The Duck Speaks

True Believers, prepare to be amazed when Beggar So of Steamed Prawned Buns and the Duck take on:

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The brilliant Reed Richards has developed a rocket ship, and all he needs to fly it is the right crew. He enlists the help of Ben Grimm, pilot extraordinaire, and Sue and Johnny Storm. Once in space, everything is going smoothly until the ship is doused by a storm of cosmic rays. Crashing back to earth, the four wake up the next morning to discover they have extraordinary powers: Reed can stretch his body to incredible lengths, Sue can turn invisible, Johnny can harness the power of flame, and Ben has transformed into the super-strong rocky Thing. With these extraordinary powers, they fight for the safety of all mankind, known throughout the world as the Fantastic Four.

COMPARE/CONTRAST:
Used to be, Superman and Batman were the only two super heroes who could make the leap from comic book to big screen successfully; everyone else kept bombing straight in the ground.

When you think about it, it isn’t exactly surprising. Adapting comic book characters for film isn’t the easiest thing in the world. After all, when looking at an established series, one has to take into account years, if not decades of continuity. Sure, a lot of that continuity involves crap like the Bat-Mite and the Spider Clone, but so much of it is considered absolutely crucial by fans that it’s hard to know where to begin. Origins are a must, but what villain do you use? Which time-line? Throw away too much, and you’ll risk alienating the people who made the characters popular in the first place. Throw away too little, and you’ll be unable to draw in audiences unfamiliar with the story’s beginnings. ("Canadian guy with claws? The hell?")

Plus, there’s the special effects issue. Most popular comic books focus on folks with extraordinary powers, powers which can be damnably difficult to portray on-screen. You can’t do a good Spider-man without all those shots of him swinging through city streets. No one’s going to want to watch a Human Torch who can’t “Flame on!” While Superman and Batman solved both these problems by having widespread fan bases and more easily visualized powers, those of us fans of other super-heroes were left to despair ever seeing our idols on screen.

Things change, however, and in the past few years, special effects technology and audience interest have come together in a truly wonderful way. I will state for the record, I never expected to see a decent Spider-man movie in my life time, let alone a completely kickass one. A Hulk movie that didn’t make me long for the television series? A pair of X-Men flicks that haven’t suffered from diminishing returns? An adaptation of an Alan Moore book that didn’t make me want to claw my eyes out?

Er, you can ignore that last one.

As many have said before, it’s a damn good time to be geek. Part of me still suspects we’re stuck in a parallel universe, though, cause I grew up in a world where Marvel movies always sucked. There was no getting around it. From the painful crapfest of Albert Pyun’s Captain America (Pyun, for god’s sake! Was everybody on coke in the Bullpen?), to the goofy but still crap Spider-man TV show, to the subjects of today’s roundtable, The Fantastic Four and The Punisher, there was a whole lot of terrible going around.

I still have the scars. And maybe that’s why these reviews: not only can I prove to you youngsters out there (I’ve been told 8-12 is my highest demographic.) that now is a time to be cherished, it also gives me a golden opportunity to exorcise some demons. Talking duck puppet, you will haunt my dreams no longer.

[As an aside, it really bothered me as a kid when Lea Thompson started coming onto Howard. We’re talking put off sex for life, at least sex with land-dwellers. Jesus, what was he thinking? Where were her feathers?]

Moving on…

Time for a mini-history lesson. After Frederic Wertham decimated the comic industry with his luridly titled 1954 study, Seduction of the Innocent (which sounds more like a nunsploitation movie than an academic evisceration), Stan Lee and Jack Kirby faced a considerable quandary going into the ‘60’s. How could they create characters that managed to placate the Comics Code as well as rival DC’s established giants, Superman and Batman?

Lee decided to take a different route than most other writers, and working with Kirby, he created a “family” super-hero team that was prone to much the same difficulties normal folks were: insecurity, bad tempers, indecisive romances, all the junk we hate to live through but love to read about. The family was called The Fantastic Four, and their book debuted in November of 1961. The Hulk, Spider-man, Daredevil and Iron Man were soon to follow; but the FF was there first.

