Movie Review: Fantastic Four

Courtesy of Marve/20th Century Fox

Story points and plot is divulged below...read at your own peril.

The Marvel universe has been taken in a lot of good directions over the past 15 or so years.   The X-Men franchise - though had some middling along the way - has overall been very strong thanks to some great directing work. The Avengers (including Hulk and Iron Man movies) has also had some issues but again the strength is still there making the franchise a billion dollar entity.

All of this was possible because Marvel stepped up and basically created their own production house - not satisfied with letting others take the lead on their own characters.   Which is what makes this film so surprisingly bad.

Actually, let me take that back...it's not bad; it's worse than bad - it's boring.

Fantastic Four is a reboot to the previously failed franchise staring Ioan Gruffudd (King Arthur), Michael Chiklis (The Shield) and Jessica Alba (Sin City) which held true to the original story of how the team got their powers. The first movie wasn't bad, a typical Origin Story to introduce an audience not all that familiar with superhero movies back in 2005.   Where the train went off the tracks was in the second film when they decided to follow the Silver Surfer/Galactus storyline (an utterly famous arc in the comics which has spawned hundreds of stories since) but apparently deciding that a giant pink and purple humanoid with amazing powers and gadgets they made Galactus some kind of cloud creature with tentacles...yeah.

So, is the new Fantastic Four worse than tentacle monster Galactus? Sadly, yes.

The film dives into the childhood of Reed Richards and Ben Grimm where, in fifth grade, the two collaborate on an amazing device that can transport matter into another dimension.   Fast Forward seven years (so that makes Reed like...17?) and one of the top minds in the world is trolling high school science fairs looking for talent? Yeup.

Courtesy of Marve/20th Century Fox

Richards gets brought on board at the Baxter institute where Franklin Storm (Sue and Johnny's father) runs a prestigious (although apparently secretly funded) institute for gifted youngsters.

Oh, and Von Doom is there.

Richards and the team, along with Doom who is apparently a badass with a past (that isn't gone into other than in random asides) and whom is in love with Sue (gotta keep that part of the continuity, right?) work to complete a large-scale version of Reed's original machine to travel to this new universe.

After testing it and confirming it works the team gets benched in lieu of professionals (a novel concept) but the boys get drunk and decide to use the device themselves.   Predictably that endeavor goes awry leaving Doom presumed dead in the other universe and the other three transformed. The trip back causes some sort of disruption field which affects Sue as she's wildly and RANDOMLY TYPING A MILE A MINUTE ON A KEYBOARD because we all know that the faster and more random you type into a scientific computer the more likely you are to be successful at what you're trying to do. Not blaming Mara for bad acting necessarily...though she seemed to do kind of the same thing in House of Cards a couple times...

So now they've got powers and are going to team up to save the world, right?!?!? Wrong.

Courtesy of Marve/20th Century Fox

To apparently create heightened and never actually fulfilled drama to this story Richards runs away from the complex the team is being held at. He disappears, naked, from a hidden and totally off-the-grid military installation in the middle of winter...just, why?

The story skips ahead a year. They've all gotten better control of their powers and a new device is ready to transport a team back to the other universe...where Doom is alive and has been busy cultivating world-altering powers!

In the end the movie culminates in an all-to-short fight between the Four and Doom where predictably and incredibly easily they are victorious. The world is saved!

I was genuinely excited for this reboot. The FF are one of my favorite teams as they are origin of my favorite Marvel character the Silver Surfer who has played a prominent role in their universe of the decades of comics. It seems really unlikely the studio will green-light a sequel given how much this movie has been panned; which is unfortunate. And if Twitter is to be believed even the Director thinks the final product is shite...intimating that there were outside influences at work that destroyed his better vision.

Courtesy of Marve/20th Century Fox

The cast had promise but the story was flawed. Buried in the minutia of character development. Why does there need to be a origin story movie for all superhero characters? Where is that written?   Jedi have the Force - it's explained (albeit briefly) and then it's understood and accepted. There's no damned origin movie explaining how Jedi's got their powers or why. Just make a movie that's entertaining and shows the characters in their element. If people don't understand why so and so has these powers and what's his name has those powers they can FUCKING GOOGLE IT.

It just feels that these movies more often than not fail due to the hindrance of having to spend screen time devoted to explaining things that don't really need explaining. Just tell us a fun, entertaining, action laden story!

Sadly FF is a big pass.   Don't waste your money. If you want to see it, wait for streaming of DVD.   The graphics and fight scenes don't even require the big screen like most action movies do - there's not enough of them to warrant it.

Tb

Bin Fodder: Marvel – 1602

Hello!  Welcome to this week’s edition of Bin Fodder.  Today I’m dipping back into the mainstream to talk about Marvel Comic’s 1602.  I do this for two reasons: first, because it’s Neil Gaiman, one of comics’ most celebrated indie writers with books like Sandman and Books of Magic to his credit. Gaiman, like me, has dipped his toe in the mainstream waters before having done spot-writing on Batman and Detective Comics.  He teamed with artist Andy Kubert of the famous Kubert family of artists to create Marvel 1602. And second, because I have yet to review a Marvel book and it seemed only fitting that I do so.  

