2005, Tim Story (The Blackening) -- Disney
2007, Tim Story (Barbershop) -- Disney
OK, these movies are from one of the many pre-MCU eras of superhero movies; this era gave us a bunch of middling attempts at & sequels of Marvel movies (Spider-Man's, Ghost Rider, Elektra, etc.) and pretty much the same at DC (Batman Begins, Superman Returns), albeit smaller numbers. There were even a few non-publisher movies (Sky High, Jumper, Push, Hancock) which played with the genre. They all scratched an itch for comic book lovers, but few were satisfying and even fewer were successful. Oh, there are always anomalies, but...
And in some ways, we are back to that era, except the competing movies are all MCU. Or it one long sub-par era interrupted by a brief decade of quality, popular Marvel movies?
These are terrible movies.
Chiklis was 40ish playing the Ben Grimm role, which is the age he was likely supposed to be when he played "The Commish", when he was only 28.
OK, so Reed Richards, not yet so fantastic, wants to expose some biology to a cloud of cosmic energy, but in order to do so, he will need to get onto Vic VD's spacestation. Reed and Vic are old college buddies, and Vic agrees to allow Reed and his (astronaut?) buddy Ben Grimm come on board as long as his chief researcher Sue Storm gets to help -- she's also Reed's ex. Also her brother is up there as well. I don't remember why. Anywayz, things go wrong and they are all exposed to the energy from the fast moving cloud (???) of cosmic.... stuff.
If Reed was dating Sue Storm in college, let's say six years ago when Reed was mid-twenties? Jessica Alba is six years younger than Gruffud, and McMahon equally older than Gruffud. I suppose if you do the the typical waffling of ages in Hollywood, Sue was entering university while these guys were there?
Back on Earth they discover they have powers, while things go very wrong for Victor, as I guess he was walking a thin line with his Board of Directors, and his spacestation going kaflooey has made things worse? Meh, he should have just gone all Musk on them and did whatever the fuck he wanted.... well, maybe he did? Anywayz, yeah, superpowers and Ben puts them in the spotlight by saving someone on a bridge.
I forget, is the flustered not-quite-remembering things supposed to be casual charming? Yeah yeah, I know, "shaddup you."
So, I guess if Elon Musk was cursed with superpowers, he would turn out to be Vic VD ? While Reed is scrambling to find a way to "cure" them, cuz his best friend is a big orange rock, Johnny is all jazzed at being as hot as he thinks he is in real life. Meanwhile Sue is mainly tortured because there was a reason she broke up with Reed in the first place. But Reed actually does invent a way to cure them, it just needs an awful lot of power, of which, Von Doom has at his finger tips -- literally. He briefly makes Ben human, just so he can piss off the others, and then they have to duke it out with him, as he goes all.... well, literally supervillain. Through the Power of Working Together (Ben rocks out again) they stop Von Doom dooming (pun intended) to being a solid hunk of metal.
Its a serviceable superhero origin movie with the requisite amount of shoe-horned in comic book behaviour, and minimal attempts to be all Hollywoody. I mean, Von Doom is hand-wringing Evil just because (again, Elon anyone?) and despite Reed actually understanding what he has to do to revert them back to being human, they decide to stay Super. But is fun and charismatic.
And while the same director did the next movie, oh wow, it is terrible, like proper terrible.
Reed had already broken his "no science-y stuff until married" promise to Sue by building something for an Angry General (with a Hot Adjunct [Beau Garrett, Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce], who rebuffs Johnny) to track something causing Climate Change around the world. Angry General (Andre Braugher, Brooklyn 99) doesn't really want to work with Reed, but, y'know, you need to track the Bad Thing in order to shoot at it. But it doesn't really go well, and the wedding is ruined, so Angry General just goes to his second choice -- Victor Von Doom, who is no longer a solid hunk.
Sorry, getting ahead of myself.
They have discovered that if they touch, their powers exchange, leading to annoying Hijinx: Sue gets Johnny's and burns her clothes off (cue the construction worker wolf-whistling), Ben gets Johnny's powers and Johnny becomes an orange rock, etc. Except for scenes when they don't exchange their powers, because hijinx were not important to the scene.
Also, they track the surfboard based cosmic energy to Deep Space, where there is a trail of destroyed planets, and to England where a run-in with the Surfer (the aforementioned Bad Thing) damages the big ferriswheel and drains the Thames. Technically the river is still flowing so I am not sure how they drained the entire that quickly. Sorry, but this kind of stuff in shitty movies bugs me -- if anything, we should be seeing some sort of diminished flow for a good long time.
Anywayz, it is THIS sort of "doesn't go well" that has Angry General switch over to Doom. That said, he doesn't really do anything and Reed's cosmic energy sucker really does the work. Not sure why, but Angry General still acts like Doom did it. I think he just prefers to be angry.
Anywayz, they store the Surfer (voice of Laurence Fishburne, Hannibal) in a facility in Siberia. Wait, what? Why Siberia? Isn't that on Russian Federation soil? Despite the cold war being mostly over in the early 2000s, don't we still not trust Russia at that time? I mean, at least they could have said "Northern Canada" ? But the Fantastic Four are not jazzed with the idea of imprisoning the Surfer, even though they know he is connected to the destruction of a bunch of planets. But Sue bonds with him, so they free him.
Meanwhile Doom-y has stolen the Surfboard of Power and flies to... China? I guess that is why they had it be in Siberia so they could do a quick flyby of the Great Wall, so Doom could shoot at it with his new surfboard based powers.
Note, every time he writes "surfboard" a voice (not me) says "whoah man" in a surfbum sort of California accent.
No matter, again they fight Doom in a street (Shang-hai this time) and kind of easily defeat him, but (doom song) Sue is mortally wounded. No matter, Surfy is there to infuse her with cosmic mojo and revive her.
Oh yeah, Galactus has arrived. The whole point of the movie is supposed to be the arrival of Galactus but "he" plays such second fiddle to everything else in the movie, and BTW, he is just a big cloud of energy. Anywayz, SS sees the Power of Family and decides to sacrifice himself to defeat Galactus.
The End. Well, no quite yet. They finally get married in Japan, only to be interrupted again because "Venice is sinking into the sea". Uh, folks, I hate to break it to you but Venice has been sinking for years. Its a big issue, it makes the news regularly.
The End. Well, not quite -- mid-credit scene shows Surfy is still alive. Why do we care? No seriously, maybe Kent can tell us why we care? Let's live in a fantasy world and assume there was going to be a third movie -- how would the Silver Surfer play into it? What would be the classic FF villain of the week this time?
Oh, that's b/c they were planning a Silver Surfer spinoff movie at the time. But dire box office nixed that.
ReplyDeleteEnergy cloud Galactus came from the Ultimate Universe from marvel comics (a second Marvel comics universe which was meant as a new entry point for readers and eventually birthed Miles Morales), as opposed to the giant purple Celestial being.
The recap of the second one sounds SOoooo much like Fantastic Four, but honestly I think Reed, Sue and Doom (doomdeedoomdeedoomdeedoom) were all direly miscast and Story just never really found the light touch balance or action, comedy and family squabbles like we see in Brad Bird's Incredibles movie