Fantastic Four or Frightful Four?

Alex Nunez is covering the reaction to the new Fantastic Four movie.

I spoke with some of the staff at my local comics shop recently, and they basically panned the movie, comparing it unfavorably to "Batman Begins". As we discussed it, it became clear what their reservations were:

1. It wasn't "realistic" enough.
2. Dr. Doom was much different than in the comic book.
3. It wasn't "serious" enough.

Now, what's interesting to me about this is that "Batman Begins" was neither realistic (the ridiculous mountain-climbing followed by kung fu scenes, the prison camp, the completely silly view of corporate America and urban development) nor serious (The Scarecrow was hardly menacing, Katie Holmes as an assistant DA was simply ridiculous), and the main villain of "Batman Begins"---R'as al Ghul---was vastly altered to make him a crucial part of Batman's origin, when he in fact appeared some 30 years later. Moreover, his powers were quite different in the movie than in the comic book.

Thus, "Batman Begins" seems to be arguably privy to the same defects these critics claim of "Fantastic Four", yet they give the former a pass and excoriate the latter. Why is this?

I think it comes down to the earnest desire of comic fans to have their hobby taken seriously, to have the medium seen as being truly artistic. I don't think anybody would argue that "Batman Begins" isn't a much more pretentious film than "Fantastic Four." I'd argue it's a more artistic film, in that Christopher Nolan clearly addressed the material with an auteur's earnestness.

"Fantastic Four" is more---campy. That's it---the dreaded C-word, left over from the nadir of the Adam West TV show. Ultimately, that's why they hate the Joel Schumacher Bat-movies as well---he intentionally upped the camp.

Yet "Fantastic Four" isn't sneering at comic book fans. Far from it. Marvel Comics founder Stan Lee appears in a cameo as Baxter Building mailman Willy Lumpkin, a character known and beloved only of hardcore Marvel maniacs from way back. The costumes haven't been updated much---say what you want about Dr. Doom, but he looks virtually identical to the comic book version. With the exception of Dr. Doom, all of the super characters' powers are identical to the comic. Moreover, their personalities are much the same.

The changes made to character and origin in "Fantastic Four" are certainly similar in magnitude and reasoning to those in "Batman Begins". Victor von Doom was made part of the cosmic ray exposure because it saved time and explanation and gave him a reason for hating Reed Richards. As part of that, they had to give him some sort of superpowers, and I'm afraid black magic wasn't on the short list. (This in itself was a later addition to Doom's back story). Granted, I find Doom's origin very compelling, but I didn't have the filmmakers' challenge of shoehorning it into a 2-hour movie.

The bottom line difference between the two films is one is grim 'n' gritty and the other Grimm 'n' pretty. Fanboys love the former and hate the latter for reasons all their own.

As for me, I thought it was a solid outing and look forward to the next movie. It was much more important for me that the filmmakers got the family relationship right than that they hewed closely to the comic, although I must say I would love to see a treatment based on the original Lee/Kirby stories which was completely faithful, down to Reed's exhortations to Sue to quit nagging him and Ben's serious anger issues. As the success of "Freedom Force" shows, I think there's a lot of pent-up nostalgia for the 60s Marvel Comics approach, in all its overwrought melodrama.

In the meantime, I'll look forward to Galactus in the next film.