Fantastic Four (film)

Fantastic Four is a 2005 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics comic Fantastic Four. It was directed by Tim Story, and released by 20th Century Fox. It is the second live-action Fantastic Four film to be filmed. The previous attempt, a B-movie produced by Roger Corman only for the purpose of retaining the film rights, was never intended for a theatrical release. Despite getting major hype on its release and becoming a box office success, the film was negatively received by critics.

The film was released in the United States on July 8, 2005. It was the third superhero film of the year, after Elektra and Batman Begins.

In 2007, a sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, was released.

Plot

Dr. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), a genius but timid and bankrupt physicist, is convinced that evolution was triggered millions of years ago on earth by clouds of cosmic energy in space, and has calculated that one of these clouds is soon going to pass near Earth. Together with his friend, the gruff yet gentle astronaut Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), Reed convinces Dr. Victor von Doom (Julian McMahon), once his classmate at MIT and now CEO of Von Doom Industries, to allow him access to his privately-owned space station to test the effects of exposure to the cloud on biological samples. Doom agrees, in exchange for control over the experiment and a majority of the profits from whatever benefits it brings. He brings aboard his beautiful chief genetics researcher (and Reed's ex-girlfriend from MIT) Susan Storm (Jessica Alba), and her hot-headed brother Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), a private astronaut who was Ben's subordinate at NASA but is his superior on the mission.

The quintet travels to space to observe the cosmic energy clouds, but Reed has miscalculated and the clouds materialize well ahead of schedule. Reed, Susan and Johnny leave the shielded station to rescue Ben who has gone on a space-walk to place the samples, and Victor closes the shield behind them. Ben receives full exposure out in space, while the others receive a more limited dose within the station. They return home but soon begin to develop strange powers. Reed is able to stretch like rubber; Susan can become invisible and create force fields, especially when angered; Johnny can engulf himself in fire at temperatures in excess of 4000 K (erroneously described as supernova-like in the film), and is able to fly; and Ben is transformed into a large, rock-like creature with superhuman strength and durability. Victor meanwhile faces a backlash from his stockholders due to the publicity from the failed mission, and has a scar on his face from an exploding control console he was near during the cloud's pass.

Ben returns home to see his fiancee (Laurie Holden), but she cannot handle his new appearance and flees. He goes to brood on Brooklyn Bridge and accidentally causes a traffic pile-up while stopping a man from committing suicide. The four use their various powers to contain the damage and prevent anyone from being hurt. While the public cheers them for their efforts, Ben sees his fiancee leave her engagement ring on the ground and run. Reed hands a heartbroken Ben the ring and vows to find a way to turn him back to normal. The media dubs them "The Fantastic Four" for their efforts. Victor watches the news story and is told that his company is lost now, the group's fame overriding the company's fate with the media. The four move into Reed's lab in the Baxter Building to study their abilities and find a way to return Ben to normal. Victor offers his support in their efforts but blames Reed for the mission's failure, the lights flickering as he grows enraged.

Reed tells the group he will construct a machine to re-create the storm and reverse its effect on their bodies, but warns it could possibly accelerate them instead. Meanwhile Victor continues to mutate, his arm turning into an organic metal and allowing him to produce bolts of electricity, and he begins plotting to use his new powers to take his revenge. Victor drives a wedge between Ben and Reed by telling Ben that Reed has no desire to change himself back, as the group's research has allowed him to rekindle his relationship with Susan. Reed and Ben argue, Ben walking out in a rage. This motivates Reed to attempt the machine on himself, but he cannot generate the power needed to push the storm to critical mass. Doom hears Reed tell Susan this through security cameras and has Ben brought to the lab. Ben is placed in the machine and Doom uses his abilities to produce the electricity needed to power it, turning Ben back to normal and accelerating Doom's condition, causing much of his body to turn to metal. Victor knocks the human Ben unconscious and kidnaps Reed.