The story of Marvel 1602 sets many of Marvel’s classic characters, including the Original X-Men, the Fantastic Four and Daredevil (Matt Murdoch), in early-modern Europe.  The premise for the existence of these characters is divulged by the Watcher Uatu to Dr. Steven Strange through a very Gaiman-esque style of linguistics magic.  Essentially, a hero from modern times (our present) is displaced into the past which creates a rip in the time/space continuum.  The Universe, in an effort of self-preservation, sets in motion the events which establish a force strong enough to stem the tide and fix the problem (the classic hero characters).  There’s just one problem with this: he rip in time takes place fifteen years prior to the beginning of the story and many if not all of the hero’s are far older than fifteen.  But, it’s comics, so we let that go and move on. In an effort not to give away the ending (since I am not one to have spoilers in my articles) I will simply say that working together the combined forces of the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and many others save the universe, as is to be expected.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

To go along with Gaiman’s well-known and much ballyhooed style of writing, Kubert does an outstanding job of designing the characters to fit in with the motif of their surroundings.  In many ways Marvel 1602 is the company’s attempt at doing what DC Comics did back in the mid-nineties with Kingdom Come stylistically if not symbolically, which is to show very established characters in new forms and in a new light.  With Richard Isanove doing the digital illustration which, of course, pales in comparison to the paintings of Alex Ross, nonetheless is magnificent in its own right.  

 

In the world of Marvel 1602 there are two villains, the first and main is Otto von Doom (a.k.a. Dr. Doom) who is still set up as the iron-fisted ruler of Latveria.  The second, and much more minor, is Richard of Scotland, who sees fit to supplant the queen and rule all of the United Kingdom.  Doom, much like his modern counterpart, is desirous of knowledge and bent on ruling the world.  In this alternate reality he has captured the Fantastic Four and uses fear of reprisal against the others to force Richard Reed (a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic) into aiding in his scientific endeavors. 

 

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Other characters play large roles as well, such as Sir Nicholas Fury (a.k.a. Nick Fury), Thor and Peter Parquagh (a.k.a. Spiderman), though he does not assume the role of Spiderman until volume two of the story (not covered here).  And some make very minor appearances such as Sister Wanda (a.k.a. Scarlet Witch) and her brother Petros (a.k.a. Quicksilver) as well as Vulture Fliers, who are in fact assassins who appear to be genetically engineered clones. 

Marvel 1602 does a good job of taking the reader into that period of time with colloquial terminology and staunch religious doctrines.  Where the story falls a little flat is, as stated previously, in the timeline but also in the use of the characters.  Gaiman does what I think many of us sometimes wish to see, superheroes acting super, but he shows his lack of experience in the field during this story.  Gaiman has too many characters for an eight-issue miniseries and it shows in the lack of time that the majority of them see action.  I can see where he was compelled to include the Fantastic Four in the story since it could prove somewhat more difficult to have the X-Men battle a villain they’ve not regularly, if ever, faced.  However, that’s the fun of alternate reality stories!  Go outside the norm, go beyond comfort levels!  I don’t know if I am to blame Marvel Comics or if I am to blame Gaiman for this fault, so I shall blame them both equally.  The story of Marvel 1602 could have been so much greater had he not tried to squeeze in so much.

Overall, the art and the dialogue of Marvel 1602 rate four stars, but lack of imagination and faith in the readership brings that down. 

So, my friends, go Bin Diving and find this and other gems!

Until next time,

This is Bin Fodder Guru Tim Blacksmith signing off!

R & R ain't overrated

It's true...today is a seriously lazy day. Sure, I went in to the office for a couple hours this morning (something I truly regret and has left me forlorn) I persevere!

I have a couple new articles up on 8daysageek. I posted one on Wednesday night that talks about the death of Fantastic Four character The Human Torch and how comic book companies continue to kill off characters only to bring them back. So should readers really care? It also explores the opposite side of the spectrum where companies use the destruction of a character or characters for a larger purpose. Even if you're not currently interested in comics you should still check out the article...if only to support me! Haha, but seriously, it has some interesting points of view, which if you're reading my blog you clearly enjoy.

The second post went up today and like previous posts is my weekly review of an independent comic. This week it's White Picket Fences. You could say this was a homer move of shameless proportions since I know the creative team but I would say that the book deserves recognition as a quality independent title! The article reviews the mini-series and double-sized one-shot that have been produced thus far. It's a fun review, check it out!

You may be thinking, "that's a lot of work...where's the R & R you speak of" and you'd be right, thus far. But the rest of my day is gonna be all dinner and episodes of NBC's Community! Gotta rest up for the big basketball tournament tomorrow. Yes, I'm playing in it, not just attending some sporting event that I'm going to watch and thus need to rest up for. Sheesh!

If we win, I will let you know...if we lose, you will probably never hear mention of it ever again.

Alright, short one today.

Peace,

Tb (JQ)