Fantastic Four UMD
It’s been a good time for comic book inspired film franchises recently. The X-Men franchise keeps going from strength to strength, Spiderman will no doubt be getting a 3rd outing sometime soon and the Batman franchise seems to be back on track with the excellent Batman Begins. A good time to make a film of the Fantastic Four you might think...
It’s been a good time for comic book inspired film franchises recently. The X-Men franchise keeps going from strength to strength, Spiderman will no doubt be getting a 3rd outing sometime soon and the Batman franchise seems to be back on track with the excellent Batman Begins. A good time to make a film of the Fantastic Four you might think.
The Fantastic Four were created in the early 1960s in response to the success of DC Comics Justice League of America. They helped put Marvel comics back on the map and preceded Spiderman, The X-Men and the Incredible Hulk. The comic book creation of the Fantastic Four starts with four astronauts caught in a cosmic storm. Exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, the four crashed to earth and were instantly transformed, each taking on the qualities of a different element. There's Invisible Woman (air), Mr. Fantastic (water), Human Torch (fire) and the Thing (earth). In the comic book their arch enemy Dr Doom had nothing to with their initial conversion. He was hideously disfigured in an experiment gone wrong and comes to blame his old school rival Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic).
For this film conversion the films creators decided to deviate from the comic book origins of the Fantastic Four. Brilliant but broke scientist Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and his ex-NASA pilot pal Ben Grimm (The Shield’s Michael Chiklis) need funding for an experiment. Reed proposes that evolution on earth was kick-started by cosmic radiation. Coincidentally a cosmic storm with the same elemental profile is due to pass earth in just a few weeks time. Without the funds to get him in space to investigate this phenomenon Reed must approach his ex-school colleague Victor Von Doom (played by Julian McMahon, with a character name like that you just know he’s not going to be the nice guy!), billionaire scientist and owner of a nice new spacestation with shields that should protect the occupants from the effects of the storm.
It’s at this point that we’re introduced to the other two members of the eventual four, Susan Storm (Jessica Alba), Doom’s head of genetics and ex-girlfriend of Reed, and her hot-headed, adrenaline junkie of a brother Johnny (Chris Evans). From this point on the main focus of the film revolves around the relationships between these five main protagonists. Reed and Susan clearly still have unfinished business. Doom is trying to move in on Susan while relishing the fact that Reed, his better in college, had to come to him for help. Ben doesn’t like Doom or Johnny but is trying to get Reed and Susan back together and this is all in the first half hour.
The five jet up to the space station like it was an everyday occurrence and start to prepare for the arriving storm. The only problem is that the storm is going to hit early and instead of the nine hours they think they have to prepare they only have nine minutes. With Ben outside the station planting samples Reed and Susan rush to his and Johnny’s aid while Victor hides in the control centre behind the shields. When the storm hits Reed, Susan, Johnny and Ben are all outside of the protective shields and are exposed to the full force of the cosmic storm.
Back on earth it is quickly evident that the storm altered their DNA giving them all different abilities. Reed can now stretch his limbs as if he’s made of rubber. Susan can turn invisible and can project some sort of force shield. Johnny’s running a bit of a temperature which can result in him catching on fire, but it’s Ben that goes through the most devastating change. While the others all retain their normal physical appearances, Ben has turned into some sort of stone monster. The evil baddie of the film is provided by Doom, who wasn’t so safe behind those shields after all. Doom’s body also goes through a dramatic transformation as it starts to turn into some sort of metal, allowing him to control electricity.
In turns of superhero comic book to movie conversions, I’ve seen better. Although Doom goes on a bit of a rampage towards the end there’s never really a significant threat presented that the four must save the world from and as such the ending falls a bit flat. The main emphasis of the film is of the relationships between the characters and how they come to terms (or don’t) with their new abilities. There’s a lack of chemistry between Gruffudd and Alba, although the sniping relationship between Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm is spot on and provides a few laughs. McMahon has Doom starting out as a sinister and conniving character, but we don’t really see enough of him behind the mask as the evil Dr Doom. He only dons the mask and green cape in the last ten or fifteen minutes of the film.
The effects for the film are consistently excellent, with the exception of the rubber suit for Ben Grimms 'The Thing'. The picture quality on the PSP is fantastic and the soundtrack (through a decent set of headphones) is excellent. My experience of UMD titles so far are that you don’t get any extras that you might expect on a DVD, but The Fantastic Four does have a special features section with a short 5 minute superficial ‘Making of Fantastic Four’ featurette and the Everything Burns music video by Ben Moody featuring Anastasia.
All in all not a bad popcorn movie, but by no means great. As a first film in a franchise it does a good job of introducing the characters, allowing us to understand their origins for future films. From IMDB it does look as if the Fantastic Four are due for another outing in 2007. Lets hope this time there’s a decent challenge for the four to rise to.
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