We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
THE FANTASTIC FOUR (1994)
The 1994 adaptation of the Marvel Comics property The Fantastic Four has a fascinating story behind it. In the mid-1980s, producer Bernd Eichinger and his production company Constantin Film were able to acquire the Fantastic Four film rights from Marvel for a price that’s said to have been around $250,000. Craig J. Nevius and Kevin Rock were hired to write a screenplay, but Eichinger couldn’t get any of the major studios to put up the 40 to 45 million dollar budget budget that would be required to properly make the comic book movie. Eichinger was going to lose the rights on December 31, 1992 and couldn’t get Marvel to extend his option – so, in September of ‘92, he turned to legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman, who offered him a budget of $1 million to make a quick and cheap Fantastic Four movie that would be released through Corman’s distribution company, New Horizons Pictures. Eichinger took the deal. He didn’t have any other choice. Music video director Oley Sassone, who had a couple of low budget thrillers to his name, was hired to direct the film and it was rushed through pre-production so filming could start on December 28. Just three days before Eichinger would have lost the rights.
Production lasted for three weeks, or just slightly over. Eichinger had successfully made a Fantastic Four movie. Marketing started in ‘93, with a premiere scheduled for January ‘94. But then Marvel executive Avi Arad heard that a Fantastic Four movie had been made on the cheap and decided to put an end to this. Feeling that a low budget movie would harm the brand, he paid off Eichinger and Corman with a couple of million dollars in cash to make sure the movie would never be released. It was supposed to be buried, all prints destroyed… but bootlegs quickly started circulating, and The Fantastic Four ‘94 is one of the most widely available “unreleased” movies that has ever been made.
And shockingly, given the low budget and short production schedule, it’s actually not that bad. It’s not great, but it’s surprisingly good, despite being incredibly cheesy at times. It may even be, against all odds, the best Fantastic Four movie we’ve gotten to date.
The story begins with Reed Richards (Alex Hyde-White) and Victor Von Doom (Joseph Culp) as friends in college who are planning to conduct some kind of experiment involving a passing comet (or a radioactive, comet-like energy source) called Colossus. It’s not clear exactly what they’re trying to do, but they’ve been working on it for four years. Reed wants to run a simulation, Victor doesn’t – and Victor pays the price for his impatience, as he’s disfigured and believed to be killed when their machinery overheats and he gets zapped in the midst of the experiment.
Colossus is traveling around the world in ten year orbits, so when it comes back around, Reed is ready – and this time he’s going to meet the comet-like thing in space, on a flight where he’s accompanied by his best friend and former military pilot Ben Grimm (Michael Bailey Smith) and two now-adult children of the woman who ran the boarding house he lived in, Susan and Johnny Storm (Rebecca Staab and Jay Underwood). The key to their safety during this close encounter with Colossus is a large diamond that’s placed in the center of their ship’s cosmic refractor. Unfortunately, an odd little criminal fellow called The Jeweler (Ian Trigger), who was originally meant to be the Mole Man character from the comic books, steals the diamond and replaces it with a fake, which causes Reed, Ben, Susan, and Johnny to absorb the radiation of Colossus… And when their ship crash lands, they discover that they have strange new superpowers. The radiation has altered their DNA and turned their character defects into strengths – so the shy Susan is now able to turn invisible, the hot-tempered Johnny can now create and control flames, Reed – who always stretched himself thin – can now stretch his body parts, and Ben – who always relied on brute strength – is now not only extremely strong, but his body is covered in a rock-like substance. In this form, Ben is known as The Thing, and the FX crew did a good job of creating The Thing on a low budget. Michael Bailey Smith is known for doing creature performances under heavy make-up, like when he appeared as Super Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child or played the radioactivity mutant Pluto in the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, so it’s odd that he handed the Thing costume performance over to Carl Ciarfalio.
Reed’s new experiment catches the attention of the villainous monarch Dr. Doom, who is actually Victor in an armored suit, so the newly created Fantastic Four have to deal with him and his army lackeys, who are out to retrieve the diamond from The Jeweler. Meanwhile, The Jeweler has abducted a blind sculptor named Alicia Masters (Kat Green) in hopes of making her underground queen, but Alicia is smitten with Ben, despite the fact that they’ve only briefly crossed paths. The tone of the scenes involving The Jeweler can sometimes be cringe-inducing, but it’s the “romance” between Alicia and Ben that stands out as the most ridiculous element of the entire film.
The film has plenty of shortcomings and awkward or downright bad moments (and the filmmakers were not up to the challenge of Johnny fully becoming the Human Torch in the climactic sequence), but it still manages to be a serviceable Fantastic Four origin story and features a great presentation of the Dr. Doom character. It deserved a lot better than a half-assed attempt at wiping it from existence.
