Fantastic Four and Rise of the Silver Surfer Review

Hello and welcome to MWire, a movie we can review.

This is the 16th episode. Today we're going to

be discussing the Fantastic Four films in our

Marvel spotlight. I'm your host, TFG1 Mike, and

joining me as usual is Steve Megatron. Hello.

Hello. Yes, we just recorded Headshot, which

should already be up by the time this episode

airs. A couple of programming notes for MWire.

We're going to have to pre -record, I believe...

three, yeah, three, no, to pre -record two episodes,

episodes 18 and episode 20, to fit around the

holiday schedule, and Steve's got some stuff

going on. He's going to be doing some stuff in

November, so he won't be around to record. I

do need someone for episode 19, which is Can't

Hardly Wait. So if anyone wants to come on a

coast with me, please let me know. You can find

me on Twitter at TFG1Mike, or you can email me

at TFG1Podcast at gmail .com. So what's been

going on with you, sir? Not much. Got my domain

back online. Now I've got to repopulate it with

all my... latest up -to -date information since

I hadn't actually updated that one in ages. Yes.

Yes. Yeah, I'm not really keen on the whole domain

thing. I don't mind going through WordPress .com

and just having a blog through them. That seems

to work for me, but I don't want to have to deal

with domains and all that crap. Yeah. It's kind

of complicated sometimes, especially for the

fact that it took me a while to figure out how

to completely remove this. Because me being a

dumbass, I registered the domain under the previous

host that I used to use. Therefore, it sucked.

Yeah. So, like, as Predacon Empire .com lagged,

it would actually go down for periods of time.

Yes. Like, up to a week. Yes. And I couldn't

update, so I switched, and, of course, now I

only use that other one to host the domain itself.

Right. And so when I, um, end up doing that anyway,

it, uh, they, yeah, they got my shit all fucked

up, so. Yeah. We're actually... After this episode,

we will be two episodes away from finishing our

Marvel Spotlight. It's been eight episodes. It

seems like it's been longer than two months that

we've been talking about just Marvel films. And

we haven't even really covered the full gambit

of Marvel films. I know Blade was a Marvel film.

I know Men in Black was a Marvel film. But, you

know, I wanted to get, obviously, the... The

old Trident. Yeah, the... The superhero stuff

out of the way. So, we will be right back with

The Fantastic Four. Exposure to a high -energy

cosmic storm could advance our knowledge about

planetary life. To our future. I don't trust

him. We got what we wanted. Just worried about

what he wants. biophysical structure is changing.

It's terrible news. I think I'll get a second

opinion. The cloud has fundamentally altered

our DNA. That's gross. Reed, look at me. I can't.

He's heating up from his core. You don't want

to walk around on fire for the rest of your life,

do you? Is that a trick question? Come on, am

I the only guy who thinks this is cool? What

if we got these powers for a reason? I've always

wanted power. Victor, you always thought you

were a god. Let's not fight. No. Let's. Don't

even think about it. Never do. As we said before

you heard the trailer, folks, we're going to

be talking about Fantastic Four and Fantastic

Four Rise of the Silver Surfer. So, Fantastic

Four is a 2005 superhero film based on the Marvel

Comics comic Fantastic Four. It was directed

by Tim Story and released by 20th Century Fox.

This is the second live -action Fantastic Four

movie to be filmed. The previous attempt, a B

-movie produced by Roger Corman, to retain the

film rights was never officially released. 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. Ugh, Elektra.

Jennifer Garner's hot, don't get me wrong, but

ugh, that movie is horrible. Yes, we don't go

there. Yes, we already actually went there with

Mike, but... So, I'm trying to think of a way

to actually summarize this film, but I think

we're just going to have to go through the plot

points really quick. Dr. Reed Richards, a genius

but timid bankrupt physicist, is convinced that

evolution is triggered by clouds of cosmic energy

in space. and it's calculated that one of these

clouds is soon going to pass near Earth. Together

with his friend and the gruff yet gentle astronaut

Ben Grimm, played by Michael Chiklis, Reid convinces

his equally brilliant but conceited Massachusetts

Institute of Technology classmate, Dr. Victor

Von Doom, played by Julian McMahon, who most

people will know Julian from Nip -Tuck on FX,

now CEO of Von Doom Industries, to allow him

access to his privately owned space station.

