

Not enough.

And they never fought any crime!

The Fantastic Four get to strut their stuff twice, and both times they aren't saving New York from anybody but themselves.  The first time they're cleaning up a mess caused by the Thing, and the second time they lay waste to several city blocks finishing up a private fight with Dr Doom.

Both times the citizens of Manhattan cheer them as if they were firefighters.  In reality they'd have been arrested as the menace to the public order that J. Jonah Jameson thinks Spider-man is.

I should put a spoiler alert here, but there really isn't a plot to spoil.

The Fantastic Four spend a third of the movie getting to be fantastic, another third trying to unfantastic themselves---Why Sue Storm and Reed Richards want to lose their powers is never explained; Ben's problematic relationship with his is the crux of his character in the comic books, so it makes sense that Reed would try to help him, but if he and Sue didn't like their powers all they needed to do was not use them.  Why they wouldn't like their powers is another question that never gets a good answer.---then they spend the last third of the movie losing a tag team bout with Dr Doom.

It's only at the end of the movie that it dawns on any of them that they might use their powers to help people, even though the first time they use their powers it was to help a lot of people.  All of New York City loved them for it, and Reed and Sue seem to find that distasteful.

I thought the three guys were good, Chris Evans' Johnny Storm especially.  Michael Chiklis was just fine as Ben Grimm.  I'm not sure who to credit for the Thing---Chiklis, the make-up artists, or the guys who did the cgi.  Ioan Gruffudd was a bit callow and overly diffident as Reed Richards, but I don't think that was his choice.  I think the filmmakers decided that Richards was Peter Parker if Parker had never been bitten by the spider and had to live through fifteen years of science geekiness before getting superpowers.  In the comic book, Mr Fantastic's stretching ability is the physical manifestation of his elastic and expansive mind.  In the movie it's his weeny, wimpy droopiness turned into a superpower.

Mr Fantastic's big moment in the movie is when he's tied to a chair, being quick frozen by Dr Doom, and has to watch, Bambi-eyed, as Sue Storm tries to rescue him.  It was a weird glimspe into the screenwriter's own sub/dom fantasy life and I didn't need to know that about him.  But Gruffudd was boyishly likeable.

Jessica Alba was embarrassingly miscast as Sue Storm.  On top of that she was made up to look like the porn star Britney Spears has been trying to turn herself into over the last five years.

And I'm surprised to hear myself say this, but I could have done without the strip teases, both of them.  Alba, or her body double, has incredible thighs and I would have been content if the director had found an excuse for her to wear a bikini.  But if Sue Storm doesn't really turn transparent, she becomes invisible by bending light around her, as the movie says, then she could bend it away from her clothing too, couldn't she?

Dr Doom...Well, Dr Doom isn't in the movie.  Not the comic book's Dr Doom.  And here's a question for the moviemakers:  Why wasn't he?   Would it have been so hard to have had Victor Von Doom already a bad guy bent on world domination or whatever he's bent on right from the start?  Somebody must have worried that the comic book story of Dr Doom's origin might remind people too much of Darth Vader.  But since George Lucas probably stole Vader's story from the Fantastic Four, it would only have been poetic justice to steal it back.  After all, Peter Jackson didn't shy away from the plot points Lucas stole from Lord of the Rings.

If the makers of FF had been in charge of LOTR, Gandalf's self-sacrificing duel with the balrog would have been axed.  The producers would have said, "Hey, Lucas already did that when Obi-wan meets Darth Vader on the Death Star!  We'd better think of some other way to off the wizard."

But Jackson knew Tolkein had gotten there first and wasn't worried.  What's more he was secure enough that he could even borrow from Lucas---the slow motion disguises it a little bit, but Jackson shoots Frodo's reaction to Gandalf's "death" as almost a quote of Luke's reaction to Obi-wan's.

The back and forth allusions actually help both movies.

Fantastic Four would have been a much better movie if it had taken us to Latveria.

Are there beaches in Latveria?

Sue Storm could have brought her bikini.

Actually, she could have sunbathed nude.  Who would know?

But if she's bending light around her to become invisible, she wouldn't get any sort of tan, would she?

Well, no wonder she wanted to get rid of her powers!  A girl's got to have that glow.

Comments

[Anne Laurie]

I think the British expression is "Too clever by half". Got the impression the film-makers didn't want anyone to think that, heaven forfend, anybody might WANT to have superpowers or WANT to help people for no reason. After all, ironic detachment is the only defensible emotion other than lust or greed, right?

[Lance]

Anne,

You're on to something with this movie. The coolest character in the movie, Johnny Storm, manages all three emotions, doesn't he?

The last scene of the movie doesn't show the team embracing their powers or celebrating their dedication to crime fighting---it shows them wallowing in their new-found celebrity.

[res publica]

I couldn't believe how totally weak this movie was. It just sort of stumbled from scene to scene, and even the dialogue seemed to lack structure. Also, the makeup was pretty bad on all of them. Sue Storm looked like she had done her own make-up using the samples available at Walgreens during her lunch hour. Total hooker. And what was up with Doom's eyebrows? He looked like he might be moonlighting as Cruella Von Doom, Drag Queen Extraordinaire. The whole thing was just megaweak.