Victor - now calling himself 'Doctor Doom' - dons a metal mask to hide his physical disfigurations and incapacitates Reed using a super-cooling unit. Doom fires a heat-seeking missile at the Baxter Building to kill Johnny, and Johnny flies through the city to evade it, lighting a garbage barge on fire to trick it. Susan rushes to confront Doom as Ben begins to regret his decision to turn normal. Susan frees Reed and battles Doom but is outmatched - Ben arrives to save her, transformed into The Thing again by reusing the machine (speaking his signature line, "It's Clobberin' Time"). The battle spills into the streets, and the four assemble to battle Doom. Johnny and Susan combine their powers to wrap Doom in an inferno of intense heat, and Ben and Reed douse him with cold water, inducing thermal shock and freezing Doom in place. As an epilogue, Ben informs Reed that he has accepted his condition with the help of Alicia Masters, a blind artist for whom he has developed feelings, and the team decide to embrace their roles as superheroes and unite officially as the Fantastic Four. Reed proposes marriage to Susan, who accepts and they share a kiss. Meanwhile, Doom's statuesque remains are being transported back to his homeland of Latveria when the dockmaster's electronic manifest briefly experiences electronic interference, suggesting Doom is still alive, thus leading to the events of the sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Cast

• Ioan Gruffudd as Dr. Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic
• Jessica Alba as Susan Storm / Invisible Woman
• Chris Evans as Johnny Storm / Human Torch
• Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm / The Thing
• Julian McMahon as Victor von Doom / Doctor Doom
• Hamish Linklater as Leonard
• Kerry Washington as Alicia Masters
• Laurie Holden as Debbie McIlvane
• Kevin McNulty as Jimmy O'Hoolihan
• Maria Menounos as Nurse
• Michael Kopsa as Ned Cecil
• Stan Lee as Willie Lumpkin

As in almost all of the previous Marvel Comics-based films, Fantastic Four co-creator Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance. He is Willie Lumpkin, the postal worker who greets the team on their way to the Baxter Building elevator.^[1]

Release

The film's American release was moved from July 1, 2005 to the following week, July 8, in order to avoid competition with Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds.^[2] It opened in 3,602 theaters, and eventually expanded to 3,619 the following week for its widest release.^[3]

Critical reception

Fantastic Four received mostly negative reviews from critics. The film scored a 27% rating at the critics-aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes^[4] and 40 out of 100 at Metacritic.^[5] The movie was criticized for poor science, undeveloped characters, and having less action than some people would have liked. The plot was criticised for the perceived imbalance of pitting four superheroes against one villain.^[6]

Box office performance

At the box office, Fantastic Four held the number one position with $56,061,504 in its opening weekend. By September 2005, the film had grossed over $330 million worldwide, with a domestic gross of $154 million.^[7]

Deleted scenes

Among the deleted scenes included on the December 2005 DVD release:

• Three slightly modified scenes concerning the attack on Doctor Doom - one in which Reed uses his body as a funnel to direct a stream of water at Doom, one in which he doesn't, and one in which Doctor Doom's line "Is that the best you can do, a little heat?" is cut short, having the "..a little heat?" portion removed.

• Two versions of a scene with Jessica Alba and Ioan Gruffudd. The original features the pair in the planetarium, where they communicate their feelings for each other without an argumentative tone. This ends in a kiss. The second version, included in the DVD release as a bonus feature, features the two outside, looking toward the Statue Of Liberty. Similar lines are used, but it ends with Alba's Susan turning invisible before Gruffudd's Reed can kiss her. A joke was used during the line "a stronger man": Instead of Reed giving himself a square jaw (as he does in the theatrical release), he makes his skin look like X-Men's Wolverine. Actor Gruffudd breaks the fourth wall and looks directly at the camera as he does this.

• There is also a scene where Reed and Sue are in a storage room of the Baxter Building where we see on one of the shelves is a robot that is supposed to be H.E.R.B.I.E. from the 1970s Fantastic Four cartoon.

The novelization of the film contained a number of scenes not in the final cut, including a small number of scenes that developed the character of Alicia Masters.

Extended cut

In June 2007, an extended cut of the film was released, incorporating over 20 minutes of deleted scenes and also includes a preview of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Sequel

A sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, was released on June 15, 2007. Director Tim Story and the cast reprised their roles for the sequel. In the film, the Fantastic Four encounter the Silver Surfer. The film had a mixed, but overall better reception.

See also

• Fantastic Four in film
• Fantastic Four (2005 video game)
• The Fantastic Four

References

External links

• Official website
• Fantastic Four at the Internet Movie Database
• Fantastic Four at AllRovi
• Fantastic Four at Rotten Tomatoes
• Fantastic Four on Marvel.com