Von Doom agrees in exchange for control over

the experiment and the majority of the profits

from whatever benefits it brings. He brings aboard

his chief genetics researcher and Marine's ex

-girlfriend, Susan Storm, played by Jessica Alba,

and her hothead brother, Johnny Storm, played

by Chris Evans, his private astronaut who was

Ben's subordinate at NASA but his superior on

the mission. Much to Ben's disgust, the content

travels to space to observe the cosmic energy

clouds, but Reed has miscalculated and the clouds

materialize well ahead of schedule. What did

you think of the beginning of this film? Well,

the introduction of the characters, I thought

that they all pretty much looked the part that

they were playing. Right. Or at least they played

it off very well to where they, you know, You

could tell there was a lot of issues between

the various characters and past history that

it alluded to. Yeah. But, yeah, they seem to

work very well together. I like the whole how

they started slowly introducing everybody and

showing where they're at now and who works for

who and who's dirt broke. I like the dynamic,

though, between Johnny Storm and... Ben Grimm,

though, like you said, one being the subordinate

at one place and one being the one over the other.

Yeah. The Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm, Human Torch,

the thing, dynamic, they're basically the comedy

of the Fantastic Four. It's just so, so funny.

Victor refuses Reed's plea to abort the mission,

knowing he must produce results to justify his

expenditure, no matter the human cost involved.

Knowing Ben is spacewalking to set up equipment,

Reed, Susan, and Johnny leave the shielded inner

area of the station to rescue him. And Victor

closes the shield behind them. Whilst Victor

is seemingly safe, the others are exposed to

the cloud. Ben receives full exposure out in

space, while the others receive more limited...

dose within the station. The astronauts make

it back, make it intact, however, before long

they begin to mutate, developing strange powers.

Reed is able to stretch like rubber. Susan can

become invisible by bending light around objects

and create force fields, especially when angered.

Johnny can engulf himself in fire up to supernova

-like temperatures and is able to fly. Ben is

transformed into The Thing, a large rock -like

creature with superhuman strength. Now, I haven't

really, I really have no prior knowledge. I know

the gist of these characters because I did watch

the Fantastic Four cartoon, but I didn't watch

it enough to where I got the whole, I got the

basic overview of the relationships between each

of them, but wasn't really that much of a fan.

Back then, and I've not read any Fantastic Four

comics. Yeah, I would have to say that I wasn't

that big of a fan of them before either. But

I do like these movies more than I like the original

show. Oh yeah, there's much more. Go ahead. I

was going to say I actually kept my interest

and I liked the people that they picked. Oh,

yeah. Michael Chiklis says, is Ben Grimm slash

The Thing best casting ever? Oh, hell yeah. And

then the guy that played... Johnny Storm? Well,

not only him, but Jessica Alba seemed to fit

the part pretty well, even though they dyed her

hair. And then Ian Gruffydd for Reed Richards.

Yeah. Yeah, he pretty much fit the character

as well. So after Ben brooding about his situation

on the Brooklyn Bridge accidentally causes a

major traffic pileup whilst attempting to stop

a man from committing suicide. The four use their

powers to prevent any loss of life to rescue

a firetruck and its crew from falling off the

bridge. The media dubs the team the Fantastic

Four. Whilst Johnny eagerly embraces his powers

and new life, Ben, the only one whose transformed

appearance is permanent, suffers. His disfigurement

has caused his fiancée Debbie, played by Laurie

Holden, to abandon him and has seen him shunned

and feared by much of New York. And it must be

night I was looking it up online, Laurie Holden

played Agent Olivia Murray in the final season

of The Shield, so she had worked with, before

that, late last year or earlier last year. I

don't know. Whenever The Shield ended, I think

it was earlier this year, she had previously

acted with him in this, which I thought was really,

really cool. Yeah, that's always cool to have

somebody that is familiar with one of the actors

or actresses that they've, you know, from another

show. Yeah. Blaming himself, Reed vows to return

Ben to his human form. Therefore, he, Susan,

and Ben work on a cure, constructing a healing

chamber in Reed's high -tech Baxter Building

Loft Turn Laboratory. During this time, Reed

and Susan begin to rekindle their attraction

to one another. Susan admits that she is not

interested in Victor, but had turned away from

Reed because he feared to make a binding vow.

thinking only in terms of variables. His excessive

caution was hard for Susan to deal with, and

now it begins to test Ben's patience as he eagers

to return to human form while Reed is taking

his time on the machine. Unknown to the others,

however, Victor's body is also mutating. He is

turning into organic metal capable of absorbing

and manipulating electrical energy as a result

of... Excuse me, the disastrous experiment. His

company is going bankrupt, and he is losing public

status. Blaming Reed for his misfortunes, Victor

swears revenge. Now, I gotta say, the boardroom

scene in this film, where they're like saying,

yeah, yeah, yeah, Victor, you're out, and we're

selling, that is the exact same scene that was

in Spider -Man. Oh, yeah, I mean... I mean, almost...

Word for word, they just changed the actors and

the characters. Yep. You know, you go back and

you look at Spider -Man 1 with Norman Osborn

and the Oscorp board, and you look at this film

with Von Doom and his board, and it's the same.

It's the exact same scene. I actually didn't

notice that until I watched it. Yeah, that is

a pretty crazy thing to have a duplicate of.