For review purposes, I picked the first volume of the collected Essential Fantastic Four stories. It’s obviously not exactly what the movie is based on, and I can say for a fact that the characterizations of the four leads have changed quite a bit over the years; but it gives me their origin story, plus that of the inimitable Dr. Doom. Also, it’s quite a lot of fun, once you get past the Stan Lee-isms.

The Fantastic Four movie never got an official release of any kind- no theatrical, no video, and surprisingly, no television. As such, its awfulness has become legend over the years, one of those “should remain lost” classics like the Jerry Lewis Holocaust drama, or his adaptation of Slapstick. When I found a bootleg at the local cult videostore, I gotta tell you, my knees shook. This was nearly new ground for me; and when Beggar So agreed to a roundtable, I was lightening quick to get this topic on the docket.

Since most people will never get the chance to watch this for themselves, I’ve gone more intensive with the summary than I usually do. This means many spoilers; but I kid you not when I say there’s absolutely nothing in this movie that would ever surprise anyone.

After an incredibly cheesy opening graphic- with the usual 4 in a circle flying out of a “star-field” that wouldn’t look out of place on public access- we get the opening credits over a series of still shots of the universe, with appropriately majestic music playing. Music that sounds oddly like something John Williams would write if he were even more blatant about ripping off dead composers; get friendly with it, folks, as it will pop up over and over again during the course of the movie.

The cast names aren’t half bad: every one of the major players has extensive film and television acting work, even if most of it’s not quite a-level. There’s Alex Hyde-White, who plays Reed Richards: before this, he was in The Toy, Ishtar (well…), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (though his scenes were cut), and Phantom of the Opera- lately, he’s appeared in Catch Me If You Can and Gods and Generals. Jay Underwood, who plays Johnny Storm, will be familiar to most people as Chip in the Disney produced Not Quite Human series. Rebecca Staab (Sue Storm) has done a bunch of stuff; I recognized her from her brief spot in Love Potion No. 9 (where she’s quite hot). And Michael Bailey Smith’s (Ben Grimm) career has really taken off lately, with him showing up in My Favorite Martian, Men in Black II, and Black Mask 2: City of Masks.

Like I said, none of this is matinee idol work (although appearing in a Steven Speilberg movie pretty close), but it does indicate a certain level of professionalism. While it’s always possible for good actors to do bad work (ie, the latter half of Richard Burton’s career), we’re at least guaranteed that no on is a complete amateur. Odds are things will be boring, but they probably won’t be slit-your-wrists boring.

Did I mention Dr. Doom is played by the son of Robert Culp? Well there, I just did.

Moving on to the end of the credits, we see Olev Sassone directed, which sounds like a famous hairdresser, but his credits show a solid list of crap cinema and television shows. Okay. Got a pretty good idea what I’m in for now.

My biggest initial surprise with the movie was how faithful the writers attempted to stay to the original story. Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and Victor von Doom are all attending the same college, with Richards and Doom working together on some sort of important, highly dangerous experiment. (It involves lasers and stuff, that’s what I got.) Reed and Ben are staying at a local boarding house, where Sue and Johnny Storm live with their aunt. Sue’s got a massive crush on Reed (she actually says, “He’s dreamy”), and Ben plays video games with Johnny, and that’s all the character stuff we can do right now because there’s a light show to watch!

Indeed. Here’s where my understanding gets fuzzy; the tape I watched was clearly an nth generation bootleg, so the picture was always wobbly, and the sound wasn’t so hot. But what I gathered was that a space storm called Colossus was moving over the university that night, and Reed and Victor’s machine was supposed to harness the energy of that storm. Of course everything goes wrong, and as is canon, Doom gets horribly burned, even after Grimm comes to the rescue. Two dubious “doctors” tell Reed his friend has died, and while Reed gets all guilt-ridden, they wheel away the “corpse,” and reveal to the still very much alive Doom that they are his servants, and are here to take him away so he can rule the kingdom which is rightfully his.

