Fantastic Four

(2005) dir. Tim Story
viewed: 02/08/08

I really hadn’t harbored any major plan to see the Fantastic Four movie.  I grew up in the 1970′s and 1980′s loving comic books as much as the next kid and the Fantastic Four always seemed more interesting in their earliest incarnations, fighting some strange monsters bursting out from the sewers or what have you.  Of course, digital animation has finally caught up with Marvel Comics, whose works have seen their most success in pure animation up until the break-through that they have had with the X-Men films and the Spider-Man (2002) series.  So, now they’re going back to their other classic characters.

This film didn’t get such kind reviews when it was released, but it managed to do well enough for a sequel, which got kinder reviews, and on a total whim, I decided to make it a comic book movie night.  Both Fantastic Four movies and the highly panned Catwoman (2004).  An orgy of mediocrity.

Oddly enough, I found myself enjoying the Fantastic Four, moving at a decent clip, featuring some decent lesser-named “stars”, somehow it was a little more fun than I expected.  Not requiring the depth of Batman or the cult weight of X-Men, the film just operates with its simple updating and rendering of the origin story of the four scientists who are hit with solar radioactivity and zapped somehow into four different superpowers for some reason.

Of course, there’s Dr. Doom, the villain, who was pretty good, but once behind the mask, the voice seems a bit pip-squeaky.  And Mr. Fantastic, whose rubber-stretchiness just really challenges the digital effects for veracity.  In the comics, he looks cool enough, expanding and stretching to fill the frames, but here they delicately edit his action moments so to hide its visual goofiness that might make it look like something from UPN on Saturdays.

But, you know.  It wasn’t half-bad.  It wasn’t necessarily half-good, but heck, I’ve seen a lot worse.  And I was about to, too.