Captain America: Brave New World

Re-Heated Leftovers

or

The President's a Red Hulking Jerk (So What Else is New?)
 

The new Captain America movie—Captain America: Brave New World—has been the #1 movie of the past three weekends, so it was about time I checked it out. It's the first new "Cap" movie with the retirement of the Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) character in Avengers: Endgame, and after a Disney+ series try-out, Anthony Mackie gets to stop being called The Falcon and being called Captain America in an actual movie from Marvel Studios. 

 

Too bad he feels like a co-star in his own movie, as the character flails around trying to solve a government conspiracy involving the big dump of adamantium that's been sitting in the Indian Ocean since The Eternals (and that was—what?—four years ago?), while at the same time a villain from the past (2008, specifically, but from another Marvel movie series from a previous studio), who has supposedly been rotting in a secure jail-cell somewhere apparently isn't and has his own plans for—muah-ha-ha—revenge. Already the "Brave New World" title of the movie feels like a stretch as it seems to be recycling old dangling plot-threads from the less-than-successful Marvel movies of the past.

And speaking of recycling, Harrison Ford takes over for the late William Hurt (who took over from Sam Elliott) playing General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, who has previously been a thorn in The Avengers' boots and has parlayed that into becoming President of the United States (Ford is President again? Man, we ARE recycling). And as much as Ford tends to dominate the proceedings of the film, he overshadows Mackie's Sam Wilson/Cap and (I think) to the film's detriment.

So, the film begins after the events of "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" (which I never saw, but it apparently doesn't matter much) where Cap and the new Falcon, Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) take part in an undercover operation in Mexico to stop a mercenary named Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), who works for "Serpent" guess they're bad guys—to recover some MacGuffin (which turns out to be refined adamantium that the Japanese government had secured from that Eternals thing which has now been called "Celestial Island"). Don't worry if all of that sounds new, because it is, and no, you haven't missed anything.

Anyway, mission accomplished with the help of Cap's new, improved vibranium-infused wings from Wakanda and a lot of gee-whizardry. Despite doing well in Mexico, Cap insists that Torres train with one of America's super-soldiers, one Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly, always enjoyable), who was introduced in the Disney+ series. Long story short, he was a super-soldier in Korea, but had been imprisoned by the government for the past 30 years...but isn't now. Cool.

After the successful mission, everybody gets invited to the White House to meet the President (both the U.S. and Japanese variety), but while Ross is giving a presentation on how the world should be safe-guarding and sharing adamantium for the world's benefit (unlike those Wakandans!) and doing one of those "it's-for-your-own-good" speeches that American Presidents do, phones start erupting with a song by The Fleetwoods, which turns some in the audience—including Bradley—into "attack" mode (actually, The Fleetwoods aren't that bad!) and they start firing on the President. A big melee happens and Bradley is taken into custody even though he can't remember anything about trying to shoot the President. It's back to prison for Bradley, and Cap is on the "outs" with Ross because Cap's friend tried to shoot him.

Anyway, you get the gist. An international plot (that may involve World War III!) with personal repercussions for our Captain, and it just gets so complicated with mind-controlling cell-phones, nobody trusting anybody, Ross' potential heart-problems, on top of the lamest of character motivations at this late date—how  now-President Ross feels so bad that he's estranged from his daughter Betty (Liv Tyler) because he tried to kill her ex-boyfriend, Bruce Banner, The Hulk (back before he was Mark Ruffalo) making everything a bit of a mish-mash.

That last bit—the daughter thing—undercuts the movie quite a lot, and although Ford plays it gamely, it's a bit of weak tea for motivation, especially given the higher stakes globally, and finally makes President Ross a bit of a lame character, where his ambitions as President pale to his "just wanting to get along" with his own kid. If it was really such a big deal as the movie makes it out to be, it wouldn't be resolved so soporifically as it is in the movie.

But what am I complaining about, nobody cares much for all that thin "character stuff," as what they really want to see is Ross turn into The Red Hulk because it's promised in the poster and the previews. Given the character's history with the Green Hulk, this is irony with a capital SMASH! and, frankly, has nothing to do with the rest of the movie other than that the same bad guy responsible for all the mind-controlling has been setting up the Third Act Hulkitude as well, just so that...Ross can look bad in front of his daughter, frustrating him into full chili-pepper berserker mode. Oh, and cause all sorts of damage to prominent monuments...and cherry trees.

