With the exception of Chiklis as Ben, the actors and their characters just don't seem charismatic enough.
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The first time I had to present a paper in front of an audience of Hemingway scholars, I was quaking in my boots. Director Tim Story must have felt the same way trying to bring life to four comic-book superheroes for an expert audience that knows, lives, and breathes comic-book heroes and their exploits. Plus, you have "Spider-Man 2" hovering out there like a gigantic zeppelin with a sign on it that says something like, "Can't Catch This."
Maybe I'm easily amused, or maybe it's just been too long since I've reread all those Fantastic Four comics that I saved from my childhood in a box somewhere in the attic, but I thought Story's live-action attempt was entertaining enough. Yes, it's no "Spider-Man 2" or even "Spider-Man," but it's also not even close to bottom-of-the-barrel films like "Elektra" or "Catwoman." And I'm guessing creator Stan Lee, that legendary Marvel guy, agrees with me. Lee was onboard as an executive producer for this film, and it couldn't have struck him as being that far off the mark, or else he wouldn't have signed on to be a part of "Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer" that's now in production.
If you've listened to any of the commentaries on previous superhero films, you know that the hardest thing for filmmakers is to do an "origin" film. So much of the story has to be devoted to telling how these ordinary people become superheroes that it's like spending most of an afternoon with Clark Kent instead of Superman--not nearly as fun, and not nearly enough camera-time for those villains we love to hate. For that reason alone, I'm guessing that the sequel slated for 2007 release will get off to a faster start and maintain the momentum. I'm guessing too that Story ("Barbershop") will have learned a few things in the process of filming his first superhero film.
The plot in "Fantastic 4" is pretty simple. Brainiac Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) approaches hyper-rich Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) to fund a trip to space to gather data from a cosmic storm he hopes will provide secrets to decoding human DNA. His astronaut driver of choice? Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), who accompanies him to the penthouse office where Von Doom sits like Dr. Evil . . . or a corporate CEO. Von Doom agrees, but insists that Ioan's old flame, Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) go along, and that she be accompanied by her brother, soon-to-be-new-"flame" Johnny (Chris Evans), who washed out of NASA. Oh, and Van Doom is going too.
In space, Reed's calculations turn out to be off and they're all blasted by the storm--Ben, the worst. Back on Earth, they start to develop symptoms that turn them into freaks. Reed develops an elasticity that makes him a stretchy, bendy Gumby kind of guy who'll come to be known as Mr. Fantastic. Sue, meanwhile, can turn invisible (though, bummer, her clothes can't), and she appropriately bristles when her brother and the media start calling her the Invisible Girl instead of "woman." Johnny, the impulsive daredevil hothead, can turn a flame on quicker than a Bunsen burner and streak through the air as the Human Torch. And poor Ben? His body mass becomes so dense he's as big and solid as one of the guys on Mt. Rushmore--a permanent transformation that spares him his life but costs him his wife. Von Doom predictably turns into a superstrong guy who's gradually turning into metal alloy. The four good guys appear in public once and become known as the Fantastic Four, while Von Doom, a suddenly superstrong guy who's gradually turning into metal, turns into the villain for the episode. There's no grand plan to take over the world or blow up a city, and no saving citizens from rampant crime--just a venomous personal battle between Von Doom and the Fantastic 4.
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[release]19889[/release]