Victor tricks Ben into thinking that his teammates

are not working on a cure with due diligence.

After a vicious argument between himself and

Reed, Ben storms out of the Baxter building.

Reed experiments with the curative machine on

himself and nearly dies in the process, but learns

that the machine only needs more power to fully

succeed. Victor, who has been spying on Reed,

tricks Ben into entering the machine and provides

the extra power. The only real exposure I have

to Doom is really the Spider -Man cartoon when

he was crossing over in that. And this is part

of his character being this underhanded, manipulative

businessman type. I just don't like the fact

that they allowed him to get away with that.

I mean, I know it furrows the plot, you know,

but... I don't know, I just thought that was

kind of weird. Yeah. So, let's see, where is

it? One happens in the harbor while getting him

frozen to prevent him from using his powers of

dissension. When Susan and Johnny realize that

it's happened, Victor, now calling himself Doom,

fires a heat -seeker missile at the Baxter building,

intending to target and kill Johnny. Johnny,

using his powers of heat and flight to lead the

missile to open water, where he ignites a garbage

scow to dispose of the missile. Now, I've got

to say, Johnny, as we all know... I mean, I know

this just from seeing him in the Spider -Man

cartoon and seeing him in the Fantastic Four

cartoon as well. Johnny's always been this irresponsible

hothead, and I think that they play his character

really well in this film, where he goes from

the irresponsible hothead to, well, yeah, think,

Johnny, think. What can I do to stop this heat

-seeking missile that's going to be flying up

my dick in about two minutes? And then he sees

the garbage scowl, and he just shoots a burst

of flame at it, and he actually flies into the

flame with it and destroys the missile, destroying

the garbage scowl. And then, of course, he comes

back and does the right thing. So I think Johnny

has the most character development in this one.

And Reed does. I think Johnny and Reed both do.

Because, obviously, Reed steps up and proposes

and all that happy crap. Shit. Yeah, happy shit.

Yeah, they definitely had a lot of character

development, though, in this movie. Oh, yeah.

A lot more than some of the other Marvel properties.

Elektra! Yes. But, yeah, so, I mean, overall

it was... It was one of my favorites, obviously

below Spider -Man and X -Men. Yeah, yeah. So

Johnny uses his powers of heat and flight to

leave the missile. While he ignites the garbage,

he expels the missile. However, he is thrown

into the water, and whether he remains alive

or not alive is not shown. Meanwhile, Susan attempts

to rescue Reed and confronts Doom. She soon proves

a match for the powerful Doom, and he... proves

no match for the powerful Doom, and he is on

the verge of killing her when Ben, having activated

Reed's machine and used it upon himself to restore

his mutation, bursts into the room. Doom and

Ben fight until the battle spills onto the street

below. I'm going to have to put this in either

as the intro after the movie projector, before

our actual voice intro, or... At the very end,

I'm not sure. I'm probably going to put it at

the intro, but I meant to grab the clip for when

Ben crashes through that wall and he and Victor

get into it. I meant to grab the clip of it's

clobbering time. That was so, because I remember

that from the cartoon. And I think Chicklist

does an awesome, awesome job with that. You know,

I mean, he does an awesome job as a thing in

general. But just hearing that line come from

him as The Thing, it was so awesome. Yeah, it's

definitely... He was an awesome pick for The

Thing. Oh, yeah. But no matter how hard Ben attacks

him, he is unable to overpower Doom, and Doom

knocks him flat on his back. He is about to deal

a finishing strike when a recovered Reed and

Susan arrive to save Ben. Doom begins to scorn

them when he is blasted from behind with fire

from none other than Johnny. Who survived the

encounter with the missile unharmed, Doom absorbs

all the electricity in the area that he can to

begin the final showdown. At first, it seems

that Doom has the advantage, and the team struggles

under his onslaught of electric blasts. Reed

manages to use his elastic body to temporarily

restrain Doom, and then coordinates the team

for an offensive attack, trusting his initial

judgment for the first time. He starts by telling

Johnny to unleash his supernova heat on Doom,

despite the fact that even Johnny agreed that

this was dangerous. Now, I've got to go back

a little bit, because as we say in almost every

MWire, when reading from a wiki description of

a plot synopsis, they kind of leave crap out.

In the scene before they, or right when they

got back, when Johnny's flirting with the nurse

and everything else and says, you want to go

skiing or snowboarding with me at, you know,

4 o 'clock when you get off? And she's like,

no, I've got to work, and you're not supposed

to leave and everything else. Well, it's funny,

after that happened, and of course he ends up

in like an icicle hot tub, and you know what

happened then. I mean, she basically just dropped

the poles and her knees kind of bend and whatever.

But, you know, As they were going through, after

they got back to the Baxter building, going through

and testing all their powers, as I said before,

Johnny started off as a hothead, irresponsible,

and got more responsible. And he's like, you

know, Reed's like, oh, my God, you're, you know,

tone it down, tone it down, you're going too

fast. He's like, I can go harder, I can go harder.

