Okay, yes, dis be garbage movie but viewer have to keep in mind dat it made in 1994 by schlock producer Roger Corman for miniscule budget and film never meant to be released…Wait. What? Dis NOT de Roger Corman crapfest but de 2005 $100 million budget version? Are you sure?
Hmmm. Monster just checked and me already reviewed Corman movie so, yep, dis de new and improved (?) Fantastic Four. Wit 100 times de budget of de first film, you would tink it be at least ten percent better.
Movie begin wit scientist Reed Richards, played by some aktor who would make a better waiter, pitching research project to super rich scientist Dr. Viktor Von Doom. Really, wit a name like Von Doom, he destined for villainhood. It like Mr. and Mrs. Pumpkins naming their daughter Fluffy. Poor kid never stood a chance. Viktor give de okay to de projekt dat involve study of passing cosmik clouds on his space station. Research crew made up of Reed, his right-hand goon Ben Grimm, beautiful scientist Sue Storm, and Sue’s douche bag brother, Johnny.
Projekt gets off to bad start when cosmic clouds show up early and end up irradiating everyone. As a result, everyone end up wit strange powers. Reed acquires body-stretching ability. And greying sideburns. For some reason. Sue acquire power of invisibility – which be pretty much useless throughout movie and only used for completely illogical reasons – and ability to manifest force shields. Johnny acquire power to manifest flames and fly around. Ben acquire super strength and super hard rocky exterior. And Viktor start to slowly, kinda, turn into metal…but not really…and acquire ability to control elektricity. Oh, and knack for falling in and out of British accent.
Ben all upset. He leave hospital and call up his girlfriend who come down to de street to meet him. In her lingerie. She horrified by sight of him and run away. For some reason, Ben surprized by dis and go hang out on bridge. He try to save suicidal jumper and cause huge pile-up. Reed, Sue, and Johnny, who JUST HAPPEN to be on de bridge and happen to see him, want to get to Ben but can’t get thru de crowd. So how to get through? Have Reed stretch his legs so he can carry Sue and Johnny over de people? Have Johnny use his flying powers to carry Sue and Reed over? Nope, let’s have Sue turn invisible and push her way thru de crowd becuz, of course, people will move over for an invisible person more dan dey would for a regular person. Dis probably de single stoopidest moment in a movie filled wit stoopid moments and, really, only an excuse to get actress Jessica Alba in her bra and panties. But Monster not complaining.
Dey reach Ben. Save a fire truck racing toward de scene. And become heroes. Dey call demselves The Fantastic Four. Reed = Mr. Fantastic. Sue = The Invisible Girl. Johnny = The Human Torch. Ben = The Thing. But Ben very sad becuz his girlfriend JUST HAPPENS to be on de bridge and see him and takes off her engagement ring and leave it on the ground before walking away.
Movie plod along, filled wit lame sight gags and dialogue. Reed tests Ben’s reflexes wit hammer. He kick chair across de room! Reed walk in on Sue getting out of de shower. She turn invisible (P.S. But Monster not complaining)! Reed uses stretchy arm to reach out of bathroom for toilet paper! Goofy music accompanies deir anticks! Hardy har har!
Dey become celebrities. Sue mobbed by fans and, to eskape dem, strips off her clothes, turns invisible and runs away. No. Really. P.S. Monster not complaining.
Meanwhile, becuz of accident on space station, Viktor’s company in ruins. Investors pull out. He exakt revenge by killing dem all. He convince Ben dat even though Reed promised to change dem back, he really just interested in spending time with Sue. Which bring monster to super-weak romantik triangle involving Sue, Reed and Viktor. Seriously. Superhot intelligent girl and best she can do is choice between milquetoast loser and asshole? Dat’s it?!!
Viktor convince Thing to step into HIS cosmic accelerator dat will turn him back to normal. And it work. But it also give Viktor extra power he needs to get super strong!
Viktor try to off de rest of de Fantastic Four but unsuccessful. Ben turn back into Thing (somehow) and fight Viktor who, by dis point, has donned snappy new costume and metal mask dat JUST HAPPENS to be on display at nearby exhibition. FF used deir combined powerz to take down Doom and bring movie to a merciful end.
Movie end wit after-party. Reed propose to Sue and she accept. Ben get together wit blind woman who love him for who he be. Meanwhile…
A frozen Doom shipped off in container to homeland of…Latveria!!!
Verdikt: Dog poop.
