A Bit of a Stretch

It has to be hard on filmmakers when their movie gets beaten to the multiplex by its own parody, as happened when “The Incredibles,” an animated film clearly derived in large part from the “Fantastic Four” comic books, hit theaters some eight months before the more faithful, live-action adaptation. What has to be harder still is when the straight version fails to measure up to the satire not only in terms of humor but in narrative cohesion, emotional depth, and visual imagination. It’s as if “Austin Powers” had opened a year before “Dr. No,” and Mike Myers had turned out to be not only funnier than Sean Connery but tougher and more sexually magnetic as well.Hollywood has clearly interpreted the recent bull market in superhero flicks as proof of a sudden public fascination with the spectacle of grown-ups parading around in logo-festooned Lycra. But “Fantastic Four,” like last year’s atrocious “Daredevil,” suggests the genre’s extraordinary success of late is due less to intrinsic appeal than to a series of fortuitous collaborations between smart directors and gifted actors – Sam Raimi and Tobey McGuire in the “Spider-Man” movies; Bryan Singer and Ian McKellan, Hugh Jackman, et al in the “X-Men” movies; Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman in “Hellboy”; and Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale in “Batman Begins.” Lacking such talent on both sides of the camera lens, “Fantastic Four” quickly succumbs to its own innate silliness.The film opens with brilliant but bankrupt scientist Reed Richards and his hulking pal Ben Grimm visiting former-schoolmate-turned-billionaire-industrialist Victor Von Doom to ask for funding and the use of his private space station to conduct experiments in the midst of a cosmic-ray storm. Victor agrees, on the conditions that a) he reap the bulk of any resulting financial rewards; b) the expedition bring along his top geneticist, Sue Storm, who just happens to be Reed’s former (and Victor’s current) squeeze; and c) the rocket to the space station be piloted by Ben’s former subordinate (and Sue’s brother) Johnny. Victor himself also tags along because, as we all know, wealthy CEOs regularly take part in any dangerous research they choose to underwrite.The experiment in space goes badly awry, of course, and all five characters are pummeled by cosmic rays. Upon returning to Earth, they find themselves manifesting unusual “symptoms.” Reed discovers that he is now more elastic than a Hungarian gymnast, able to stretch his body for yards and form it into any shape he chooses; he will eventually adopt the super-moniker “Mr. Fantastic.” Sue (“Invisible Girl”) can disappear at will and create impenetrable force fields. Johnny (“The Human Torch”) is able to set himself on fire without the use of lighter fluid, and to fly. Ben (“The Thing”) – well, he wakes up one day to discover that he looks like a brick wall put together by sloppy contractors. Because he tried to shield himself from the cosmic radiation, selfish Victor (“Dr. Doom”) will not come into his super powers until later in the movie. Thanks to this delay and the immutable comic-book law that Surname Is Destiny, he doesn’t get to be a member of the team, instead playing the role of villainous fifth wheel.In short order, Ben is dumped by his wife, who apparently doesn’t like the idea of going to bed with a chunk of masonry. Sue also breaks up with Victor and tries to rekindle her old romance with Reed, who, nerd that he is, scarcely notices. Ben and Johnny become a couple of another kind, alternating between playful squabbling and threats upon each other’s life. Victor’s corporate empire, meanwhile, begins dissolving, thanks to the fiasco in space, making him very unhappy with all of our heroes and with Reed in particular.If these interpersonal complications sound a tad tedious, that’s because they are. Worse, they consume so much of the film’s attention that it has little time for anything else. Remarkably, “Fantastic Four” contains only two major action sequences -the first an apocalyptic traffic intervention on the Brooklyn Bridge, and the second the final (as in, “finally!”) battle between the Fantastic Four and Dr. Doom. In the long stretch between these scenes, Reed tries to build a machine that will reverse everyone’s mutations, Johnny shows off at a motorcycle stunt show, and various characters brood, bicker, and woo one another. Conspicuously absent in the midst of all this self-actualization are the crime-fighting and life-saving duties most superheroes feel an obligation, if not a calling, to perform.This overemphasis on melodrama wouldn’t be so bad if, like “Spider-Man” or “Batman Begins,” the movie showed any aptitude for developing rich characters or interesting relationships. But it doesn’t. From the beginning, “Fantastic Four” lays out the fraught connections between its protagonists with all the subtlety of a flow chart. The screenplay, by Michael France and Mark Frost, is riddled with arduous dialogue and implausible twists, and is nudged along by director Tim Story (“Barbershop”) with a nonchalance bordering on apathy.A strong cast might have been able to untangle some of this muddle, but “Fantastic Four” boasts a decidedly mixed bag. As Ben Grimm, Michael Chiklis (from TV’s “The Shield”) is solid in every sense of the word, his “Thing” costume the one memorable sight in a film otherwise characterized by second-tier visual effects. Chris Evans brings some of the easy charisma he showed in “Cellular” to the role of Johnny Storm, but the script overplays his hotshot, showboating personality to such a degree that the charm soon wears thin. Welshman Mr. Gruffudd, who played Horatio Hornblower for the BBC and Lancelot in last year’s peculiar “King Arthur,” is adequate but resolutely forgettable as stretchy scientist Reed Richards.It’s only downhill from there. Sue Storm is played by body-of-the-moment Ms. Alba, who recently complained to Rolling Stone, “The scripts I get are always for the whore, or the motorcycle chick in leather, or the horny maid.” Though it pains me to say it, her performance does little to challenge the judgment of Hollywood’s casting directors. Ms. Alba seems to be in the film in large part because her invisibility power requires her occasionally to strip out of her clothes, a la Claude Rains. She delivers one of the blankest female performances since Elizabeth Berkley marionetted her way through “Showgirls.”But it is Victor Von Doom who is perhaps the biggest letdown. Aficionados will be disappointed to find that the original Marvel Comics character – a gypsy orphan who grew up to be the proud, Vlad-like ruler of a fictional Eastern European land – is nowhere in evidence. Everyone else will be disappointed that, in his place, the filmmakers offer a sneering corporate villain so generic that he might have been concocted by Michael Moore. An actor capable of oversize theatricality might have been able to transcend such dull caricature, but Julian McMahon (of television’s “Nip/Tuck”) succumbs to it. It is almost a relief when Dr. Doom is finally, conclusively defeated.Or is he? Like “Spider-Man 2,” “Fantastic Four” ends by ham-fistedly paving the way for a sequel. In the former case, this was merely a declaration of the inevitable. With “Fantastic Four,” we must hope the filmmakers’ optimism is unwarranted.

A Bit of a Stretch

A Bit of a Stretch

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