One senses in that final Cap vs. Red Hulk confrontation that a lot of screenplay back-filling was done in order to bring it about (there are five credited screenwriters), but even given the cheesiness that goes into a lot of the funny-book verisimilitude, the  efforts here strain the goodwill needed in order to accept it. I mean I know it's based on comic books and superheroes, but it takes a Hulk-style leap of faith to accept the ways and means it takes to get there. It takes a lot of the geek-fun out of it to know you're being played. Still, it IS good to see Tim Blake Nelson come back. He's a good actor, a good director, and a heck of a nice guy. He plays evil good, too. But, just as he was ill-served in The Incredible Hulk movie so many years back, he's ill-served by this one, too.

So, it's disappointing, especially because it's Anthony Mackie's first Captain America movie and I've always liked him. And because...legacy. Of all the Marvel properties, the Captain America series was the last of the "majors" to come out before the first "Avengers" movie, and the studio managed to work with its old-fashioned and, frankly, jingoistic tendencies and make it work well. In fact, they did their job so well that the Captain America series was the one trilogy of movies in the Marvel stable that didn't falter in any of its three films. 

 

Now, it has. And that leaves me feeling a bit sad...and disappointed.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

Re-Tooling Pinocchio

or

"All Good Things Require Patience"

Good Lord, we're certainly in a nostalgia craze right now, but then self-isolation will do that to you. Spielberg did Fabelmans, Mendes does Empire of Light, and now del Toro makes a film that was inspired by an early childhood movie memory of his youth, his own version of Pinocchio. I can't fault him; I loved that movie as a child—and was obsessed with it, too. But, that was Disney's Pinocchio made in 1940. It's of a different time and a different sensibility.

 

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio is quite another creature entirely. For one thing, it's set in the fascist Italy of the 1930's. And the puppet is a puppet, never losing his bark (as it were) and without the embedded wish of being a real boy. He's real enough and high on, if not life, anthropomorphism. But, he's a block of wood, cut from a tree, without the benefit of paint or clothes as per the Disney version (and the recent Robert Zemeckis adaptation on Disney+). 

And this version isn't 2D animation or CGI as with those. This is stop-motion animation, that pain-staking movie-making done (as with most animation) frame by frame. I've always had a soft spot for this type of work, be it from its earliest days of King Kong, through the mesmerizing work of Ray Harryhausen to the improvements of "go-motion" developed by the wizards like Phil Tippett for the Star Wars films. To think of these guys, with their little play-sets, moving their figures inch by perceptible inch, bearing in mind the incremental differences in perceptible motion and speed!) to create the illusion of life on film reveals not only the imagination but the science and mechanics of making moving pictures. We won't even talking about the commitment of walking to a studio knowing you'll probably only get a minute of film done (if you're lucky) every day.

So, hats off to Mark Gustafson, who co-directed this—while del Toro was off directing live features, promoting them, winning Oscars, getting married and supervising his vision of what "his" Pinocchio story should be. Gustafson's work is incredible...and convincing. You get lost in this world and its creatures, all with their individual quirks and personalities (they move differently—by design, Gustafson's design). Those are determined by del Toro, they are brought to life by Gustafson's steadfast and steady work.

You know the story. Simplified, the story goes like this; Gepetto is a wood-carver/toy-maker who makes a humanoid marionette with the wish that it might be a real boy. Supernatural powers animate the puppet and, after the usual chaos that an energized blunt instrument can inflict, Gepetto insists that the thing go to school to be socialized, forgetting that society sees Pinocchio as a puppet walking around without strings and thus, something exploitable. Pinocchio gets gathered like kindling and tied up in a traveling show. Much searching occurs until getting swallowed by a whale, at which point, Pinoke proves his worth saving everybody and is rewarded.

But, it's the details. Disney's version leaned on the "wants to be a 'real' boy" wish, starlet-pretty fairies, anthropomorphized animals, and an emphasis on good behavior (while, curiously, demonstrating smoking, drinking, gambling, and vandalism) tent-poled with a lot of classic songs that perpetually show up in modern culture as well as hawking trips to Disneyland. The lesson to it all is "Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide," which implies that the conscience leads to good behavior that is accepted by society, the church, and the family. And that "being a real boy" is the sine qua non of life.

 

As they say at "CinemaSins": "That's speciest!"

