The Fantastic Four
Fantstic Four Review
Now I bet you are asking yourself why I would spend
the first part of my review talking about an episode of Growing Pains.
Well after seeing Fantastic
Four this weekend I felt exactly like Ben Seaver.
As most of you know, I make no effort to hide the fact that I am a comic
book geek to the fullest. I grew up reading Marvel Comics, in particular
the Fantastic Four. There was something about that comic that was
just so different from the rest of the comics I was reading. Here was a
group who were more explorers than super heroes. Part of the fun of reading
the book was more about what new universe they were going to discover than
whatever villain would come in their way. With every issue though, wherever
they went, no matter what trouble faced them they would always deal with
it together because they were a family. They never lost that and it's what
made them such interesting characters.
With Marvel's recent box office success with Spider-Man and X-Men
you knew it was just a matter of time before Marvel's first family, the
Fantastic Four, would get their own movie. But numerous directing
changes and script rewrites left the film in pre production limbo. A few
years ago Avi Arad, head of Marvel Studios, made it a priority to get Fantastic
Four on the screen. What looked like a promising film suddenly was
bogged down by numerous questionable decisions. First off were the changes
to the story to make it more "Hollywood friendly" (usually the first sign
of doom). Then after losing two big name directors (Chris Columbus and Payton
Reed), Arad decided to go out of the box and pick a director (Tim Story)
whose previous 3 films (Barbershop, Barbershop 2, Taxi)
combined budget wouldn't equal the budget for Fantastic Four. The
end result is a film that could've been so much more, but just came off
looking like a B-movie.
Jessica Alba is Invisible Girl
The story is another big gripe I have with this film. While Fantastic
Four does an excellent job of keeping very true to the essence of the
characters and the family element that is so important, the changes they
made didn't help the film at all. Fantastic Four reminds me a lot
like XXX in a way. That film was so ridiculous because of its constant
need to try to make the film "cool" to younger viewers and instead came
off as goofy and unintentionally very funny. By trying to make Fantastic
Four more accessible and cool to non comic book readers they not only
alienated the hard core fans they made the film look goofy in the eyes of
the casual fan. A lot of the elements that are supposed to make you care
about the characters winds up making you laugh, in particular Ben Grimm's
struggle with becoming a monster. Here was a storyline that would make you
really care for the struggle the character was going through yet I found
myself laughing most of the time.
Fantastic Four could've used the help of a more interesting cast.
Aside from Chris Evans scene stealing performance as Johnny Storm most of
the cast (primarily Julian McMahon and Jessica Alba) seems like they want
to be working anywhere else than a comic book film. By just showing a hint
of interest in the story, Fantastic Four could be so much better,
but instead the performances just seem so uninteresting and one dimensional.
A good portion of the story revolves around The Thing
Score:  
|
Add to Heffee!