FANTASTIC FOUR (2005)
After getting the low budget Fantastic Four movie scrapped, Avi Arad quickly accomplished something Bernd Eichinger hadn’t been able to: he secured a major studio deal for a new Fantastic Four movie. The project was set up at 20th Century Fox and the studio ended up pumping somewhere in the range of 85 to 100 million dollars into it, around twice the amount or more than Eichinger had ever been hoping to get. Unfortunately, it also took nearly ten years for it to make its way through development hell, passing through the hands of multiple screenwriters and potential directors. It ended up being directed by Tim Story, with Mark Frost and Michael France taking credit for the screenplay... and the finished film feels oddly small, despite the large budget. There’s really not a whole lot going on in this movie.
Ioan Gruffudd plays Reed Richard, who is struggling to get funding for his research. He believes that exposure to a high-energy cosmic storm borne on solar winds might have triggered the evolution of early planetary life – and since another cloud with the same elemental profile will soon be passing Earth’s orbit, he wants to catch a flight to space so he can examine this cloud up close. He feels it could advance knowledge of the human genome, leading to the discovery of cures for diseases and ways to extend human life. Desperate, he turns to his former classmate Victor von Doom (Julian McMahon), who already has a space station in orbit that Reed could study the cloud from. Victor agrees to let Reed board his space station, but he doesn’t let him use his pilot of choice, Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis). Instead, he brings in irreverent ladies man / NASA washout Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) as the pilot, with Ben riding shotgun. And he makes Reed work alongside the Director of Genetic Research at his company: Reed’s former girlfriend Susan Storm. They cast Jessica Alba as this character, then made her dye her hair blonde and wear blue contact lenses so she would more closely resemble the comic book version of the character, trying to pass it off like this is her natural look even though it seems strange.
Reed, Susan, Johnny, Ben, and Victor are all on the space station within ten minutes of the movie beginning. The cosmic cloud hits the space station and its passengers, altering their DNA, within the first 15 minutes. You might think the movie is getting the origin story out of the way early on so it can get to some big action and adventure... but that’s not the way it goes. The next hour of the film simply consists of Reed, Susan, Johnny, and Ben dealing with the powers the cloud has given them: Reed is able to stretch his body parts, Susan can turn invisible, Johnny can create and control flames (and even fly while covering his whole body in flame, becoming the Human Torch), and Ben’s body is covered in a rock-like substance, making him The Thing. Reed and Susan hope to find a cure for this, but Johnny embraces his powers and makes an over-the-top public spectacle of himself.
The best thing about the movie is the way it handles Ben Grimm, with Chiklis continuing to play the character inside the Thing costume and prosthetics. He is, understandably, disturbed by his new appearance – and so is his fiancée Debbie (Laurie Holden), who dumps him when he comes back into her life. Going to a bar to drown his sorrows, Ben crosses paths with a blind woman named Alicia Masters (Kerry Washington), and the interaction between them is actually pretty sweet.
Meanwhile, Victor has been dealing with business problems and gradually realizing that he has also been affected by the cosmic cloud, developing a metal-like covering on his skin and the ability to produce electricity... Because, for some reason, the bigger budgeted takes on Fantastic Four were very resistant to the idea that he could just be a disfigured man who decides to wear a suit of armor.
Aside from a sequence where the heroes use their powers to deal with (and inadvertently cause) a series of mishaps on a bridge, there’s nothing particularly exciting to be found during the middle stretch of the film, just some talking, experimenting, Johnny showboating, and Ben trying to find his way in the world. Sure, Victor kills somebody in a quick moment, but he doesn’t fully emerge as the villain until late in the 105 minute running time. Just in time for the Fantastic Four to come together and defeat him in just a few minutes.
Yep, this movie has Dr. Doom, one of the most popular and powerful villains in Marvel Comics history, and he’s punked out by the Fantastic Four in the course of just one short fight scene. It’s kind of sad.
Avi Arad got the big budget Fantastic Four movie that he wanted to put out into the world, but it certainly didn’t take full advantage of the concept, nor did it do all of the characters justice. It’s not terrible, but it feels a bit lazy and half-hearted.
FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER (2007)
Satisfied with the box office of the 2005 Fantastic Four, Fox hired director Tim Story to return to the helm for a sequel, working from a screenplay crafted by Mark Frost, Don Payne, and John Turman. Having introduced the villain Dr. Doom (played by Julian McMahon) in the first movie, the creative team to bring in the team’s second most popular villain in the follow-up… but if you were disappointed by the way Doom was handled the first time around, you’ll be appalled to see how the planet-eating Galactus is presented in this one.
