Fantastic Four (2005 film)

Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four
	File:Fantastic four poster.jpg
Directed by	Tim Story
Written by	Comic Book:; Stan Lee; Jack Kirby; Screenplay:; Michael France; Mark Frost
Produced by	Avi Arad ; Bernd Eichinger ; Chris Columbus ; Ralph Winter
Starring	Ioan Gruffudd ; Jessica Alba ; Michael Chiklis ; Chris Evans ; Julian McMahon
Cinematography	Oliver Wood
Edited by	William Hoy
Music by	John Ottman
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	July 8, 2005
Running time	105 min./124 min. (extended cut)
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$100,000,000

For the unreleased 1994 Fantastic Four film, see The Fantastic Four (film).

Fantastic Four is a 2005 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics comic Fantastic Four, 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, was never officially released.

The film was released in the U.S. and Canada on July 8, 2005. It was the third superhero movie of the year, after Elektra and Batman Begins.

Plot

Reed Richards, a brilliant but timid and bankrupt scientist, is convinced that evolution can be triggered by clouds of cosmic energy, and has calculated that Earth is going to pass one of these clouds soon. Together with his partner, the gruff yet gentle astronaut Ben Grimm, Reed convinces his MIT classmate Dr. Victor von Doom, now CEO of his own enterprise, to allow him access to his privately-owned space station. Von Doom agrees in exchange for control over the experiment and a majority of the profits from whatever benefits it brings. He thus brings aboard Susan Storm, his chief genetics researcher and a former lover of Reed's with whom she had an acrimonious break-up, and her diametrically opposed brother Johnny, the maverick and hot-headed playboy pilot. The quintet travels to space to observe the cosmic energy clouds, but despite Reed's calculations the clouds materialise well ahead of schedule, and when Victor refuses Reed's plea to abort the mission, the station is engulfed by its vast energies. Whilst Victor is seemingly safe behind the station's shields, the others attempt to rescue Ben (who was space-walking at the time) and are exposed to the cloud.

The astronauts make it home intact; however, before long they begin to mutate, developing strange powers as a result of their exposure to the cloud. Reed is able to stretch like rubber; Sue can turn invisible (by bending light around other objects) and create force fields, especially when angered; Johnny can produce fire at supernova temperatures, and is able to fly; and Ben is transformed into "The Thing", a large, rock-like creature with super strength. After Ben, brooding about his situation on the Brooklyn Bridge, inadvertently causes a major traffic pile-up whilst attempting to stop a man about to commit suicide, the four manage to use their powers to prevent any loss of life and to rescue a fire truck and its crew from falling off the bridge in a resulting explosion. The media dubs the team the 'Fantastic Four', and whilst Johnny eagerly embraces his powers and new life, Ben - the most heavily disfigured - particularly suffers from his transformation; his disfigurement has caused his fiancee to abandon him and has seen him shunned and feared by much of New York. Blaming himself, Reed vows to return Ben to his human form, and he, Sue and Ben work on a cure, constructing a healing chamber in Reed's high tech Baxter Building loft-turned-laboratory. During this time, Reed and Susan begin to grow close once again, and Susan admits that she is not interested in Victor, but ended their relationship because Reed feared to commit, thinking only in terms of variables.

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 the disastrous expedition, his company is going bankrupt and he is losing public stature; blaming Reed for his misfortunes, Victor swears revenge. After killing a bank chairman who had pulled out of his company and ruined him, Victor sees the opportunity to finish off his rival once and for all. Manipulating Ben's insecurity and anguish, 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 machine on himself and nearly dies in the process, but learns 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; while Ben becomes normal again, Victor's own mutation increases exponentially, increasing his power but also physically disfiguring him. When Ben realizes that Victor merely wanted the super-strong Thing out of the way so that no one could stop him, Victor immobilizes Ben and renders Reed unconscious, taking him prisoner and freezing him to prevent him using his powers of distention.

When Susan and Johnny realize what has happened, Victor - now calling himself 'Doctor Doom' - fires a heat-seeker missile at the Baxter Building, intending it to target and kill Johnny. As Johnny uses his powers of heat and flight to lead the missile to open water, where he ignites a garbage scow to safely dispose of the missile, Susan attempts to rescue Reed and confronts Doom. She is hopelessly outmatched against the powerful Doom, and he is on the verge of killing Susan when Ben - having activated Reed's machine and used it upon himself once again - bursts in, once more The Thing. Doom and Ben fight, until the battle spills onto the street below. The rest of the team join Ben to defeat Doom; under Reed's direction and using their powers in sync, the team vanquish their enemy with a coordinated attack that seemingly leaves Doom as a statue of inert metal, superheated by Johnny and then rapidly cooled with water from a fire hydrant, using chemistry 101. Ben informs Reed that he has accepted his condition with the help of Alicia Masters, a blind woman whom he has developed feelings for, and the team decide to embrace their roles as superheroes and unite officially as the Fantastic Four. Ready to commit, Reed proposes to Susan, who accepts. At the same time, Doom's remains are being transported back to his homeland of Latveria - however, the electronics on the ship experience unusual interference, and it appears that Doom is not dead after all...