Cue ten years. Richards has finally nailed the experiment which went wrong so long ago, and now he’s got a nifty pair of white streaks in his hair to keep him from getting carded when he buys beer. He tells Ben the good news, and asks his old friend if he’ll pilot the ship that will carry the machine into space. Ben says sure, but they need a crew! And who do they turn to- astro-physicists? Former astronauts? People who might in any small way understand in the slightest just what Reed is trying to do?

Nope. They go back to the ole boarding house, and pick up Sue and Johnny. Cause, y’know, they probably looked over Reed’s shoulder at one point while he was designing the damn thing.

This is, of course, not all that different from what happened in the comic book. Ben, Reed, and Victor were all college buddies, and Victor suffered a horribly accident- although the accident was entirely unrelated to the one which would eventually give the Four their super-powers- and after some wartime soldiering, Reed decides to take up his rocket. The major impetus being that they get into space before the commies do.

In some ways, the comic book version is even sillier than the movie version, because while Ben is a pilot, and it’s Reed’s experiment, the only reason Sue goes along is because she’s engaged to Reed (an engagement which becomes increasingly fluid as the series goes on) and won’t let him out of her sight, and the only reason Johnny is there is to watch out for his sister.

Yet- and I am hesitant to say this- it works in the comic book. You still do a double-take, but this is the sort of thing one expects from early Marvel/DC; it’s pulp story-telling, and suspension of disbelief doesn’t enter into it. Basically, it was important to get the four of them on the ship so you could have a story, and Lee did it the quickest way he could; the set-up doesn’t last longer than a page or two. The movie version fumbles it because our expectations are different. It has the same basic goal, and it does take a slightly saner route to get there, but it’s not believable enough, and you can’t help but snicker.

Of course, it only makes things worse that they keep playing that godawful “FF love theme” over everything, as if the moment when the four are reunited in the boarding house is some kind of powerful, emotion laden reconnection, instead of just a bunch of people standing in the same places we saw them not five minutes ago. Then the aunt says, “You are the fantastic four!” and I just want to throw up.

Oh, and Sue and Johnny are all grown up now. I spent the rest of the movie wanting to punch the grown-up Johnny, but Sue’s decent; the “Look how hot I am now” face she shots Reed when she enters as an adult is a definite statement, I’ll give her that. Kind of creepy, too, since we were just watching her when she was ten. (Even creepier, Reed immediately returns the sentiment.)

Before I let go of flogging this dead horse, I’d like to make note of the other big change from source to screen in this sequence; mainly, what happens to Ben Grimm. In the comics, Ben is strongly against going into space immediately, and argues that Reed hasn’t done enough testing on the effects of Cosmic Rays. Sue goads him into it by calling him a chicken, but it’s a nice touch when the person to suffer the worst from the rays is Ben himself, when he turns into the Thing. Reed, Sue, and Johnny can all at least pretend to be normal people. The Thing is a monster, and can never look like anything but. It’s an extra kick in the pants that gives the story that much more depth.

In the movie? Ben is cool with it. Which isn’t terrible or anything, but it does take some intensity away from a story that is sorely in need of it.

After acquiring their new “crew,” Reed and Ben return to Reed’s apartment building, now carrying a very large diamond which will serve as a focusing device for the experiment. Unbeknownst to them, however, the size of this diamond has not gone unnoticed, having attracted the eye of none other than the fiendish- Leprechaun!

No, wait, sorry, not the Leprechaun, the Jeweler! But I swear to god, there must be some sort of relation between the two; we have a midget in ugly make-up, with a weird hat, who thinks himself far more amusing than he actually is. Apparently, with his fearsome talent for hopping and his monocle, he’s managed to get himself quite a following underneath the city, and is accompanied now by a vapid henchman or two as he plots to steal Reed’s big rock.

Inside the building, Ben walks into a blind chick standing on the staircase in one of the most awkward cute-meets I’ve ever seen. I’m not kidding; he’s facing one way, then he turns around and without hesitation walks directly into her, knocking a sculpture out of her hands to shatter on the floor. The blind chick is Alicia Masters, who comic fans will remember as Ben/Johnny’s long time love interest. In the movie, she’s (obviously) still blind, but no longer the daughter of the villainous Puppet Master. Or at least, if she is, nobody mentions it.

