cymbaljack

Tomorrow I will probably get my post about Star Wars III: Such As It Is done. For today I want to focus on my impressions of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, based on a couple of trailers and my general experience with Marvel supers movies.

So in other words, here's

What's Going To Be Wrong with the Fantastic Four Movie
(This entry may contain spoilers, for all I know. Then again, if even half my predictions are true, the movie is already spoiled.)

• Johnny Storm is going to be very annoying. The movie will present him as immature, self-centered, and superficial. Of course all of these characteristics are part of the original character, but in the comics he was a scrawny teenager, so we could to some extent forgive him. When a grown man acts this way, it's going to be hard to put up with.
• The Invisible Woman will be even more annoying. Jessica what'shername will continue to look out of place in the movie. She will not have the grace that Sue Storm (later Richards) always had, and she won't do nearly as many cool things with her powers as Violet did in The Incredibles.
• There will be too many explosions for no reason, and far too much gratuitous destruction. The overall feeling of the movie will be that the main thing the F4 have brought to Manhattan is several billion dollars worth of property damage.
• Ben Grimm (The Thing) won't be nearly funny enough and will spend too much time feeling sorry for himself. He won't feel like a product of the ghetto. He will say "It's Clobberin' Time" one time too many.
• Johnny Storm will say "Flame On!" at least three times too many.
• Reed Richards will be dumbed down. He won't talk as smart as he does in the books, and he will do at least two really stupid things.
• Doctor Doom will be a complete disappointment. He won't look right (I'm pretty sure about that from seeing the trailers). He will not be a brilliant, ruthless dictator but instead some kind of psychotic, sadistic Joker rip-off. Instead of being a mad scientist who also dabbles in black magic he will have been given some "power" as a result of the same events that give the F4 their powers, which will mess up the metaphor. The F4 are obviously the 4 elements, so adding a fifth guy doesn't make much sense, unless the story is Chinese (it's not) and the fifth guy gets wood powers (he won't).
• On the whole it won' be fantastic enough. While Spider-Man pretty much just beats up villains in NY, the Fantasic Four were always the crew who were out exploring the unknown and doing the impossible. They go to the center of the earth, outer space, and other dimensions as often as most people go to Starbucks. This sense of wonder will be missing from the film.
• In the end, they will (at least supposedly) kill of Doctor Doom, ignoring the reality that (1) this is virtually impossible to do and (2) there is no way ultra-humanitarian Reed Richards would ever allow it. (This is, after all, the guy who once saved the life of Galactus the World-Eater.)
• There will be a "Herbie the Robot" joke. It will be the funniest thing in the movie, to those who get it.

So there. 10 predictions. Once I see the film, I'll let you know how I do, and by extension, how they did.