So Tom (and Beth—whom I’m beginning to suspect is a closet superhero junkie) and I went to see Fantastic Four last night. As Lap had mentioned, it was definitely air-conditioned fun. And on a day when the temperature climbed to 95, any kind of air-conditioned fun is welcome. Oddly enough, though—and contra pretty much everyone else who has anything good to say about the movie (Lap included)—Michael Chiklis as the Thing wasn’t the actor/character I was most interested in. I got a much bigger kick out of Chris Evans as the Human Torch.
You thought I was going to say Jessica Alba, didn’t you? It’s okay, I don’t take it personally. Especially since she’s obviously the reason I signed up to see the movie in the first place. But Jessica’s no Lawrence Olivier, and although she took her shirt off at one point in the movie I need a little more than that to occupy my mind for two hours. And the Human Torch delivered. At least moreso than anyone else in the cast. And I felt like I’d seen that actor before, but a quick glance at his screen credits in the link above proved to me that I have, in fact, not seen him in anything else. I’m always impressed by actors who can make me think I’ve seen them before. It indicates a screen presence that’s hard to come by.
On the other hand, one guy who did not impress me was the dude who played Mr. Fantastic. He looked way too nerdy for the part. I have only limited knowledge of the Fantastic Four comic book, but I’m pretty sure Mr. Fantastic should be portrayed more as a professor from Gilligan’s Island-type. That is, super smart but still a bit of a ladies’ man, even if he doesn’t realize it. Beth said it best as we were leaving the theater: “A dork like him could never get Jessica Alba. I don’t care if she’s a nerd, too—it’s just ain’t gonna happen.” Amen, Beth. Amen.
But perhaps my biggest disappointment was that this movie—like so many other superhero movies—focused way too much on the origins of the heroes. Instead of using their powers and kicking as much ass as possible, they spent half the movie trying to figure out how to get rid of their powers. I hate that. For as lame as The Hulk was, at least he smashed up a lot of shit in those two hours. Plus, as origins go, the Fantastic Four’s origin is pretty silly (cosmic rays are involved—need I say more?). But they were created in the early ’60s, when it was all about cosmic rays and radiation—so it’s excusable as an artifact of Cold War culture. But in a mainstream movie made in 2005? Couldn’t we have skipped all that and just counted on the audience members to suspend their disbelief?
That’s probably why I’m so looking forward to the next Superman movie. Brian Singer (whom I trust implicitly as a superhero movie director) isn’t going to rehash Superman’s origin for the seventy-billionth time; he’s going to assume that we all know who Superman is. Because guess what? We do! That character’s an icon. Explaining him is like explaining James Bond. There’s no point. Get on with the action!
All I can say is if there’s a sequel to this Fantastic Four movie, I hope they riff on the initial Galactus/Silver Surfer story or else I’m just not interested. I don’t care how many times Jessica Alba takes her shirt off.
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