But before we get to Galactus, we get his herald, the character mentioned in the subtitle, Silver Surfer – brought to the screen through the physical performance of Doug Jones and the voice of Laurence Fishburne. As the film begins, bizarre anomalies are occurring all over the world, defying laws of physics, causing massive blackouts and weather fluctuations (the solidification of a bay, snow on the pyramids) due to cosmic radiation. The Fantastic Four - Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, and Chris Evans reprise the roles of Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm – are not only an established superhero team, they’re also celebrities, with Reed and Susan’s impending nuptials being the pop culture event of the year. With all these strange things happening around the globe, the military (represented by Andre Braugher as General Hager) asks them to look into the situation... and they’re quickly able to figure out that the anomalies are being caused by a silver humanoid that’s flying around the world on something that looks like a surfboard. It’s the Silver Surfer. And anytime he visits a planet, the place is destroyed eight days later.
Fantastic Four had not been a serious movie at all, but Rise of the Silver Surfer gives boosts the comedy element even higher. There are some really goofy moments in this one, and some comedic moments derived from the fact that, after an encounter with the Silver Surfer, Johnny starts accidentally swapping powers with other members of the Fantastic Four. So we get Johnny turning invisible while Susan bursts into flame, or Johnny taking on Ben’s stone-like Thing appearance while Ben gains his ability to create and control fire.
Meanwhile, the presence of the Silver Surfer has shaken Doom out of the statue-like state he was left in at the end of the previous movie, so he contacts the military and drops himself into the middle of the Silver Surfer situation, to the chagrin of the Fantastic Four.
Rise of the Silver Surfer has bigger and more plentiful action sequences than its predecessor, which makes it an enjoyable ride for a good stretch of the short 92 minute running time. Then, in the last third, things get really disappointing and off-putting when it’s revealed that this “Galactus, Devourer of Worlds” that the Silver Surfer is forced to be a lackey to is just a large, cosmic cloud. Not a cosmic entity with a human-like form who can change size, as Galactus is in the comic books. Just a cloud! And, even with Dr. Doom also in the picture and causing trouble, this Galactus turns out to be a fairly simple threat to thwart.
Dr. Doom does come off slightly better in this movie than he did in the first one, but it doesn’t count for much when the movie is making such a spectacular waste of Galactus. In the end, I would still say that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is somewhat more entertaining the first movie, largely because the origin story was out of the way and there’s more action, but its treatment of Galactus is unforgivable.
FANTASTIC FOUR (2015)
Made on a budget somewhere between $87.5 and $100 million, the 2005 Fantastic Four movie had earned $333.5 million at the global box office, which was enough to get a sequel greenlit rather quickly. Fox boosted the budget for the 2007 sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, to $130 million... but the sequel couldn’t quite match the box office at its predecessor, finishing with $301.9 million. That was a bit of a disappointment. So how do you follow that up? The smart choice would be to either make a third film with a slightly lower budget than the second one (and the lead actors were contracted for three movies anyway), or just put Fantastic Four on a shelf for a while. Fox considered making a third movie in that series briefly – but then, just two years after Rise of the Silver Surfer was released, they announced that they were moving forward with a reboot, starting the superhero team over from scratch. Then it took six years for the reboot to come together.
The ‘94 film is the one executives tried to bury, but the making of the 2015 Fantastic Four was such a horrible mess, maybe Fox should have just scrapped it and used it for a $120 million tax write-off, Warner Bros. style. The differing opinions behind the scenes are apparent in the finished movie, where the more traditional comic book movie sensibilities of screenwriter Jeremy Slater and writer/producer Simon Kinberg come through in the first half, while director Josh Trank’s wrong-headed attempt to turn the F4 concept into something darker (he mentioned the David Cronenberg films Scanners and The Fly as sources of inspiration) is more apparent in the second half.
The first half kind of works, with young genius Reed Richards (Miles Teller) being recruited straight out of a high school science fair to work on something called the Quantum Gate for Professor Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) of the Baxter Foundation. As Reed works alongside scientist Sue Storm (Kate Mara), troublemaking engineer Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), and moody genius Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) in an effort to crack interdimensional travel, it makes for a serviceable updated version of the origin story, influenced by the Ultimate comics. Although why Trank and the producers felt it was necessary to waste 50 minutes of a 100 minute movie on another retelling of the origin story is beyond me. It’s when Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Doom, accompanied by Reed’s childhood friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), use the Quantum Gate to travel to a world called Planet Zero and the characters gain powers that everything falls apart.
The second half of Fant4stic is dark and dour, with a dash of body horror being followed by a stretch of time spent with a bunch of unhappy people and a scheming Tim Blake Nelson (playing a government scientist that was, at one stage in the film’s development, supposed to become the Mole Man), until we get a climactic sequence involving a horrendous version of Dr. Doom: Victor, fused with his space suit, blasting people with telekinetic powers.
Those last 50 minutes are (aside from 7 merciful minutes of end credits) awful, verging on unwatchable. Trank has said that he made a “fantastic” version of this movie that was then brought down by studio tampering, but it’s difficult to imagine that some of these ideas ever could have been part of something good.
So the reboot with a budget of $120 million made just $167.9 million at the worldwide box office, and that was the end of Fantastic Four at Fox.
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