December 18, 2006 - 2:50 pm
I have come to realize that, as much as I love being a geek, I’m not a very good one. I’m consistently two years behind the latest geek hardware. I’ve never actually read any graphic novels or fantasy fiction (outside of Tolkien). I never actually played Dungeons & Dragons. Thus I am at a disadvantage when I join ranks with geeks of more pure lineage. This becomes especially apparent around comic-book-based movies.
I’ve heard lots of chatter about how, even though all three X-Men movies were extremely entertaining, they offended many comic book purists. I loved Hellboy, but I wasn’t even sure it was based on a comic until I watched the DVD extras.
With that said, I would guess that fans of the F4 comic books would hate this movie. It contains much more Hollywood cliche that I expected. While I admit, I’ve never even seen a real F4 comic book, I can’t imagine that any main-stream comic would be as campy. The script spends a lot of time (and by “a lot”, I mean 3/4 of the movie) trying to flesh out the characters. A better writer could have fully developed the characters in five minutes. Instead, we get fifty.
Other parts of the script left me honestly puzzled. In any comic book flick, one must be willing to step a bit outside of reality, but Fantastic 4 goes a step beyond and asks you to step outside of common sense. Example: To get past a police blockade, Sue (the invisible girl) has to take off her clothes and sneak by. This sets up a predictable gag, but after the gag is had, we find the whole team inside the police blockade. Umm… Exactly how did her being invisible (and naked) get the other guys in? There too many similar plot holes to list here, but you get the idea.
The effects were top-notch. Unfortunately, 90% of the effects shots were in the trailer, so rather than thinking, “Ooh! That was cool,” I thought, “Oh, I remember that from the commercials.”
In the end, F4 felt more like a poorly done sci-fi movie, than a well done comic book movie. Maybe it’s because the bar has been set so high in this genre, but that doesn’t change the fact that this movie came up a little short. I didn’t hate it, but if I’d paid $8 to see it, I might have. I give it two grins.
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