Fantastic Four: The Movie

I think Jessica stole Mr. Fantastic's arched eyebrow, which Mr. Spock should've copyrighted stardates ago.

Why is "cute" in quotes but not "clean"?

I can't believe they have photos already, didn't they just cast this a couple weeks ago? The summer went by FAST.

Anyway, so far this definitely looks better than the Corman version. I'm less concerned about how Sue looks than how the Thing and the Torch will look in motion. Now that the wheels are in motion, I can't say "Well, if they can't do it right, they won't do it" anymore.

FYI - a recent episode of _The Venture Brothers_ (a kewl Adult Swim homage to Johnny Quest & related chicanery) recently featured some FF-like folks as antagonists. Look alive, true believers!

I'm not worried about script reviews, though -- especially with a movie like this, where the script rapidly becomes a suggestion. My copy of the Batman script has Knox comically clonking the Joker out cold with a baseball bat.

It's how much of the 'old college nemesis' Doom Origin they can get away with in a 2hr movie. Just establishing him as an evil scientist whose face gets accidentally burnt off by Reed would do it.

That's probably one of the fundamental challenges of lots of superhero movies, though -- making room for both the superhero origin and the villain origin while still having time for a story.

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/encyclopedie.univers.marvel/Rubriques/Etat%20civil/The%20Mole%20Man_1.gif

You know, if money were no object or special effects could do more than I think they can, or ... something ... I'd say Galactus. What if the cosmic rays were "exhaust radiation" from his ship as he enters Earth's solar system? That seems like a pretty harmless way of introducing heroes and villain at the same time, although a lot of mystery would remain about who and what Galactus actually is.

(It would make for a very science fictiony superhero movie, but that's bound to be the case anyway, right?)

Still, Galactus is a pretty hard act to follow, sequel-wise.

(Except for The Hulk.)

As far as the final product ... some good stuff (especially if you decide to see it as a remake of the TV show instead of the comic), some odd stuff, but the special effects and the essential personality-lessness (personalityless-ness? personal Les Nesman?) of the Hulk himself tanked it for me. The special effects I can forgive -- I mean, what're you gonna do, there's always an element of luck there -- but I really need a Banner/Hulk situation where you've got warring personalities, like (but preferably not perfectly mapped to) Jekyl/Hyde -- not a conflict between a personality and a null, which is what we get in the movie and (maybe slightly less so) the Bixby show.

(Very tangentially: Shyamalan's post-Sense movies have hit me the same way. Unbreakable is a solid first act. Signs is like the first few chapters of a Larry Niven novel. The Village -- I actually have fewer structural issues with The Village than the other two, and it's still recent enough that I don't like to spoil it. But it often feels like he's structuring novels, and then when he gets to the point where he's going to run out of film, he just stops. It's especially weird since Sixth Sense is almost flawlessly structured.)

Living armor? I hope I read that wrong.

And yes, Fanboy Rampage is good for hours of amusement on a daily basis.

I forgot all about the uproar over Morrison's comment. Jesus, that was inane.

(xpost; entitlement is a good word for it, I'm guilty of that myself)

* - However, it's possible that I'm a Grant Morrison fanboy...

This appears to be what happens in Ultimate Fantastic Four, by the way (except they haven't gone into space but some other-dimensional thingie).

ihttp://superherohype.com/gallery/Fantastic_Four/The_Movie/Movie_Stills/thing.jpg

http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/f41.jpg

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg

Also, the soundtrack should have theremins in it.

Also, some trumpet fanfares are U&K in this PopArt FF flick.

The Red Ghost would be an AWFUL villain for a movie, though. Which, of course, would make him perfect for this project.

That episode of The Venture Brothers was hilarious -- the movie probably won't even be half as good.