Rating: 2 chocolate chippee cookies.
…at least you were a male and able to enjoy the teases with Invisible Girl. For us het females, not even that…make it one cookie…..
Cookie, great review.
P.S. Lou not complaining either
God dammit! I looked at the Super Movie Of The Week Box and saw Sky High so I just finished watching that. Now I get online and see a review for The Fantastic Four! Bugger! I need to remember that the movie title is ABOVE the date!
I saw FF in the cinema and remember thinking at the time how stupid the movie was. Why were these people sent into space in the first place? None of them seem to even remotely have the astronautic qualities required. (Heh, I was using “astronautic” for comedic effect but my spell checker says it’s a real word!)
The actor who played Doctor Doom is Australian which probably explains his dodgy accent. He’s probably best known in North America for playing the plastic surgeon in Nip/Tuck.
Did you recognise The Human Torch is the same guy who plays Captain America? Yeah, me neither.
And Jessica Alba? Sure, she’s kinda cute but all she ever gets hired for is to take her clothes off. What is the point?
That’s about all I can remember. I’m going to have to go and watch it now, aren’t I? I will, but not now . . . it’s time for bed!
I enjoyed both FF movies. They weren’t ‘fantastic’, but they were entertaining enough.
As far as the actor who played Reed being a better waiter, I disagree. He makes a FAR better 18th century naval officer in a frilly shirt and ribbon-bound queue. 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrINVSJm8d8
das
All I remember from this movie is dreamy, glarey poses. Or was that the trailer?
—
Heeeeeyyy…I have super-stretchy powers. I have used them for awesomeness like kicking people in the head when almost nose to nose with them.
This one time I got my legs spectacularly kicked out from under me and I landed elbow-first on the ground and my forearm slammed into my collar bone all the way across. I got up holding my upper arm still so that when the pain hit, oh you know how moving bone shards feel, dontcha?
I slowly realized the lack of pain wasn’t from adrenaline. It was my super-power. There was no injury, not even a sprainy feeling anywhere. My shoulder had just moved out of the way at high speed and with zero resistance. Then I felt reeeeaaally stupid because everyone was staring at me holding my arm like it was broken.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh, yes” *lets go of arm*
Lots of stories. You don’t want to know how far away I can pull the skin from my ribs. Actually, I’m not curious enough to find out the limit either.
There was a guy in my grad program whose last name was actually McDoom (became Dr. McDoom when he graduated). I floated the idea of a green card wedding so he could get citizenship and I could have the most epic last name ever but sadly it would never have worked.
It’s clobberin’ time! On the concept of decent movies, apparently. Cookie, I was totally thinking the same as you, in that my thoughts in the first half hour were that I was watching the 1994 version, but with better vis effects.
I often think that it’s really all about writing, that no matter how good anything else is, if the writing is bad the whole movie sucks. Well, it this case, it all kind of sucks. Well, except for the Jessica Alba undressing thing, of course. I immediately thought, “why is she bothering to get invisible (and nekkid) just to go through crowd?” And then I realized I just answered my own question. Not that I’m complaining.
Speaking of writing, lines like “Dreams don’t pay the bills” and “We’re scientists, not celebrities.” pretty much sum up the level of writing ability. Oh, and Reed’s line to Ben before his change, “How are you feeling’?” “Solid”. Ha! Nice heavy handed foreshadowing. (See what I did there? 🙂
The plotting seems all so pedestrian. Get the people to the space station. Irradiate them. Now they’re back and we have a bunch of aribtrary set up scenes where they discover their super abilities. It’s like they’re going down the list of items from the plot outline. Check mark, check mark, check mark. Then, for (for what seems like) most of the movie, they don’t seem to be fighting any villain or facing any peril. Eh. It takes a long time before Doom becomes any kind of a threat other than being a right royal jackass. But if that were a criteria for super villainy, I know several candidates personally.
Things of note:
How does The Thing’s body MASSIVELY increase in mass when he changes? Rubber arms and invisibility I can accept, but that’s just such too much, physics-wise.
Interesting tie in when the Torch catches the BK banner on fire, which says “Fire Grilled Perfection”. Too bad the rest of the writing wasn’t so clever. Not saying that was particularly clever, pretty obvious in fact, but still.
In the bridge pile up scene, why are they applauding them when technically they were the cause of the accident? Like you mentioned, how did Ben’s wife show up just at the time that all that stuff was going on at the bridge? If he seemed the hero, why was she looking so disappointed? She had already seen him in his transformed state, so that shouldn’t have been a shock.
