Fantastic Four (2005)

With a resurgence in comic book movies in the 2000s, it was inevitable that one of Marvel Comic’s most popular superhero teams would make their way to the big screen. The Fantastic Four are a colorful and fun bunch of crime fighters but telling their story was always going to be a difficult task. Each member requires substantial visual effects and telling their origin story is no easy task.

Reed Richards is a brilliant but bankrupt physicist on the verge of a breakthrough. He believes he can prove the spark for evolution lies within rare bursts of cosmic energy. To gather the data he needs, he convinces his former classmate and millionaire Victor von Doom to allow him the use of his private space station. Richards and Doom assemble a team including gruff astronaut Ben Grimm, Doom’s beautiful assistant and genetics researcher Susan Storm (who is also Richard’s ex-girlfriend) and Susan’s brother, Johnny, a hotshot astronaut who lives like a rock star.

The experiment goes horribly wrong and the team is exposed to the dangerous cosmic radiation. Back on Earth, Richards, Grimm and the Storm’s discover that they have all developed bizarre mutations, giving them a variety of superpowers. Each of them struggles with their new abilities and, after saving many lives during an accident on the Brooklyn Bridge, they form a team dubbed The Fantastic Four by the media. Meanwhile, Von Doom’s reputation is ruined and his corporation slides into bankruptcy. He too is developing powers and decides to use them to punish Richards and his friends for ruining his life.

One of the best things about the Fantastic Four is that they have always been on the lighter side of the superhero spectrum. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, happy-go-lucky super teams were no longer in vogue after the immense popularity of the dark, gritty Batman Begins, released just a month earlier. With the successful rebirth of Batman, comic book movie fans wanted more of the same- troubled, morally ambiguous heroes dealing with inner darkness. They wanted believable looking effects, stunts and fights. This is simply not possible for the Fantastic Four.

I think this led some critics and plenty of movie-goers to leave theaters feeling disappointed. Frankly, they never should have expected anything but a loud, colorful, mostly brainless popcorn flick. That is the essence of the Fantastic Four. Their powers and attitudes lead to sight gags and cheesy one-liners. That’s what made them so popular as a comic book series; they were able to save the day without being too serious.

Batman Begins did the right thing and gave its origin story enough time to develop at over two hours long. Fantastic Four has a run time of just over an hour and 40 minutes. This forces the filmmakers to rush just about everything in order to introduce the major players, set up the accident, develop their new powers and throw them into conflict with Doom. This lightning-quick pace hurts your ability to suspend disbelief because the pace of everything borders on absurd.

On top of the pace, the powers each member of the Four and Dr. Doom possess require plenty of special effects. Johnny Storm (aka The Human Torch) and Ben Grimm (The Thing) get the best of the lot with superb digital effects and makeup work. Richards (Mr. Incredible), who can stretch his body in unnatural ways, has the least realistic looking effects because his power is virtually impossible to make look real. The effects during some of the action sequences look a tad stagey at times but are usually adequate enough.

If there is one thing we can learn from this film is that standalone superhero stories are easier to pull off than team stories. With Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and Iron Man, filmmakers can devote more time to develop their main character. With Fantastic Four, we have four good guys and a villain to develop in a much shorter amount of time. While fans of the comics know each character is interesting in their own right, all we’re able to get out of the film is a quick glimpse and a caricature of an otherwise cool team of superheroes.

I still think that critics and moviegoers were too hard on this film. I think that the Fantastic Four are at the top of the second-tier of comic book superheroes but they are still second-tier. Any film version of their origins was bound to be a little over the top and goofy. It would be a stretch to say that the filmmakers did the best with what they had, because the film could have been a little bit longer to provide proper character development. Then again, it could have been a lot worse (and by worse I mean the unreleased 1994 version of the film made solely to secure copyright to the property).

RATING: 2.75 out of 5