Film Before the cold descended I was going to spend Friday night at the movies. I still want to see Fantastic Four if only to see how bad it is. I hope I enjoy it more than they did. [via]
As it happens, I saw FF last night, but not having convenient internet access at the time I couldn't post an entry about it.
As someone who recently blasted through the first of the Marvel Essentials FF volumes (essentially, a cheap black and white reprint of the first 20 or so issues of the original comic) I could spend ages picking apart all the changes they made, some of which were unavoidable now that we're in a post-Cold War context and others of which (most notably Doctor Doom's origin and prior relationship with the FF) were simply horrible missteps any way you care to look at it. But the film was made for the 95% of the potential audience who may have some idea of who the FF were but couldn't care less about the fidelity of the adaptation.
Basically, it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected, but nor was it anywhere near to good. (It didn't help that the previous night I'd watched X-Men 2 on DVD: now that's how you do a team-based superhero movie, dammit!) I thought that Michael Chiklis did a very good job as The Thing, and Chris Evans's Johnny Storm was a fair update of the hotheaded (no pun intended) youth of the original stories. Unfortunately Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba and (worst of all) Julian McMahon were no better than adequate. Alba wasn't given much to do (they even somehow managed to find an excuse to get her to strip to bra and panties, which came off as utterly gratuitous - if not unpleasant to watch!), Gruffudd just didn't seem like the smartest man on the planet, and McMahon was just another slimy corporate type, rather than the benevolent despot-cum-supervillain of the comics.
And yet, somehow the basic strength of the underlying concept - a family of superheroes, some of whom get on one another's nerves - does survive. Even Mr Fantastic's stretching effects were reasonably convincing, and The Thing and the Human Torch looked tremendous when they swung into action.
It's a moderately fun film at best, but as it's done OK at the US box office and none of the cast are such big stars that they're going to be expensive to reunite for a sequel I think it's reasonable to hope that now they've got the origin story out of the way they might just find room for a decent villain and plot next time round.
As it happens, I saw FF last night, but not having convenient internet access at the time I couldn't post an entry about it.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who recently blasted through the first of the Marvel Essentials FF volumes (essentially, a cheap black and white reprint of the first 20 or so issues of the original comic) I could spend ages picking apart all the changes they made, some of which were unavoidable now that we're in a post-Cold War context and others of which (most notably Doctor Doom's origin and prior relationship with the FF) were simply horrible missteps any way you care to look at it. But the film was made for the 95% of the potential audience who may have some idea of who the FF were but couldn't care less about the fidelity of the adaptation.
Basically, it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected, but nor was it anywhere near to good. (It didn't help that the previous night I'd watched X-Men 2 on DVD: now that's how you do a team-based superhero movie, dammit!) I thought that Michael Chiklis did a very good job as The Thing, and Chris Evans's Johnny Storm was a fair update of the hotheaded (no pun intended) youth of the original stories. Unfortunately Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba and (worst of all) Julian McMahon were no better than adequate. Alba wasn't given much to do (they even somehow managed to find an excuse to get her to strip to bra and panties, which came off as utterly gratuitous - if not unpleasant to watch!), Gruffudd just didn't seem like the smartest man on the planet, and McMahon was just another slimy corporate type, rather than the benevolent despot-cum-supervillain of the comics.
And yet, somehow the basic strength of the underlying concept - a family of superheroes, some of whom get on one another's nerves - does survive. Even Mr Fantastic's stretching effects were reasonably convincing, and The Thing and the Human Torch looked tremendous when they swung into action.
It's a moderately fun film at best, but as it's done OK at the US box office and none of the cast are such big stars that they're going to be expensive to reunite for a sequel I think it's reasonable to hope that now they've got the origin story out of the way they might just find room for a decent villain and plot next time round.