Del Toro tells a different story, while keeping the nuts and bolts holding the thing together. It's set in the 1930's during fascist Italy (as we've said), and Gepetto (David Bradley) makes his figure after his beloved son, Carlo, is killed in a bombing. Despairing (and drinking) he builds it from the tree that has grown out of his son's grave. Wood spirits (in the form of a slightly angelic figure—voiced by Tilda Swinton) show up and grant life to the figure and appoint resident cricket Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor playing Obi-Wan for Disney a-gain!) as his guide and tutor.

The sight of Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) gallivanting cluelessly and curiously around his work-shop filled with sharp objects understandably freaks out the hung-over Gepetto. And his instincts are to curb his enthusiasms or, failing that, lock him in the closet to minimize the damage he causes. It's easiest to do the latter, ironically when he's going to church) But, Pinocchio cannot be contained and he follows his "Papa" to the humble chapel adorned with a crucifix built by Gepetto.

But, the parishioners are aghast! What unholy thing has desecrated this House of God? It's an abomination and (not only that, says the town's fascist leader, Podesta-voiced by "del Toro regular" Ron Perlman) he's a "dissident. An independent thinker, I'd say." All because Pinocchio looks at the wooden Christ on the cross (also built by his "Papa") and wonder "How come they like him and not me?" Poor Pinocchio. He's a beginning student asking post-grad questions.

Time to send him to school, but he's easily distracted by an offer from the unscrupulous Count Volpe (Christoph Waltz) to join his circus and become a performer in his traveling puppet act. Soon, Pinocchio is quite the attraction, attracting the attention of a desperate Gepetto and the fascist Podesta—who wants to gain favor with Il Duce, Benito Mussolino (Tom Kenny), who fancies puppets as much as he fancies being the ultimate puppeteer. Dictators always have that fantasy, whether they rule a puppet government or not.

This is all delightful, even if its satire is heavy-handed (fascists deserve no less) at times, and its humor is periodically ghastly (it is del Toro, after all), but it caroms along at a brisk pace, occasionally interrupted by songs (composed by the always inventive Alexandre Desplat, with lyrics by del Toro and Roeban Katz) that are sometimes interrupted themselves by some boisterous activity that ends them in mid-note.

And it adheres to the "Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide" maxim in a way that works in a complicated way where Society may not always be in the right. I like that. Like the movie itself, its heart is is exactly the right place where it should be, even if there is no heart in evidence.

 

This is a Pinocchio I can admire, no strings attached.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (And Other Tales of the Western Frontier)

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back—That's a Western Waltz
or
"Uncertainty. That is appropriate for matters of this world. Only regarding the next are vouchsafed certainty."
or
"Misanthrope? I don't hate my fellow man, even when he's tiresome and surly and tries to cheat at poker. I figure that's just a human material, and him that finds in it cause for anger and dismay is just a fool for expecting better."

There is a sense of nostalgia that prepares you for The Coen Brothers' new Western anthology film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (which makes its premier on Netflix and is playing a very few theaters in the U.S., presumably for Oscar award consideration). It starts with a nicely-composed shot of a dog-eared book bearing the same title as the film, familiar for the plain dust-jacket (from a time before marketing became the thing to sell the book) that will be recognized to anyone who's had to clear out the bookshelf of a recently-passed relative, or from a Sunday afternoon perambulation through a used book store. You can practically smell the dust and age of the pages, as a hand crawls into frame and gingerly opens the book to the artistically rendered end-papers and then to the "meat" of the book, where the page-turning pauses on the dedication page, which has these words:

To Gaylord Gilpin

Who shared with us these stories,

And many more alike, one night

in camp above the roaring fork

'til approach of morn stained the sky

and our esteem for him stained our trousers.

This Book is Dedicated

There are six stories in the book, the titles giving no clue as to what they might be about. Turn the page and we see a list of the color illustration plates included in the volume. A tissue protects the illustration and we see the first burst of material showing us the contents, a single image and an arbitrary line of prose that only hints at what's inside, creating a mystery and a void to be filled, a goal to move on to. And we begin...with "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs."

1. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) is a singing cowboy riding out of Monument Valley into what passes for civilization in the day and age, his legs wrapped around his horse, his arms wrapped around his guitar and his throat wrapped around the traditional ballad "Cool Water." Buster is a white-hat cowboy, loquacious of song and speech (by which he is constantly addressing the audience as in "Don't let my white duds and pleasant demeanor fool ya. I, too, have been known to violate the statutes of man... and not a few of the laws of the Almighty!"). His story demonstrates his "downright Archimedean" skills with a gun, and his reputation as the "San Saba songbird" as he creates a quick comic elegy for one of miscreants of poor nature who have the fool-hardiness to draw on him.*

One can see why the Coens were tempted to start with this one, as it is the funniest and most arch of the six stories, recalling to mind the Looney-Tunes nature of Raising Arizona, and with a lovely, goony performance by Nelson that endears you to him, even if, occasionally, it creeps one out. It sets up the tone for the entire film, where The West challenges the expert and the novice alike and Death comes in unexpected and inconvenient ways and should also prepare viewers that, as such, they can be surprising and grisly, as well. 

"The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is a comic primer for the anthology, showing the film's approach to dusty death and the film's larger message of the nature of wilderness, and the efficacy of trying to rise above it.

"You seen 'em, you play 'em" sneered the hard man.

2. Near Algodones

An outlaw (James Franco) decides he's going to knock over the only game in town (except there's no town)—a bank that looks like it fell right out of the sky to land in the middle of the plains. But, it's just not his day. He has to contend with the institution's sole teller (Stephen Root), who's been through the procedure before, and who, in the opinion of the would-be robber, "doesn't fight fair." 

The outlaw will have very good luck today, but not so's you'd notice.

After waking up, he finds his neck in a noose, with a hanging party all ready to carry out its sentence. Fate steps in to get him out of the jam, but also put him deep into another one. He will ultimately learn that there's a good side to everything as long as he has the time to appreciate it.

"Pan-shot!" cried the old man.

3. Meal Ticket

A humble wagon makes its way through the scarce pockets of civilization that mark a mountain landscape. It is a traveling show, featuring a cultured orator, Harrison (Harry Melling), who has the added fascination that he is a quadriplegic. The show is fairly simple—the curtain of a small stage parts to reveal the orator, and after a dramatic pause that allows for gawking, he gives dramatic recitations of the story of Cain and Abel, and other sources as diverse as Shakespeare, Shelley, and Abraham Lincoln, to the spare audiences looking for diversion from the night and the cold. 

Harrison is under the care of his manager (Liam Neeson), who drives the wagon, posts the bills, prepares the stage, does Harrison's make-up, and provides sound effects for the parts in which God appears and needs accompaniment. He also collects the spare change that the audience provides for their night's entertainment, enough to provide a hot meal cooked over a campfire. The manager does that, too, and feeds Harrison by hand. Lodgings would be too expensive and the audiences are noticeably dwindling the farther they head through the mountains.

The two are tied together in partnership, but the days are long and the rewards are meager. 

"Meal Ticket" is a story of entrepreneurship, reduced in all its hard-scrabble desperation, and the eye toward improving business at all costs with little regard to anything but the sound of coins in pockets, and it resonates as timely as the day's financial headlines that emphasize the bottom line at the cost of human dignity...and life.

"The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven."

All Gold Canyon

Based on a Jack London story, "All Golden Canyon" tells the story of a grizzled prospector (Tom Waits), who enters a pristine valley with the intention of culling the riches hidden within it, without regard to the wonders that surround him.

He sets up an elaborate system, digging through the dirt, and noting the glittering specks of gold that he is able to pan out of it, to find the vein of gold that he knows must be there, the source of which he calls "Mr. Pocket," that will allow him to leave the valley a very rich man—if he can survive long enough to hit pay dirt.

And in all that mighty sweep of earth, he did not see a sign of man nor the handiwork of man.

The Gal Who Got Rattled

A mail-order bride, Alice Longabaugh (Zoe Kazan) travels with her brother by wagon train to meet her intended husband. But the journey is long and accompanied by cholera, natives, and her brother's dog, named Benjamin Pierce, whose instinct, owing to its city nature, is to bark at anything wild, upsetting the prickly members of the wagon train, already impatient by the deprivations of the long journey.

When her brother dies, Alice is left alone, on her own, with no experience, few prospects, and a singular disposition towards fretting, which endears her to the ramrod of the train, Billy Knapp (Bill Heck), who takes it upon himself to solve her cares and problems, much to the mute consternation of the train boss, Mr. Arthur (Grainger Hines), who has other considerations than those of a worrisome girl, out of her depth, and out in the wilderness.

