Review

Review Date: 10-July-05
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Fantastic Four (2005)

It's cool that the comic book universe promotes the Superhero Elite: bereaved billionaires rigged out like bats, lovelorn nerds souped up like spiders, and other freaks of chance with torturous romantic lives and the whole wide world upon their shoulders. These poor souls allow narrators to explore concepts of courage and nobility while milking the fact that sacrifice hurts so good. But it's also cool that in this universe gorgeous 24-year-olds can have doctorates from M.I.T., make space missions like trips to the grocery store, and achieve some variation of the American Dream involving fame, fast cars, or wedded bliss. These guys, alternatively, are the Superhero Lite, and they allow us to relish the ridiculous fantasy that blossoms when the dark lives of their cousins are mined for fun.

The "Fantastic Four" fall squarely into this second category (at least in their movie incarnation), and hooray for their absurd little selves. Starring a likable cast of relative unknowns, the first installment of their anticipated franchise is satisfying escapism for anyone who enjoys watching sexy figments of someone's imagination flirt, quip, and special-effect their way to stardom. (The "someone" in this case being Jack Kirby and the legendary Stan Lee, who created the characters back in the '60s.) The formula is fairly simple: take a pair of sibling hotties with brilliant careers and many opportunities to disrobe (Jessica Alba, Chris Evans), add an attractive dweeb who wants to save mankind through science (Ioan Gruffudd) and his genial lug of a sidekick (Michael Chiklis), mix in a smarmy corporate mogul with the prophetic name of Victor von Doom(Julian McMahon), run them all through a cloud of DNA-changing intergalactic dust, and presto! You've got a smackdown of mock-epic proportions.

Well, you have the beginnings of a smackdown anyway. Like the first X-Men movie, Fantastic Four feels more like an introduction than a self-standing tale, a way to set up the players and their situation so that the sequel can hit the ground running. Without too much at stake, the action is intermittent and undramatic and, unfortunately, devolves now and then into snowboarding and motorcycle daredevilry. Still, Fantastic Four does a decent job developing all the characters (better than the first X-Men), giving equal time to the amorous struggle between Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, the frat-boy shenanigans of the Human Torch, and the crowd-pleasing suffering of the Thing, who alone among the four is horribly deformed by his transformation. (Although he's a definite winner, it's too bad the movie diminishes his glory with an unforgivably ludicrous love interest. How on Earth could the man have sex? But I digress.)

Having given these notables a heroes' welcome and settled matters to their satisfaction, Fantastic Four is ready to launch them into a more intense and gripping episode of adventure, and I'll be there if the sequel comes to pass. May they never face the serious trauma of Batman or his ilk, but rather make their mark by furthering the cause of purely popcorn pleasure.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.