Anyway, even though she should be bitch-slapping the idiot from here to oblivion for not only destroying her work but also picking her up off the ground when she’s trying to grab the pieces, Alicia gives Ben’s head a good scrubbing and decides, “You have a kind face,” or something along those lines. Clearly, a connection has been made, in order that when she reappears after Ben’s gone all rocky, she can provide him with some sort of affectionate human contact. Woopee.

The Jeweler steals the diamond, putting a fake one in its place, and super-scientist Reed is so completely and utterly fooled by the fake that he installs it immediately and the four set out for space. For the record, if I had a very valuable diamond (although don’t they use industrial diamonds for this sort of stuff?) that my life and the life of my crew was entirely dependent upon, I would’ve made sure it was real before I used it. I dunno, maybe I’d scratch some glass with it or something. Also, I probably wouldn’t have used a security system that could be easily defeated by a nimble midget. Stupid trusting science types.

Up in space, Reed tracks down the Colossus, and immediately everything goes wrong; the faux diamond doesn’t do it’s job, the four are bathed in comic rays, and the space-ship is sent hurtling back to earth. When they wake up, with fiery wreckage strewn every which way, they discover they have amazing powers: Reed can stretch himself, Johnny can create and manipulate flame, and Sue can turn herself invisible. Later that night, the four are picked up by what’s supposed to be the American military, and Ben has turned into the Thing. Or at least he’s turned into a new actor (Carl Ciarfalio) in an upper body suit with an incredibly obvious zipper running down the front.

Our heroes are brought to a secret laboratory where they are poked and prodded, but no one will tell them what’s going on. Eventually, they grow frustrated and decide to escape, Reed reasoning that he’d be better able to cure them back in his lab. A semi-competent breakout proceeds, and here we get our first example of the “spin-attack,” where, instead of showing Thing using his super strength, we simply have him walk towards the camera, the camera spins around (like the scene transitions in the old “Batman” show), and whatever it was he needed to accomplish, is accomplished.

I think it’s supposed to be whacky and cost-saving. Sigh.

Before they can escape, the FF run into their true captor, the villainous Dr. Doom. I’m not sure if Reed figures out Doom is his old college buddy now or later, but it doesn’t matter. Doom explains his plan to steal all their powers for himself, then sics a bunch of soldiers (all dressed up in Doom capes for some reason) on the heroes while he ducks out a back door. Stupid no-follow-through villain types.

The FF kick a lot of ass (more spin-fighting, though) and break free. Exactly how they find their way back to NY is never explained. Maybe somebody left the keys in their SST.

While all this excitement is going on, back in the city Alicia is mourning the loss of a guy she only met for five freakin’ seconds. She’s been put in charge of building a monument to the supposedly dead four, I have no idea why- maybe she’s a very well-know sculptress, and this is just an obscene coincidence. But shouldn’t authorities be putting more effort into finding the crash site before they start building monuments? And why would you build a monument for these guys, anyway?

All is not well for Alicia, however, as the (snicker) villainous Jeweler has fallen in love/lust with her, and sends his henchmen to kidnap her. They bring her back to his lair, and we learn that J lives underground with a cast of characters who wouldn’t be out of place on an old episode of “Beauty and the Beast.” Only goofier. He gives her the standard, “You will be my queen and help me rule” line, she’s unimpressed, so he ties her up and throws her in the bedroom.

Not soon after, Doom’s henchmen arrive and offer to buy Reed’s diamond off the Jeweler. He refuses, saying that the diamond is to be a gift to his bride on their wedding day. Awwwww.

Back at FF Central, Reed is trying desperately to discover a cure for the four of them while Sue flirts awkwardly in the background. This flirting gives our genius all the clues he needs to put together the puzzle, and he tells everyone he’s figured out why their powers have manifested themselves the way they did: each power was created from what each person considered their greatness weakness. Reed was always stretching himself too thin; Sue considered herself shy; Johnny was a hot-head; and Ben always tried to solve problems with his body instead of his brain.

So their powers are now revealed as- obscure psychological metaphors!