The longest and most intricate of the stories, "The Gal Who Got Rattled" is based on a story by Stewart Edward White, and one could comment, here, on the top-tier performances and the exquisite photography (shot digitally, a Coen first) by Bruno Delbonnel, who's been doing a lot of work with the Coens, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Tim Burton and Joe Wright, but that praise can be said for the entire anthology, no matter the conditions or weather they were recorded in. The film is beautiful to look at, frequently threatening to overwhelm the stories, but never quite doing that, becoming an intricate part of the story-telling fabric, the wide expanses of prairie and horizon looming and often overpowering the melancholy insignificances of the tiny figures making their ways through them.

Mr. Arthur had no idea what he would say to Billy Knapp.

The Mortal Remains

Five passengers (played by Saul Rubinek, Tyne Daly, Chelcie Ross and Jonjo O'Neill and Brendan Gleeson) on board a stage-coach as they make their way from a sunset prairie to the enfolding night on their way to Fort Morgan. 

The five could not be less compatible as they hold conversations as to the nature of man and the nature of love on the one side of the stage, while on the other the two partners, Thigpen and Clarence reveal themselves to be "reapers"—bounty hunters, who on this very ride are carrying their latest victim (on the roof of the cabin) to be dispatched at Fort Morgan...but is that the only one designated by the gentlemen who clearly revel in their work? 

Unlike the other segments, "The Mortal Remains" is shot entirely on a sound-stage, even the fronts of the fort's houses are decidedly two-dimensional, but it ends the film on a decidedly creepy, if  ambivalent note, the kind of campfire story best saved for when the last embers glow out and leave only wraiths of smoke.

Whether or not he heard, the coachman did not slow.

And there you have it: the cowboy, the outlaw, the entrepreneur, the prospector, the wagon train, the stagecoach—tropes and aspects of the Olde West, but given a determined melancholy twist that has become synonymous with the works of the Coen Brothers. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is another genre-busting masterpiece that plants a flag in their careers, as they never do less than interesting work, but there are some that clearly stand out more than others.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is one of those. Not a "return to form," so much as one of those where everything works and their experimentation reveals the strengths of the inspiration they've decided to sardonically play around with—in this case, the Western's ability to show us that whatever we may gain, we lose something in the transition, making the genre both the perfect home of triumph entangled with tragedy, sometimes inseparably.

It is, indisputably, one of the best films of the year. Ironically, good luck finding it in a theater.

*

Surly Joe, the gambler, he will gamble nevermore,

his days of stud and hold'em they are done.

It was long about last April, he stepped into this saloon,

but he never really took to anyone!

Surly Joe, Surly Joe!

Oh, wherever he's gamblin' now, I don't know!

He was slick but I was slicker,

he was quick, but I was quicker,

and the table stopped his ticker, Surly Joe!

Surly Joe, Surly Joe!

Won't be missed by anyone, will Surly Joe!

Humankind he frowned upon,

but not now, his face is gone!

Guess your frowning days are done, oh Surly Joe!

Surly Joe, Surly Joe!

A cedilla on the "c" of Curly Joe!

He was mean in days of yore,

now they're moppin' up the floor

One more sight to make him sore, oh Surly Joe!

Surly Joe, Surly Joe!

Where the rest his face has got to, we don't know!

He was never any fun, now his grumpy race has run,

kisser blown to kingdom come oh Surly Joe!

Fantastic 4

"It's CLOBBERIN' Time!"
or 
"This Movie!...This Monster!"

The latest Marvel superhero movie to come out is the third attempt to make a viable tent-pole of one of the comics line's most venerable titles—the first to be published by Marvel, The Fantastic Four. Four friends who, on a space mission, are turned into super-heroes by a bombardment of radiation, the four—"Mr. Fantastic" (Reed Richards), who can stretch, "The Invisible Woman" (Sue Storm) who can turn invisible, "The Human Torch" (Sue's brother Johnny), who turns into a flying human fire-ball, and "The Thing" (Ben Grimm), who is turned into a super-strong rock-like bi-ped. Together, "they fight crime" (as the cliche goes), but for this relatively human team, the challenges were more cosmic and more mind-bending as they had to contend with threats from other galaxies and other dimensions (drawn from the seemingly endless imaginative ink-well of Jack "The King" Kirby), while, at the same time, serving up the mandatory Marvel "soap opera" quotient with Reed and Sue's love story, Johnny's hipster hot-head, and Grimm's impenetrable angst over being an unlovable freak. With its combination of mind-blowing themes and (*choke*) tear-duct-blowing melodrama, it became a big hit with teens and the college-crowd.

Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben as rendered by Jack Kirby

It was self-trumpeted (a bit prematurely on the cover of issue #4) as "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!" but the appeal of the FF couldn't be denied. Attempts were made in 1994 (under the producing of Roger Corman and is the ONLY film in his low-budget exploitation career that was NEVER released) and revived again in 2005 (with Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and a flaming Chris Evans, as well as the guy who got crushed by a container on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Andreas) in two films (Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) that were a bit premature in the new wave of CGI mounted comic-book films. Those two FF movies are consigned to "The Zero Zone," along with Ben Affleck's Daredevil movie.

The 90's FF (Hyde-White, Staab, Underwood and Smith) and the 00's FF (Alba, Gruffud, Evans and Chiklis)

But, it seems there must be a "Fantastic Four" movie attempted every decade from now on. The latest, Fantastic 4, is no improvement on the others. The cast is younger, more diverse (despite fan-boy grumbling—the most conservative of critics), the effects improved, and an attempt has been made to update the story and make it more hi-tech for the 21st century. That it ultimately fails leads one to question if it's one of those properties that just doesn't work in any other medium than the four-color comic. Or it makes one question if any other studio than one working in tandem with Marvel can produce anything decent. The director of this one, Josh Trank (who made the interesting Chronicle) has gone public, grousing that studio interference messed up his vision of Lee and Kirby's vision.

The origin story does need some updating, however, now that we're out of the 1960's of the Four's re-birth and into the 21st century. Instead of doing some experimental space-travel, the four and their co-worker Victor Von Doom (an eye-rolling name that, if anything needed to be changed, should have been a priority), instead, are exploring matter transference—a working "transporter" being a dream project of Richards' (in this case, Miles Teller) since he was a boy. At a science fair where he demonstrates a break-through, he's invited by Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey, in a performance that is quite...well, "restrained" would be a nice way of putting it) to join a team involving his son Johnny (Michael B. Jordan), adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara), and banished upstart Von Doom (Toby Kebbel) to see the project through to completion. But before a NASA administrator (Tim Blake Nelson) can start trials, Reed, Johnny, Victor and Reed's boy-hood chum Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell—remember him as Tintin in Steven Spielberg's film?  Of course you don't—you won't remember him in this, either, as his part is mostly motion-capture) who's there for some inexplicable reason, decide they're going to test it on themselves first. The mission does not go well, affecting the travelers in variant and horrific ways—it also alters Sue Storm, who is left back at the control room for some reason, but suffers the consequences, anyway.

Sue, Johnny, Dr. Storm and "Vic" von Doom.

Von Doom is left on the "Zero Planet" (as it's called), while Reed's body is turned malleable, Johnny erupts in flames, Sue turns invisible, and Ben is changed into a rock-like monster. It is horrific for all, but the NASA suits see them as an opportunity for weaponization (after some experimentation), but Reed slithers out of his shackles and escapes the complex they're being held in against their will, vowing he will free the others and turn them back to normal. For those left behind, Reed is simply a turncoat and to the government he's a threat. This takes a good hour to set up and less than that to resolve, including a return to the Hell-Planet, where the four confront Von Doom who is constructing one of those Marvel movie things that throw off an energy stream that shoots up into the sky, but you have no idea why.*

A lot of it looks good—there's a subdued color palette and a tendency to dimly light things that give it the look of a good old fashioned horror movie, which when you have people disappearing, disfigured and on fire isn't much of a stretch (hey, I just described everybody's powers in one sentence!). But, there is an awful lot wrong with it. One could nit-pick over dialogue and acting and failures in logic and potential throughout this movie. But, simply put, there are four key errors in this Fantastic 4 that makes it unique among bad super-hero movies.

1.  Consider the Source: The Fantastic 4 are superheroes at their most puerile, designed to impose a family structure on disaffected little boys. They are instantly recognizable as Mom and Dad (Reed and Sue) and the bickering kids (Ben and Johnny). Whatever conflicts they go through (and they go through a lot internally and externally), the family dynamic pulls them through. That's one thing that's consistent about the Fantastic Four and part of its basic DNA. In this film, however, "family" is given lip service. The group is quarantined after the accident and restrained by the NASA industrialists and the four turn into factions—Johnny and Sue against Ben and everybody against Reed, "the turncoat," who has escaped and seemingly abandoned the other three. Nobody trusts anybody and its every man and woman for themselves until Dr. Doom (Bwa-ha-HA!) serves as an over-arching threat that unites them. Up until the last few minutes of the film, they're not even a team at all and are actually pissed at each other. This is so fundamentally opposed to the appeal of the original concept, it may be the biggest mistake of the film. If you're going to make a superhero film about a creation that's 55 years old, at least realize what it is that's made it last so long.