Cast

Actor	Role
Ioan Gruffudd	Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic
Jessica Alba	Sue Storm / The Invisible Woman
Michael Chiklis	Ben Grimm / The Thing
Chris Evans	Johnny Storm / The Human Torch
Julian McMahon	Victor von Doom / Doctor Doom
Hamish Linklater	Leonard
Kerry Washington	Alicia Masters
Laurie Holden	Debbie McIlvane
David Parker	Ernie
Kevin McNulty	Jimmy O'Hoolihan
Maria Menounos	sexy Nurse
Michael Kopsa	Ned Cecil
Stan Lee	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 mailman who greets the team on their way to the Baxter Building elevator.

Reaction

Fantastic Four proved a surprise box office hit on its opening weekend, apparently ending a major prolonged box office slump that was causing concern in the American film industry. By September 2005, the film had totaled over $330 million worldwide.

However, The critical reaction was overwhelmingly negative, scoring only a 25% at Rotten Tomatoes, a movie review aggregation website. The movie was criticized for weak storytelling, poor science, an overall lack of much action, and paper-thin characters — especially the bland Doctor Doom, one of the hallmark villains in the Marvel Comics world. In addition, Jessica Alba's performance earned her a Razzie nomination for Worst Actress. The only constant target of praise was Chris Evans' portrayal of the Human Torch, and to some degree, Michael Chiklis' performance as Ben Grimm/The Thing.

Deleted scenes

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

There are 3 slightly modified penultimate scenes concerning the attack on and subsequent defeat of 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.

After the release of The Incredibles, the ending of the movie was rewritten because it was thought to be too similar.

There are two different versions of a scene which includes Jessica Alba and Ioan Gruffudd as Sue and Reed respectively. One version (the original) features the pair in the Planetarium, in which they communicate their feelings for each other properly without an argumentative tone. This ends in an inevitable kiss. The second version (used in the theatrical release) features the two outside, looking towards the Statue Of Liberty. Similar lines were used, but it ended where Susan turns invisible before 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 the X-Men's Wolverine. Actor Gruffudd breaks the fourth wall and looks directly at the camera as he does this, suggesting the scene might have been filmed as a joke (similar to a practical joke filmed for the first X-Men film, in which stunt coordinator Scott Leva dressed up as Spider-Man and ran onto the set in the middle of a scene). [1]

The novelization of the film contained a number of scenes which did not appear in the final cut; most notably a small number of scenes that drastically developed the character of Alicia Masters.

Sky Movies in the UK actually show a different version of the film to the theatrical or DVD releases. Among the changes, are the song playing in the bar scene not skipping when the Thing takes a step, the planetarium scene being reinstated and the masked Doctor Doom's voice changing from his regular voice to having an effect over the speech. Other parts of the film, such as Thing & Doom's underwater fight, are shortened whereas Reed's involvement in stopping Doom is removed.

Extended Cut

In June 2007 an extended cut was released, incorporating over 20 minutes of deleted scenes.

Sequel

Its financial success has led to the sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which will debut in theaters on May 15, 2007. It will feature the Silver Surfer and Doctor Doom as its central villains. The planet-eating entity Galactus will be seen, but as a planet sized cloud/dust storm.

Trivia

Paul Walker auditioned for the role of Johnny Storm / The Human Torch but lost the part to Chris Evans at the last moment.
Several actresses tried out for the role of Susan Storm / The Invisible Woman including Rachel McAdams, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Keri Russell, Claire Danes, Julia Stiles and Elizabeth Banks but each were turned down. The role was later given to Jessica Alba. Interestingly, Elizabeth Banks was already an actress in a Marvel Comics film, Spider-Man as Betty Brant.
Kate Bosworth and Elisha Cuthbert both auditioned for the role of Susan Storm / The Invisible Woman as well. Their screen tests can be seen on the special features of the DVD. Also interestingly, Kate Bosworth would later star as Lois Lane in Superman Returns, a DC Comics film.
When Johnny Storm is seen talking to Ben Grimm as he leaves the hotel, Johnny is seen holding an action figure of The Thing. The action figure is from the Marvel Legends toyline (Series 2), although this figure has a talking action feature.
Brendan Fraser and George Clooney auditioned for the role of Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic.
James Gandolfini auditioned for the role of Ben Grimm / The Thing.

External links