Wait was that Terry David Mulligan and Ben Mulroney in the crowd of journalists when they were talking to the press??? I’m not sure whether to be impressed or annoyed.
At the board meeting, there’s the worst cheesy zoom on Doom. And yes, I know that rhymes.
When I first say the energy ribbon, er “storm”, my first thought was, “Oh, it’s the Nexus from ST:Generations!”
Anyway, a completely craptastic outing, but you know what? With only a week off, I was kind of missing this!
OOooh, Forget the Fantastic Four. Now I want to watch 18th century naval officers with British accents in frilly shirts and queues. Thanks, das.
Das you forgot about the great Welsh accent along with the frilly shirt and ribbon bound queue. :p
Cookie Monster, I can’t believe you only gave Fantastic Four 2 chocolate chip cookies! Did you and I watch the same movie?
I genuinely liked BOTH Fantastic Four Movies, particularly the first one, though Silver Surfer actually received a round of applause at the cinema.
I admit I never read Fantastic Four in comic form and anything previously on TV came across as eye rollingly bad! Bit like the really old X-Men cartoon series with big boobed girls and where I want to throttle Storm for getting on my t*ts with her over-the-top dramatic comments. Sooo, Fantastic Four movies weren’t really on my radar until the film’s release.
Interesting cast:
Ioan Grufudd is a fine actor who’s capable of giving me tingles. It’s also the movie where I first paid attention to Chris Evans. (The actor, not the annoying DJ) Nice balance between charm and good acting, which is why I thought him well cast in Captain America. Jessica Alba, away from high school prima-donna roles did a good job as Susan Storm. Michael Chiklis is always reliable and Julian McMahon I already liked from his Charmed days!
What’s not to like? It’s fun, light-hearted, decent script, amusing and although I own it on DVD I still tend to watch it in the background whenever it pops up on TV. You know what else? It isn’t laboured and overly long like so many movies today.
Anyway … welcome home to Joe and Akemi! Glad your holiday went well and you had a good time! 🙂
Dog poop cookies? Euw.
@ Sparrow, Lexxye, Susan Bowden, et al – Anyone amongst our august company up for a Horatio Hornblower marathon? Come on, lads and ladies, what’s your dirty little secret? Are ya longing for a healthy dose of the fitful Archie Kennedy…curled up in a ship’s hammock or on a filthy prison cot, frilly shirt and all??! Or, better yet, a very unhealthy dose of the predatory Mr. Simpson (yes, yes…we all know what he was up to 😉 ). What about the ever so sexy ‘gotta love a man in U-NEE-FORM’ Captain Pellew? Or is the Duchess more your cup of tea…or tot of rum? Ahhhh! Come into The Lamb and warm yourselves by the fire! And potman! Cards and a light…and a flatscreen tv!! 😀
das
After watching Shark Boy/Lava Girl any movie after that deserves, at least, a 4 cookie rating! The Fantastic Four was entertaining and kept my interest. Cookie made some great points though. I got a laugh out of Cookie’s observations about the bridge scene with Jessica Alba. Being invisible would not be a big advantage except maybe to a teenage boy 😉 . My hubby pointed out that the Invisible Girl could bend or refract light and maybe that was how she did the force fields?
Did you gain or lose any weight this trip?
Dang! Missed another one.
I’ll be back in the US on Saturday, so barring a bad case of jetlag, I should be able to watch Sky High with the kids on Sunday. Jetlagged-addled viewing comprehension may not be up to the task though 😉
Maybe it’s the time-shift (Milan) or my Y chromosome, but I can’t seem to interpret anything Das is saying right now. 😉
Probably means I need to go to sleep…
Good night all!
@Dasndanger. LOL! I’d be up for a marathon, but don’t have the capabilities right now. Of course we all remember Archie Kennedy turned into Adama on BSG. 😀
I can’t remember if I said Welcome Home Joe and Akemi so I will say it now.
@ Tam Dixon – hey! Leave Shark boy and Lava girl outta this. Shark boy was made for children, not old farts. The Fantastic Four was made for adults and their money. Shark Boy was good! (and no, I’m not drunk)
Thanks for the laugh Ponytail. Sorry to insult your film. T. L.’s karate skills were impressive. But I’d still say it was in the negative cookie range.
I can have no opinion. I didn’t watch it. Have never seen it.