2. Did You Know That You're My Hero?: That's the thing about super-heroes. They are us but better. Smarter, faster, stronger, and certainly more altruistic to the point where the whole genre might be considered science-fiction, given the proclivities of the populace. They train themselves to make use of their gifts in the service of others, and if something should befall them—a spider-bite, a lightning strike, or a birthright—they seek its use for the betterment of their neighbors. Sure, the Fantastic Four may have turned into embodiments of the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and..Rubber, but rather than grieving, drinking and saying "how do I fix this?" they use their new handicaps, and in that very tendency they are heroes. That's not what you get here. You don't get heroes, you get victims. The explosion of the transporter makes everybody helpless and easy prey for the militarists hoping to exploit the four by "helping" them. And Reed is so beset by guilt, he wants to "fix it."** So he runs away to become a super-genius Ted Kaczynski in the woods. The victimization of the Fantastic Four here aligns them with most of the other Marvel heroes—and not just the Marvels, but others of the sub-genus—making the origins part and parcel of the cause they fight for. But that was never the Fantastic Four in the comics. There was not too much brooding to be done over their conditions (except for Ben), not when there were whatzit's to invent and cosmic crises to insert themselves into. The 4, for the most part, accepted what happened and moved on, making the most of the situation.  It would be nice to see more of that.

3. Sometimes Origin Stories Don't Matter: The origin of The Fantastic Four is completely unremarkable and gives no purpose to their being—an accident that changes them and inspires them to make lemonade out of lemons. In the comics, they are all gifted in some way (even Ben Grimm is a test-pilot, which is why he's on board the doomed space-ship) and their instincts are to use those gifts for some greater purpose. That origin does not make a mission—to find the person responsible, to prevent the same thing from happening to others or such. And yet the "How-They-Came-To-Be" story is trotted out like that's the thing to do. Unfortunately, that story (which provides no "hook" to a franchise) takes up more than half the movie, time that could have been better spent on anything else. Like story or character or "Something Big." It would have been far better to start in media res—assume the group simply is and concentrate on something world-shaking that they have to overcome. As it is, the movie is extraordinarily lop-sided, the majority of it being Origin Story followed by 15 Minutes of Action, and rather negligible action at that. Really, all they do at the end is beat Dr. Doom up and turn his "Whatever-It-Is" against him. If you're going to make a superhero movie...

4. Make it ABOUT Something, Damn It!:  There isn't much of a story here besides the origin, a quick confrontation with the motivation-less villain, and then the movie ends without the group having a purpose...merely a headquarters. Maybe that's to make the whole thing seem more in line with The Avengers, but that group has a goal before they decide to move in together, and without that there is certainly no triumph to the ending, merely a mortgage. There is no reason for the team to exist. They beat up Dr. Doom and that's it. What's the point to continuing the series—to find a cure for the mutations, to perfect the errant experiment that caused them, to block it from happening again (as it appears to be a bad place), to establish a support group for Zero Planet victims—what's the job? Hopefully, that HQ has a meeting room with a white-board or something so they can figure it out before the next movie (despite the poor box-office, Fox is already talking one up...for now).

In the end, it's all false advertising—it's not the comics and only resembles it in name and powers—and right down to the name: Not so fantastic.  And if you're into rating movies, only 1 out of 4. 

Reed Richards can make himself look like anything with that stretch-power.
So why does he choose to look so dumpy?

* Marvel Comics was always soft on science—there always seemed to be a scene where the four were looking up at some huge cosmic something-or-other with dialogue that summarized "I don't know what it is, but it sure is BIG!" 

The Marvel movie equivalent seems to be "I don't know what it does, but it sure spits out a lot of sparks!"

"I don't know what it is, but it sure is BIG!"

** Reed does want to help Ben Grimm in the comics, as that character is his friend and the most traumatized by the "accident." Everybody else is fine with their powers and set about how to use them and improving them.