I kinda wish Patrick Warburton was the Thing, now that I think about it. Or Mr. Fantastic! OR DOOM!

http://www.cinescape.com/0/editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Games&action=page&obj_id=43221

Michael Chiklis moves onto an even bigger Thing in Fantastic Four
By Christy Lemire
NEW YORK (AP) — The Boston Red Sox have been known to drive their fans crazy. For longtime, wicked-diehard Michael Chiklis, they helped keep him sane.
While shooting the movie Fantastic Four in Vancouver, Chiklis spent long, arduous hours being transformed into the comic-book superhero The Thing.
It was hot, heavy, head-to-toe.
“It was hellish,” said the actor best known for playing tough-guy detective Vic Mackey on the FX television series The Shield.
But fortunately for the New England native, all this was taking place last October while his beloved Sox were making the run to their first World Series victory in 86 years — and that provided some relief.
“The Red Sox sincerely got me through this movie,” Chiklis told The Associated Press over an egg-white omelette breakfast.
“Sixty pounds of latex, it was hellish. So I spent most of my time in the makeup chair watching the Boston Red Sox, which was phenomenal. This was during the playoffs and the series. I saw all of it,” said Chiklis, who turns 42 on Aug. 30 — the same birthday as baseball great Ted Williams.
“Sometimes I saw whole games without doing a shot in my full makeup. I needed something, anything, to get me out of my head when I was in that.”
Chiklis changed his body four years ago to win the part of Mackey, a cop with a fluid sense of right and wrong, which earned him a surprise lead-actor Emmy in 2002 and a Golden Globe the following year.
He’d shaved his head and worked out two hours a day, six days a week, to shed the roly-poly shape he had from playing John Belushi in the 1989 film Wired — his first big break, which bombed — and starring in the ’90s TV series The Commish.
In person, the affable, blue-eyed Chiklis has some of the same energy as his TV persona, as if he’s about to burst out of his skin even before his first cup of coffee.
But after preparing to play Ben Grimm, an astronaut who mutates into the hulking, orange Thing after being exposed to radiation, he realized, “I blew it — I did the wrong thing.”
“I thought, well, I’m gonna be in this suit all day, I’m going to need endurance, so I started running 10Ks,” he said. “The day I put it on I realized I had made a mistake — I had trained improperly for this. It’s 60 pounds and it’s insanely hot. And I rarely got into any kind of cardiovascular area but my heart rate went up immediately because of the heat. What I should have done was put a 60-pound pack on my back and walked around with it for 12 hours.”
Director Tim Story (Barbershop, Taxi) tried to be attentive to how Chiklis was feeling. He shifted around the schedule with co-stars Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba and Chris Evans and used doubles whenever possible to get Chiklis out of the costume quickly.
“When he first got in the suit, I remember him going — with just the mask on — ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’ And in that instant as we sat and talked about it, he felt better,” Story said.
“It was scary when he first said that to me,” he added. “This guy is such a professional; for him to say that, you know he’s serious. He’s not a diva who cries when he has blue M&M’s in his M&M jar.”
Story, who’d watched The Shield, said Chiklis was his first choice for the role.
“He’s just a great actor,” he said. “He has this hard exterior but at the same time you know he’s a teddy bear, and that’s kind of how Ben Grimm is.”
A summer popcorn movie might seem like a surprising choice for someone who has received such acclaim for the powerful work he’s done with meaty, adult material.
Chiklis acknowledges: “I didn’t take this because it was going to be a tour de force as an actor. I have that satiated with The Shield, I really do. ...
“I did this for my kids, for myself,” he said with a laugh. “I loved The Thing when I was growing up.”
But appearing in a big action movie which could turn into a franchise is part of a bigger plan, something he’s discussed with his wife of 13 years, Michelle, with whom he has two daughters: 11-year-old Autumn, who also plays his daughter on The Shield, and six-year-old Odessa.
“Frankly, quite honestly, for a career, it’s not a stupid move to become involved with something like this,” he said. “It’s employment potentially for 10 years. It gets your name out there in an international context that puts you on all those lists that you must be on as an actor in order to get movies greenlit. It’s a giant, tremendous stepping stone, is what it is. But it’s also great in itself — a great job to have, a great vehicle to be involved in.”
Born in Lowell, Mass., and raised in nearby Andover from age 5, Chiklis said he knew he wanted to be an actor “since before I had memory.” Growing up, he would spend time in his father’s hair salons, hanging out and flirting with the ladies.
“It was actually an incredible place to learn about women, in a beauty salon. ’Cause you listen, you hear what interests women, what they like to talk about.”
As for the woman who would become his wife, Chiklis met her 15 years ago in Los Angeles “at a party neither one of us wanted to go to. We were both dragged there by our respective group of friends, and we met and that was it, pretty much. We’ve never been apart since.”
Chiklis, who studied acting at Boston University, still has plenty of ties to New England.
Several childhood buddies still live there, and he went back to throw out the first pitch before a Sox game at Fenway Park in 2003. He also had the thrill of introducing the New England Patriots before this year’s Super Bowl.
“I said ‘What, is Matt Damon busy?”’ he joked.
But home is Los Angeles, the setting for the graphic police drama The Shield, though series creator Shawn Ryan admits he originally envisioned an unknown, young Harrison Ford type for Chiklis’ role.
“What Michael brought — I remember the moment Michael walked out of the first audition — (director) Clark Johnson turned to me and said, ‘’That was fantastic. He’s like a pit bull with a badge.’ I said, ‘Yeah, that was really interesting.’ It was something completely different than I had intended but it just immediately felt right.”
Since then, Ryan said, Chiklis has “gotten subtler — in a great way.”
“He walked in an amazing actor. It’s nothing like we fixed him,” he said, laughing.
“What’s always impressed me with Michael is he’s always able to go to the well within himself and bring out different sides of Vic, different moves, different looks,” Ryan added.
Chiklis has something different in mind for himself off-camera, too. He wants to direct, which he got a taste of last year when he directed an episode that featured his daughter.
“It was thrilling,” he said. “I just love making movies — every aspect of it — and there are so many talented people in the business, particularly on a show like The Shield. What direction is, really, is just that. You’re sort of steering and allowing talented people to be talented.
“It’s the ultimate team sport.”