Oooookay.

I have no idea if this reasoning came directly from the comic, although I wouldn’t be too surprised if it did; done well, it could provide an added psychological depth, and give a seemingly random selection of mutations a logical rationale. Regardless, in the movie, it’s really, really stupid. The big problem is, we hardly see any of these people before they turn into super-heroes, and what little we do see doesn’t suggest any of the traits Reed spouts off. Johnny is enthusiastic, Sue is sultry, Reed is a tad sure of himself, and Ben is an over-all nice guy. That’s it. Instead of being a clever, character arc revelation, we get a “huh?” moment when somebody tells us attributes we should have been able to figure out for ourselves but were given no opportunity to do so. It adds nothing to the plot, has no impact emotionally, and mainly just falls flat. Bad storytelling all around.

Apparently, the Thing agrees with me, as he takes this opportunity to leave the others and go out into the city, where everyone hates him. Ah, the pathos. He looks like a sun-dried ninja turtle, what did he expect? The Jeweler’s men find him, decide he’s an outcast like themselves, and bring him home. The Jeweler’s impressed, but he doesn’t have time to be much of anything else because Dr. Doom, who never takes no for an answer, arrives with half his army. Alicia is finally revealed, Thing gets ticked off and goes to save her- and she mucks it up by telling him she loves him, which (somehow) transforms him back into a human, forcing him to flee.

This transformation, by the way, has no further story ramifications; soon enough, Ben is back to his rocky self (spin attack!), and no one mentions another word of it. I guess they were trying for a touching moment, cause they were playing that godawful music again, but it comes off as more random than anything else. So, what, the Thing became the Thing just so someone could tell him she loves him, which changes him back? And only for a little while, too. It’s like an even more irritating version of Shrek.

Back at the office, Sue has made costumes for everybody; although how someone with no real scientific training could make costumes that would fit Mr. Fantastic and the Torch is, as usual, beyond me. Probably the same reason she could operate an experimental rocket.

I forgot to mention, Sue and Reed have confessed their love for one another, and yes, they did play that godawful music. I don’t know why it hit me like it did (aside from the fact that it was hideously overplayed), but every time those opening chords swelled, some part of me died.

Dr. Doom somehow turns on the FF’s communicator ("Superfriends” flashback!) and tells them if they don’t come to his castle, he will blow up New York using stock footage of atomic bomb tests. He also has Alicia, and will kill her in due course. The Thing is back; so for the first official time, the Fantastic Four will now spring into action.

Cut to a matte painting of Doom’s castle, then to the four sneaking into the same big room we saw them fighting in last time. There’s a nice moment here, when someone asks Reed what they should do next, and Reed says “I don’t know, I’ve never done this before.” A little reminiscent of a line from Raiders of the Lost Ark (“I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.”), but well-used. I liked it, anyway.

The room seems empty, and Reed goes to disarm the laser. But before anybody can do anything, Doom springs his trap, and the FF are frozen in tube force field rays. Doom once again lays out his plans, threatening Alicia (why? Does he have a particular hatred of Ben Grimm or something?), giving Mr. Fantastic just enough time to slide his foot under the force field- apparently, Doom couldn’t afford to have the kind that runs all the way down to the floor- and somehow or other, wave his leg so the machine goes kablooey.

Doom sets off his giant laser (the one that shoots stock footage of atomic blasts) and, per the usual, exits, leaving his massively ineffectual army to fail to stop the heroes. Reed basically trips people and punches them from across the room, and we finally get to see Thing fighting. Sue even uses force fields as well as invisibility.

The force field thing was added to the character in the seventies (I think), in order to make her more proactive, and it works wonders here. In the original comics, Sue does little more than get taken hostage, fall in love with the Sub-mariner, and occasionally vanish in fear. (They justify her by saying she provides moral support, just like Abe Lincoln’s mother. Seriously.) Movie-Sue is surprisingly kickass- although someone should tell the writers that going invisible isn’t the same thing as disappearing.

