Barbershop
director sucks the life from a comic classic.
***image1***There's an element of goofiness that's essential to the success of the story of the comic book world's first family, the Fantastic Four. The playful tone creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby used to chronicle the adventures of four people granted impractical powers doesn't lend itself to the kind of brooding noir tales of
Batman
or the all-American wholesomeness of
Superman
. After all, a man who can stretch any part of his body invites more than a few jokes.
But the legacy of
FF
is not as a comedy but an enduring comic book that defined the modern superhero team. Like the comic it came from, the film shows us Mr. Fantastic (Ioann Gruffudd), Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba), ***image2***Human Torch (Chris Evans) and the Thing (Michael Chiklis)-science-oriented astronauts who gain super powers after exposure to cosmic radiation. After using their curious abilities to save a truckload of firemen, the foursome is dubbed the Fantastic Four by the media and must learn to cope not only with their new powers, but with each other. Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), a darker soul effected by the same radiation, soon begins plotting the group's destruction with the assistance of his own space-born powers.
The initial set-up eats up much of the film's beginning, slowly telling the team's origin. Despite the FF's 40-plus year history, this careful pacing is necessary because, unlike Spider-man, its characters aren't well known outside comic arcana. Unfortunately, the prolonged prologue, not to mention the heroes' conservative use of their powers, creates a less than fantastic narrative that drags down the remainder of the film. Director Tim Story (
Barbershop
) does a fine job acquainting the audience with the characters, but it all feels like a courtship for the inevitable sequel.
Special effects are essential to any superhero movie, particularly one in which the main characters turn invisible, stretch and catch on fire.
Fantastic Four's
effects, however, look unfinished, lacking the polish and pizzazz one expects from a heavily promoted summer movie. Mr. Fantastic's stretching has a soft, pre-Jar Jar Binks quality that makes his powers that much more comical and the Thing's costume-supposedly solid and made of rock-looks foamy, better for residential insulation than clobbering super villains. The Invisible Woman and Human Torch's abilities are moderately well executed but are unable to make the leap from mere spectacle to believability.
After a movie's worth of exposition without any rising action, we're treated to a final confrontation with Dr. Doom. It's a battle so quick it's over before it even begins. We finally get to see the team in action, with Story excellently blending their sometimes inane powers into a brief, thrilling sequence, but it's too little too late.
As with most of today's superhero movies, Story tries to give us a believable group of people with fantastic powers. It's the film's biggest liability-they're called the Fantastic Four, not the Realistic Four. By humanizing the characters and trying to put them in our real world, Story and screenwriters Michael France and Mark Frost have sucked the life out of the characters, creating ready-for-fast-food heroes, checking all potential for the weird, wild and fantastic at the script.
