LaFountaine

“Fantastic Four” Movie

On Tuesday I saw the movie “Fantastic Four”, which starred: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans and Julian McMahon.

The storyline involved the following: “This is really the story of five individuals forever changed by a freak bombardment of cosmic rays while on a routine space mission. On the good guy side we have leader Reed Richards, (Ioan Gruffudd), the super-intelligent and highly elastic Mr. Fantastic; his former flame, Susan Storm (Jessica Alba), also a scientist, as The Invisible Woman; her brother Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), a hotrod pilot straight out of a Mountain Dew commercial, as the Human Torch, capable of transforming himself into a walking and flying ball of fire; and Ben Grimm, (Michael Chiklis), whose transformation into the nearly inhuman rock creature The Thing makes him the tragic figure of the group. On the bad guy side is Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), the sneering industrialist and scientist who bankrolls their mission and becomes the evil and aptly named Dr. Doom. Once this dysfunctional family figures out its powers--in a pile up on a New York City bridge for which they are largely responsible for in the first place--all that's left is one showdown with their cloaked and iron masked villain, who has very little objectives besides killing off his business partners and exacting some revenge on the Fantastic Four. Despite the ingenious idea of portraying these costumed characters as celebrities first and heroes second, the clumsy story fails to connect. It's a concept that should have worked, especially with today's tabloid and paparazzi obsessions. But like the rest of the movie, that idea fails to take flight. In other words, other than defending themselves, the quartet doesn't really have anything fantastic to do at all. Hmmm. Maybe comic-book movies are getting more realistic.”

I give the movie a “C+”, and it is the worth of an admission ticket, a small popcorn and a small soft drink. The characters were not likeable and were too cocky. Only the action scenes saved the movie.

posted by Frank LaFountaine @ 6:31 PM