And Sue said, they finally douse Johnny with

the fire extinguisher. Sue goes, Johnny, you

were going at 4 ,000 Kelvin. That's like... you

know, hotter than, almost hotter, almost as hot

as the sun. He's like, cool. He's like, and Reed's

like, no, not cool. You, supernova is bad. Um,

so, yeah, that, that. Then he had to repeat it.

Yep. He's like, supernova, bad. Yep. Uh, so Johnny

uses to surround Doom in a vortex of fire while

Reed gets Susan to try to curtain it in a dangerous

amount of heat with a force field. She manages

to do so while Doom makes futile attempts to

break free with his electric blasts. When Johnny

and Susan give out, it looks as if Doom is just

starting to melt, but he is still on his feet

and merely sneers. Is that the best you can do?

A little heat? Reed responds, time for your lesson.

Chem 101, what happens when you rapidly cool

hot metal? Ben then kicks the top of a fire hydrant,

and he and Reed direct the water shooting out

of it at Doom. The steam created as the water

hits Doom forms a thick cloud, and when it settles,

Doom is seemingly left as a statue of an inert

metal. Ben informs Reed that he has accepted

his condition with the help of Alicia Masters

as a blind artist for whom he has developed feelings,

and the team decide to embrace their roles as

superheroes. To unite officially as the Fantastic

Four, Reed proposes marriage to Susan, who accepts

Doom's... Now, that scene, the very end, I believe

that is either right before the credits or during

the credits. I'm not sure what they did, because

I did watch the extended cut of this film. There

are several scenes that have been added. More

emotional scenes between Reed and Sue. There's

a scene where it shows Doom's plot to basically

separate the four of them where he's doing the

whole manipulating Ben thing, but he also manipulates

Johnny and says, hey kid, you can market yourself

and do this. That's where the little thing toy

came from and all this and all that stuff. That's

pretty cool. The extended cut really doesn't

add anything to this film. It's not like the

Daredevil director's cut. It's just adding in

a few scenes that they had originally cut out

of the theatrical version. And if you do get

the extended cut DVD, it actually has both cuts.

It has the U .S. theatrical version and the extended

cut on it, unlike the Daredevil DVD, where the

Daredevil two -disc DVD is the theatrical cut,

and then the single -disc director's cut is separate.

So I thought that was really, really cool. As

far as the cast go, what did you, I mean, I know

we've mentioned a little bit about the cast,

but what did you think overall? Honestly, I wouldn't

change any of them. I mean, I know that they're

in talks right now to do another, or to reboot

the series, but I don't think that's necessary.

I think that they should just stick with who

they got. unless they're obviously demanding

too much money. Yeah. Which hasn't stopped them

before. Yeah. But just write some new shit. I

mean, don't try and retcon it, but... Yeah. Get

a new director, get a new writer, and continue

the story. Just keep going. Yeah. Yeah, I agree

with that. Oh, and Stan Lee Alert, he was the

mailman, Willie Lumpkin, which... I don't know,

maybe comic book people can write in to us and

let us know at gcrnyr at gmail .com and let us

know who that is. I mean, I'm sure he's some

sort of famous part of the Fantastic Four comics,

but I don't know if he was always a mailman.

And I actually asked on the earth2 .net forums

if Alicia was always blind, because I could never

remember if she was, and she has throughout her

characters. lifespan has always been blind, so

I wasn't really sure of that. 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 into the Baxter Building

elevator. As far as the reception, the film scored

a 26 % negative rating at the critics' aggregated

site Rotten Tomatoes and 40 % at Metacritic.

I disagree with that, but whatever. At the box

office, Fantastic Four reached number one with

$56 million in its opening weekend. By September

2005, the film had grossed over $330 million

worldwide, with a domestic gross of $154 million.

There are, like I said, several deleted scenes.

Two versions of a scene with Jessica Alba and

Ian Gruffred. The original features the pair

in the planetarium where they communicate their

feelings for another without an argumentative

tone. This ends in a kiss. The second version

included in the DVD release as a bonus feature

that features two outside looking towards the

Statue of Liberty. Similar lines are used, but

it ends with Alba as Susan. turning invisible

before Gruffydd'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. Wow. That's why

you need the extended cut, because he makes himself

look just like Hugh Jackman. and actor Griff

Red breaks the fourth wall and looks directly

at the camera as he does this. As I said, the

extended cut in June 2007, the extended cut of

the film was released incorporating the 20 minutes

of deleted scenes. Also includes a preview of

Fantastic Four, Rise of the Silver Surfer. Overall,

I think this film did really well, both in action

and story. I'm not sure what the critic... What

the reception part where the critics said that

people wished that there was more action. I thought

it had enough action in it.