Maybe I used up all my optimism on Batman and am now just looking for trouble. But Johnny Storm still looks GREAT!

Not even close, schmuck.

Oh boy.

Also, WTF, Sue Storm-Richards-Namor is boom bangin!

I actually know screw all about the FF -- it must be the one of the few comic I've never read an issue of. What's the classic era? Was there ever any kind of definitive 80s/90s "edgy" retake? Did Byrne ever fuck them up?

The Fantastic Four!

So, in brief (plot spoiler free-ish, I think) --

Good stuff: I'm guessing (seeing as I've never read the comic) Chiklis and the dude what plays Human Torch nailed the characters pretty definitively. Chiklis has that crowd-pleaser-Wolverine-Alfred-type-of-tole, although strangely he's much better with the make-up on than off. The Thing's make-up is pretty awesome, too.

Not-sure-stuff: It's nice to see a superhero movie that doesn't treat superpowers as some kind of faux-grandiose metaphor for the human condition. Here, the Fantastic Four just have powers because, y'know, powers are COOL. The minus side of that is that the movie is completely dense.

Sucky Stuff: A whole lot. Weslh Mr Fantastic is really drippy and boring, as is Dr Nip/Tuck as Doom. (Nobody acutally calls him "Dr" Doom, for some reason.) The FX, by and large, look like a CGI straight-to-video movie from 5 years ago. There's barely any action scenes, just lots of emo pouting, and Tim Story's a terrible action director anyway. And the storyline is TERRIBLE. (The Fanastic Four get their powers! Dr Doom doesn't like them! And THAT'S IT.)

Alba stuff: in her knickers for like three seconds.

