Fantastic Four
So, the barrage of comic-based movies continue. The Fantastic Four is the oldest Marvel comic created by Stan the man Lee and Jack Kirby. They tried to do a movie version about 15 years ago, but it was just to keep the rights, and it never saw the light of day. When they announced a new film version, I was pumped, and followed the development pretty closely.
The basic story is a group of college colleagues/friends/enemies all go into space to observe a cosmic storm and how it effects people. They go up, and things go horribly wrong. Each one of the five are exposed to radiation. The five are: Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm, and Victor Von Doom. Richards and Sue had a relationship, but now she's with Von Doom, who is a rival of Richards. Johnny is Sue's little brother, and Ben Grimm is our Everyman, and Richards' side-kick. They all get back to Earth, and the main four start to see changes in their bodies. Grimm gets the most startling change, becoming a huge, rock thing. He also takes it the hardest, and reacts very strongly.
Most of the movie shows some very shallow scenes of the four good guys coming to terms with their powers, and how they work to reverse it. Reed develops a machine to reverse the process, but can't get enough power to stabalize the process.
Throughout the movie, we slowly see how the radation has effected Von Doom. His skin and bone structure are becoming metal, and he has powers over electricity. He turns Grimm against Richards, and uses his powers to reverse the process on The Thing. That's when he starts taking out the rest of the group. Grimm changes his mind, and exposes himself to the radiation once again. This leads to the final showdown between the Four and Doom. In the end, they heat up Doom, then cool him down, but I doubt he's dead.
Anyhoo, I was slightly dissapointed with this one. The look and effects were exceptional, but the story and performances were a little subpar. Mike Chiklis as Grimm was the stand-out in the film, playing the real person. The rest of the cast was wooden and kind of annoying. Julian McMahon was servicable, as well, but was a little over the top. Jessica Alba, as Sue Storm, was very hot, but not very good to watch. It was a let-down and I should have seen it coming. Just wait till they ruin X-Men next year.
6 of 10.
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