You know, comic book movies or should I say, the reaction to comic book movies (and specifically for the purposes of this post, the Marvel Comics movies) is weird these days. First and foremost I guess is the Marvel Studios films where movies range from the really good (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor) to the not-so-good (Iron Man 2, Incredible Hulk). New Line had a good thing with Blade, until the 3rd one sucked the joint out. 20th Century Fox usually have hits with the X-Men series (though I don't really know why, the movies aren't that great) and Columbia Pictures have either had hits (Spider-Man 1 & 2, Ghost Rider), or misses (Spider-Man 3, Ghost Rider 2) or colossal bungles (Spider-Man 4...okay, it hasn't come out, but the movie looks like ass). Which leads me to the Fantastic Four series. Yes, all the series I've mentioned previously have had their ups and downs, but it seems at least with the Film A-hole and Rehab Troupe (or FART, if you will), this series is among the most derided. The question is, why?
First of all, I think unlike some of the other movies mentioned, this comic book movie series is actually fun. Yes, that's right; FUN! Imagine a comic book series that's actually fun. We can't have that! We can't have fun! Where is all the brooding if we have fun? The grittiness? The realism? NO! No fun! Movies are not fun, they are serious educational pieces about how a billionaire who dresses as a bat could realistically clean up the city! NO FUN! You see my point. The Fantastic Four was not gritty, no realistic, no brooding, not taking social issues of today and trying to jam them into a place they don't really belong. The Fantastic Four was just a jolly good time and nowadays, that is not permitted, at least not if FART has anything to to do with it.
Secondly, it appears there are problems with at least one of the actors and we know who we're talking about. It's not Michael Chikilis or Ioan Gruffald. It was Jessica Alba. At the time (and I suppose this still goes on today, though her career appears to be in a black hole right, now), Jessica was one of our resident hotties, a girl who got more press for her looks than for her talent. Right or wrong you can debate until the sun goes down, but the more people panted for her physically, the more it seemed that the rest of the critics, the serious people mind you were more than willing to rip down her talent as they could not do so with her looks. We're talking about a woman who has been nominated for 4 Razzies for 11 films she made (including both Fantastic Four), so that may have something to do with the movie's hate label as well.
The third reason and this might be the most deserving reason why these films are "hated" is because they made some bad choices. Look, I really do like these films and would consider getting them on blu-ray at some point, but in both films, they kinda screwed the pooch a little. They didn't use Dr. Doom enough in part 1 and they completely frigged up Galactus is part 2. We heard about these bad choices all over the 'Net and I do agree, these were mistakes. However, I feel that looking at the sum of the movies, (and the sum of other movies as well), these mistakes while not being completely forgiven, can at least be put on the backburner a little bit. The 4 look good, they have their powers, they have their origin, they do have a big fight with Dr. Doom at the end, they have the right personalities for their characters...what more do you want? Yeah, I could have used more Dr. Doom as well, but the Director's Cut gives you a little bit more as well...I don't know what else to say. For this film to be hated, it just boggles the mind.
So, that's my analysis of Fantastic Four. A movie that is hated for being fun, hated for the publicity giving to the main actress and hated for some mistakes in their story. If not following the comics to a T is cause for hatred, then all comic movies, including the blessed Dark Knight and the rest of the Marvel movies should be hated as well.
Rating: Worth the hate: NO!
- Stephenstein
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