Fantastic Four (2005)

Today on Movie Russian Roulette, Alex watches one of the many movies that Marvel hopes you've forgotten. Seriously, for all the good movies these guys put out these days, there are scores more in their history to rag on. I may have to do a Marvel month one of these days... but that's neither here nor there. Here is Fantastic Four.

in all its glory and all its horror

Overview: Dr. Reed Richards has a theory about cosmic radiation triggering increased evolution, and shock shock such a storm is about to hit the Urf! Out of options, he asks for funding from everyone's best pal, Victor Von Doom, to study the phenomenon.

introduced looking like this

Things inevitably go wrong, and everybody gets superpowers. Reed gets the ability to stretch, his pal Ben becomes a superstrong golem, love interest Sue gets invisibility/force field powers, and her jackass brother Johnny gets the power to be made of fire when he feels like it.

Notable moments/quotes: Reed: "A few days in space. It'll be great. What's the worst that could happen?"

Johnny Storm is introduced riding a motorcycle alongside a convertible driven by a hot lady. They're making out at top speed. Have I mentioned this guy is played by Chris Evans?

kind of like a proto-Lucas Lee

While in space, Reed unintentionally interrupts Von Doom's proposal to Sue Storm. This is never brought up again.

Later, Johnny and a new date drop from a helicopter for some extreme snowboarding to some truly terrible music.

Snivelling minion, to Doom: "Sir, I have always wondered, why Sue? You could have any other woman in the world."
Totally Not a Villain: "That's why. Because I could have any other woman."

Post-powers, Ben is sitting on a bridge for no reason, contemplating life, when a man climbs up next to him to commit suicide. Ben tries to stop him but ends up startling him due to his new appearance, and they cause a 30-car pileup that endangers the lives of hundreds of people. When all is said and done they get applause and instant fame, but all they did was make the situation worse in every way.

"Oops."

Johnny, as he watches his sister strip to invisibility past a crowd: "I'm gonna need therapy."

Meanwhile in the actual plot, Dr. Richards tries to develop a cure for their changes. Victor immediately offers to help, but then does nothing and gripes about how Reed is getting the girl because he's taking action. Meanwhile, he starts turning into a creepy metalface man and his company goes bankrupt.

For no reason, there is a ten-minute "wacky" montage of the Four living together at Richards' lab, including such gems as Johnny putting shaving cream on Ben's hand while asleep, then tricking him into slapping himself with it.

After Johnny decides to ride motocross for... some reason, the other characters see it happening on TV across town. They arrive at the arena in approximately two seconds, where Ben is... displeased.

Reed, to Johnny: "You need to control yourself and think before you act."
Dudebro: "Yeah, but that's your problem-you always think, never act. What if we got these powers for a reason? What if it's like some higher calling?"
Dr. Bland: "Higher calling? Like getting girls and making money?"
Embodiment of MERICA: "Is there any higher?"

Without any setup, Victor reveals he has a machine that can cure them of the exact same type that Dr. Richards has been working on. He tests it on Ben, who's been suffering due to looking like a monster. It works, and then Doom decides to kill everyone in the Fantastic Four. The only reason behind this I can discern is because his name is Victor Von Doom and he has an iron mask awarded to him for "humanitarian contributions" made to a foreign country.

"I solved their population problem by killing a quarter of the population. My name is literally Dr. Doom."

Johnny, many, many, many times: "Flame on!"

Von Doom, deciding to embrace his destiny as a hammy supervillain: "Do you really think fate turned us into gods so we could refuse these gifts?"

My thoughts: This is like the Seinfeld of superhero movies. There is no plot, nobody actually acts like a superhero, and a party is thrown in the Four's honor for stopping a supervillain... who only ever went after them... solely because they were superheroes. This is, in many ways, worse than the 90s Justice League movie that could be summed up as "Friends but with superheroes."

For starters, the superheroics that do happen only happen about an hour and a half in, in response to a supervillain whose only motivation is that he hates the Four for being famous and such. I'm not counting the bridge sequence, because their intervention made everything worse. The rest of the running time is semicomedic faffing about, a great deal of ado about nothing. At least most superhero origin stories at least show the hero doing heroics, but here we have to wait until around the last ten minutes of running time before anything really happens. Before that we have the stock scenes of them figuring out their powers, adjusting to living a double life (except not because they don't even attempt to have secret identities), and learning to work as a team despite Johnny being an asshole, Dr. Richards having Charisma as a dump stat, and Sue being ineffectual.

Seriously, Sue Storm is probably the most powerful of the four, and the movie hamstrings her. She's shown that when she focuses she can create a force field powerful enough to contain heat said to be equivalent to a star going supernova and she's relegated to being comic relief. Why? Well, because her emotional state is too volatile to allow her to control her powers. You know. Because she's a woman. Never mind the fact that pre-powers she's shown to be an assertive, successful career woman with brains and beauty; the instant the men are brought up to the same level her "emotions" get in the way. Note that Johnny, the picture of masculine over-emotional response and machismo, has no such issues.

he just does dumb shit on purpose

I know this movie is almost a decade old, but it's pretty cringey to watch the movie introduce a character with arguably the best powers (because with a little creativity, force fields can do pretty much anything) and then cut her down as needing male support all the time. I might be reading too much into this, but come on, movie. Have an ass-kickin' lady. It'll appeal more to the woman in your audience who have been dragged to see this, and you can't go wrong with a leading lady who's competent and confident-

Oh. Right.

The villain's motivation also makes no sense. Dr. Doom basically becomes a supervillain because everybody treats him like one and his symptoms of superpowers are a little more obvious than most (his hair falls out and his skin flakes off, revealing metal skin underneath). Hell, he almost immediately offers to help Richards find a cure, then spends all his time dealing with his company's finances and brooding about how much he hates Richards. Nobody cares if you hate him for being the better scientist! One would think he would have, y'know, helped Dr. Richards find a cure rather than hamper his progress. If the guy is a better scientist than you are, that means that he's the man for the job and in the name of all that's holy, you should back him up so you stop looking like a scary monster person.

Or just try to murder him for no real reason beyond "Boo hoo, my love interest is spending time with the guy who's actually trying to heal her condition while I sit and eat ice cream." Kylo Ren wishes he were this emo.

In the end, the only thing making this movie watchable is Chris Evans. He plays a jackass playboy with surprising acumen, particularly for most who'll come into the movie thinking mostly of his famous roles recently as the straight-laced Captain America in the recent Marvel flicks. He seems to be the only one having fun, while the rest of the actors seem to resent the movie at every turn and deliver their lines with all the energy of high schoolers slogging their way through a Shakespeare period piece they all hate.

In summation, Evans gets to Cage it up. For that reason, I give this movie a Nic Cage Gets Hot Under the Collar out of five. Facebook and Patreon still exist.