Johnny decides to go after the already fired laser, because it’s always been his dream. (Huh? Musta been a weird kid. Too many damn video games.) He does a full body flame on for the first time, and it actually looks pretty cool; not realistic, of course, and his “battle” with the laser is silly, but the animation isn’t terrible. I was just glad they didn’t chicken out and just keep using the lame fireball throwing stuff.

Reed follows Doom out to a- parapet? Shouldn’t Doom be going to places with easy exits? They have a conversation, Doom manages to fall over the castle wall, Reed tries to save him but only manages to get a hand, and Doom supposedly falls to his death. After Reed leaves, we see the hand moving slowly, which could either be really stupid or really cool. It’s stupid if that’s supposed to be a part of the real Doom’s outfit, because that doesn’t make any sense; Doom’s injuries were relegated to his face, the rest of his body wouldn’t need artificial enhancement. But Doom also has a habit of using robot versions of himself to fool his foes, and if that’s what’s being implied here, well, I’m a fan. Not that I’m asking for a sequel, mind you.

And that’s it, really. Reed and Sue get married- in their FF outfits. (Well, he’s in his, she’s wearing the more traditional bridal gown.) Thing and Alicia are a couple, and, um, Johnny’s still Johnny. End credits.

I’ve bashed this movie pretty hard, but it’s not nearly as terrible as I’d expected it to be. For one thing, the writers have clearly done their homework, and while the budget disappoints far more than it delivers, at least someone is trying: not only is the backstory the same (for the most part), but the character designs, and even some of the dialogue, are kept. A fan-boy like me can watch this and, while recognizing the myriad of flaws, still get a thrill from seeing familiar faces on screen. (I cheered a little when Johnny Flamed On, I’ll admit it.)

Even keeping that in mind, though, there are a lot of problems. The Jeweler is intensely lame, and putting him next to Doom is a joke; we have this short, ugly, hopping guy who lives with the homeless and likes taking advantage of blind chicks, and we have the arrogant, brilliant ruler of a small country who wears full body armor and has a mastery of the dark arts. Having them in the same movie is a mistake. Having them in the same scene is idiotic, especially since the Jeweler is given near as much screen-weight.

Not that movie-Doom is all that great. Comic book Doom is one of Marvel’s all time greatest villains, a bad guy you can root for and despite in equal measure. When he walks into a room, everyone stops breathing; and the first person to gasp just knows he’s gonna get his head chopped off. Movie-Doom is, um, silly. He’s on the fey side. He tells jokes, he dances a little, and while the costume provides some of the menace, the actor inside it just can’t live up to that. Probably more the director’s fault than anybody else; there’s a whimsical air to much of this movie that just screams, “I’m not taking my work seriously!”

As for the FF themselves, well, aside from the obvious budgetary constraints- Reed, for instance, should be able to stretch his entire body, in far more ingenious ways than what we get here- my biggest complaint is that there’s no tension between them. Everything is too easy. Aside from Johnny’s brief freak-out post-crash, and the Thing’s short departure, everyone is love-dovey and happy to be around each other. In the original comic, they can barely be in the same room together without somebody clawing somebody’s eyes out, whether it’s Sue breaking Reed’s heart or Johnny taunting the Thing or the Thing yelling at everyone else at just how ugly he is.

Overdone? Occasionally. But it provides a dramatic intensity on the page that the movie desperately needs. Not only are the villains themselves a joke, but the four work together so smoothly and immediately that there’s no real conflict. It should be that you’re worrying about the team sticking together just as much as you’re worrying about them being ensnared in Doom’s latest machinations. In this case, it’s neither, and no amount of fan-boy appreciation can change that.

Still, I’m surprised this one hasn’t shown up on DTV. It’s good enough for a television release, at least. (Faint praise, right?) With a big-budget movie version already in production, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of the FF in the near future; and that might include a release of this crappy but not abominable little tragedy.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go finish the issue I was on. I believe that the Thing was just getting ready to take on the Incredible Hulk…

SOURCE: QQQ.5
SCREEN: Q.5
Sadly, it turns out that “It’s Clobberin’ Time” just really isn’t a good catch phrase.

Now go check out Dave’s review, if you haven’t already.