Fantastic Four (1994)

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Summary:
    Four astronauts are zapped with cosmic rays after an experiment gone bad in space. They acquire special powers, and pronounce themselves a superhero group known as the Fantastic Four.  A mad scientist, Dr. Doom, wants their powers... and the Fantastic Four DEAD!

Review:
    Oh my God... What did I just watch?! Well, it's Roger Corman doing what he does best... executive producing shit movies with an honorable mention in the Cheese Factor. Fantastic Four was made on less than a shoestring budget at $2 million, and so there is bound to be a lot of awkward moments in the special effects department. But then again, it's amazing how much $2 million can look like a group of ten year old boys with an imaginative use of Halloween masks spray-painted over, enhanced with their mother's green tablecloth and calling it Dr. Doom!
    Dr. Doom is so hokey that it's almost a load of laughs, seeing him make ridiculous poses, trying to 'act' out his dialogue with his twiddling fingers and wavy arms.  This might be helpful for the audience, considering that you can hardly hear him through the mask.  That's right, his voice is very badly muffled, proving that this rag-tag bunch of film makers (by name only) were too lazy to spend an extra ten minutes to dub his lines in later for better audio clarity.  Reed Richards, doing his stretchy abilities are truly fantastic.  I love to look at plastic/rubber God-Knows-What limbs coming from strange angles offscreen!  Sue Storm is mesmerizing when she goes into invisible mode (I think it should be called "not on set at all" mode), and The Boy Who Could Fly, aka Johnny Storm, is a riveting depiction of human flame by torching every scene with some of the worst overacting on the planet; next to Dr. Doom.  And then Ben Grimm... he's actually a decent costume design for such a terribly cheap and worthless movie!  Alicia Masters should be of note, seeing as how she's the blind romantic interest of Ben Grimm, and when she's captured, Dr. Doom smothers her with chloroform, and we get a point of view through her eyes and she goes unconscious... yes, she's completely blind, but we see exactly what she 'sees' as she passes out.  That's beautiful.  I will say that Kat Green (the actress, not another comic character) is pretty damned hot compared to the rest of the ugly cast.
    I couldn't begin to count the number of one liners that make no sense. It's as if they are talking to each other on different astral planes, thus causing a similar scenario between the characters, but it isn't quite precise, and so they make replies that don't always fit with the moment. 

Here's an example:
    Dr. Doom and Thing are about to 'get it on' - I mean fight - but then Thing turns back into his human self, Ben Grimm, after looking at his schlong-sprouting slice of affection Alicia Masters, and becomes afraid to fight.  Dr. Doom says, "[Evil Laughter]...  Ah, well well... (sappy shit-music score in background) it seems loverboy is not quite himSELF toDAY.  Kill him."  Grimm runs from a dozen gunshot blasts, without his shirt on and looking like a Chippendales reject in the process.  Five seconds later, Dr. Doom then says, "Let him go!" 
Uh... what? Huh?!?! Make up your mind, dude!

    There is virtually nothing possitive about this movie.  Except for the Human Torch.  When Storm blazes up in the final sequence, it's an animated moment of neatness (but let's forget that he turns into a flaming ball of flying fire without even hinting that he knew it was possible. He just lights himself up and starts to fly).  Very cheaply done, but it looks cool enough.  Just like the comic, pretty much.  Other than that, this is a big mess of a disaster that was never released on video or in theater because it was too shitty to be released.  Then again, there are movies worse than this all the time, and so part of me thinks it wasn't sent out to the open public so that it would do better on the underground circuit at comicons and to be traded between devoted Marvel geeks.  They were pretty successful, too, considering it's one of the most financially successful bootlegs in history.
    So this movie is a POS, no surprise there.  I'm expecting the new version to be better than this one.  Not expecting 2005's version to be that good, either.  I got some uncomfortable laughs from Fantastic Four, and wouldn't tell anyone to check it out unless they know what they're getting themselves into.

GRADE:  D-
"Watch With Friends Cheese Factor" Grade:  B+

Reviewed 7/2/05