So, it's not a disaster, but it's nothing special neither.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050706/REVIEWS/507070301

The Human Torch, to repeat, can burn at supernova temperatures! He can become so hot, indeed, that he could threaten the very existence of the Earth itself! This is absolutely stupendously amazing, wouldn't you agree? If you could burn at supernova temperatures, would you be able to stop talking about it? I know people who won't shut up about winning 50 bucks in the lottery.

Dude seems to have more problem w/ the concept (and conceit) of the FF than the actual flick.

This is gonna be Daredevil all over again. I'm gonna go walk off a pier. Sniffle.

I love any Roger Ebert review that contains the phrase "Are all these people idiot?"

Seriously (not really), mightn't there be a practical reason for Alba-Storm's push-up, something to do with G-Forces or Zero-G, or the dreaded Squirrel Effect!

(movie critic calling in)

CRITIC: blah blah (delivering review which is more or less fine but clearly coming from someone not familiar with the characters)

HOST: John, let me guess, you collect comic books, don't you? Be honest now!

CRITIC: No I don't Bob, and I'm quite proud of that fact.

ME: argh

("lovers of cheesecake and skinny girls", ha)

AWESOME.

And I have to apologize to Baffleck and Daredevil - if you chop off that overlong origin sequence (and mmmmmmmaybe the park-bench sparring scene), it's a servicable flick.

I thought Chiklis was going to suck, but he actually turned out to be pretty good. Chris Evans was good too, but the rest of the cast was kind of meh. I like Julian McMahon in Nip/Tuck, but he was a little disapointing as Dr. Doom.

It's also kinda funny that so many folks are pissing on this movie (according to the Rotten Tomatoes meter - 29% and rising?) in light of other Marvel franchises, as the FF was the one that started it all - in a sense, it was the first one out of the box, and They Who Created It probably learned from their mistakes going forward. The fact that the origin story of the FF needs to be severely rejiggered to seem more plausable to an modern-day audience, while Spidey's origin can be moved from the book to the screen w/ very little changed, says a lot.

Also, to some extent, the FF were often cyphers in their own stories, serving as a quaint blue backdrop so KirbyCo could go buckwild w/ ideas like Galactus & the Inhumans & the Negative Zone, so that probably has something to do w/ the airyness of this flick as well.

I think the thing that irritated me so much about Reed's character is that I knew so many people like that from college, most of whom deserved shaking.

I was partial to the shaving cream montage, tho I will admit that the first scene w/ the Thing (meeting his wife / fiancee in the shadows) choked me up a bit. Even that oh-come-on-now part on the bridge got me. (These damn superhero flix make me all emo.)

One of my friends said that Jessica Alba should have gotten acting powers rather than invisibility powers. It was a little unfair but kind of true. Still, SHE WAS AWESOME esp. when flustered/angry.

I was too busy wondering "Who runs out into a city street in a little nightie?!?!?" to be choked up.

OTM!!! That scene caused supermegaROFFLES for us.

I think if they'd done exactly the same movie as a 2-D cartoon, it would've rocked.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_review/0,4267,1533423,00.html

Also, I kept thinking if they'd moved Latveria to Africa and cast Daniel Dumile, not only would the indie rap geek in me be happy, but it might have made for a better flick.

Some comicsy stuff:

http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2005_07_01_wedge_archive.html#112281494765100611

Silver Surfer - Norrin Radd

Rad! Dude! D'oh!

I hope they don't address this at all and just have Sue be invisible for the duration of the second film. Like maybe have animating bra & panties. Oh yeah.

in which Alba reveals that there will be a love triangle btwn Sue, Reed and the Silver Surfer, so this'll be a Galactus movie.

but…it should be btwn Namor, Sue and Reed. If SS is in a triangle, it should be between him, Thing and Alicia.

Wha-a-a-a-a-a-t a revoltin' development!

and it'll be called "Every Thing Is Illuminated"