The main players, as semi-human beings, do not display any maturity, and continue doing what they do best - crack half-baked jokes, stretch, disappear, burn, heave, and, in the case of Victor McMahon wastes his talent here , zap and plot. You remember that this is not Sue Storm but Jessica Alba, nominated for a 'Razzie' look it up for Worst Actress for playing Sue with such imperfection in the original Fantastic Four. Full marks, by the by, to the creators of the comic Fantastic Four for imagining such monstrosity. This is an origin story, and it does exactly what an origin story should do: set the stage for future stories. For the uninitiated, here's what happened in , the original. No free tickets for guessing how this turns out, and in who's favor. And while it may be unlikely given the drubbing this movie has taken, I would like to see a sequel with this version of these characters.
There were funny moments where I, and the audience with me, laughed out loud. Unluckily for him, he's in the vicinity of the Phuntastic Phour - nice of him to fly by the attempted wedding of Reed and Sue, eh? By the by, creator Stan Lee does a cameo here as a gate-crasher. Pilot Ben Grimm is turned into a super-strong rock creature calling himself Thing. Obviously, her look often reminiscent of Elle Woods, the character played by Reese Witherspoon in the Legally Blonde series, though with much less pink, more black - the blondest of blonde hair, the blue eyeliner-lined baby-blue eyes sorry; much too much blue there , Botox-plumped lips and criminally slim body - leads to the quick reinstatement of our previously suspended disbelief here: Barbie doll? But it is very much a blink-and-miss. Together, they use their unique powers to explore the strange aspects of the world and to foil the evil plans of Doctor Doom. Yes, I would have preferred casting Reed Richards as a middle-aged, brilliant, respected scientist, but at least the young Reed in this movie is a better depiction than the nerdy, incompetent goof-ball presented in the Tim Story versions. If there is any serious evolution in terms of plot between the original and the sequel, it is not visible to this writer's naked eye.
Beats me; I suspect maybe, just maybe, and I could be wrong here, that the scriptwriters did not think this through. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy. At times, the character of Sue does come close to mortal reality once to mortal peril, too ; we see her inner turmoil as she mulls over her celebrity status, her relationship and the precious lack of a normal life. They latch onto him, literally and otherwise. Fantastic Four was fantastically disappointing on four counts - it did not tell much of a story, it had shoddy special effects, its characters were appallingly etched, while its take on science as a sci-fi flick was, at best, funny.
Reed Richards, inventor, and leader of the group gains the ability to stretch his body and takes the name Mr. But the battle scenes we get here are as exciting as those in any other superhero movie, and I walked out of the theater feeling satisfied. When Earth is next on Galactus's 'To-Eat' list, the Silver Surfer cruises in. And speaking of astronauts - in this case, resident firestarter Johnny boy - should he not be shown displaying an awareness of the basics of science, as an astronaut? His girlfriend, Sue Storm, gains the ability to turn invisible and create force fields, calling herself the Invisible Woman. I had no problem following the plot, and had no problem with the pacing. In the sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer, unfortunately history mostly repeats itself.
This unholy vacuum cleaner is normally preceded by the intergalactic Silver Surfer voiceover by Laurence Fishburne. The four must learn to harness their new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy. Coming back to the point, Galactus swallows planets whole, sans burps, in order to self-preserve, it seems. Her younger brother Johnny Storm gains the ability to control fire, including covering his own body with flame, becoming the Human Torch. Reed Richards Gruffudd , his best friend Ben Grimm Chiklis , college rival Victor Von Doom McMahon , ex-flame Sue Storm Alba and her hell-raising brother Johnny Evans were astronauts caught in the throes of a cosmic storm.
Instead, the lot except Johnny laughably tried to revert to normality - until better sense prevailed. . Richard developed the elasticity of rubber, Storm could indulge in willful invisibility, Johnny could, literally, go up in flames, while Ben hardened into a lump of powerful, blue-eyed rock. Shocking indeed; this 'motion picture' - read 'celluloid disaster' - had not drowned in the flood of venom spurting generously from the poison keyboards of critics, acerbic and not-so-acerbic, everywhere. Surfer looks like a new-and-improved Tin-Man, a la The Wizard of Oz, except with a cool, silver surfing board attached, and prepares the planet for the inevitable annihilation. I was completely entertained by this movie, enjoying it just as much as I did The Avengers, Thor, and Captain America: the Winter Soldier.
On the other hand, full marks retracted from the moviemakers for the spectacularly uninspired special effects - if you've seen Marvel Comics' Spiderman series come to life on the big screen, you know this semi-crude stuff just does not cut it. The actors did a great job here. Now here's where our superheroes parted with tradition; they didn't go on mad sprees, saving the world. Combing through it with a magnifying glass, I found but one: Reed and Sue are on the threshold of matrimony. I liked that Sue made better use of her powers here than in the previous versions, I liked this depiction of Doom more than the Tim Story version, I loved the depiction of the Thing, and while I would have preferred Johnny as the teen-aged white guy Stan Lee and Jack Kirby gave us, I very much enjoyed Michael B. For that matter, are the makers of this multi-million dollar series - the directors, the editors - not well-versed with elementary science? Judging by the scene where Johnny douses a small fire at a bar with a glass of alcohol, we're concluding that the answer is a resounding 'No'.
I was invested in the characters and understood what motivated each of them. Yes, I wanted Sue, Reed, Ben, and Johnny to fly into space and be exposed to cosmic rays, but I accepted their gaining powers through inter-dimensional travel. . . . .
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