Fantastic Four (1994)

By Mr. Tropnevad

Summary

Four friends travel into space and are exposed to a comet's radiation. They soon discover they have super powers and now have to fight an old friend, who is trying to destroy a city.


Expectations Going In

Fourteen years ago I came across this movie while downloading old cartoons. I have since held on to it because it could not be found anywhere to buy. I later found out that due to the budget it was never released and it was only made because the studio that had the rights for it was actually about to lose them. For those that have heard of this film, either saw it by downloading it somewhere or at comic book conventions. When I saw this I didn’t think it was that bad. Since it has been fourteen years since my last viewing I am worried that this will be just like watching "Night of the Lepus" nothing but disappointment.

Bad

There is a lot of bad here, because this is a movie that was never released. The writing in this movie is atrocious, but that’s what you get from writers that make horrible B movies like “Warlock” and “The Howling IV”. For those that aren’t aware of these two movies, they are B horror movies. Having a horror writer write a super hero movie is going to cause problems. The scene where Victor Von Doom (Joseph Culp) and Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic (Alex Hyde-White) are trying to harness the power of a comet comes to mind. As the machine they are working on is trying to harness the power, Reed tells Doom to look out. Reed continues typing on the computer and then Doom jumps out of the way several seconds later. Even I could have done a better job of acting than that. When someone yells move, because the objects around you are sparking and shaking, you don’t wait.  You move.

The romance in this movie is annoying and I don’t know if I should blame the actors, director, writer, or just all of them. Ten years after Doom is electrocuted Reed and Ben aka The Thing (Michael Bailey Smith) go to a bank to get a diamond about the size of my head. Ben clearly walks into a blind lady named Alicia (Kat Green) and he knocks her down and breaks a statue she had in her hand. He picks her up by grabbing her under her breast and then sets her down on the floor. Blind or not, no woman would be okay with you picking them up like that. She puts her hands on him and starts making orgasm sounds. This happens two more times in this movie. The second time involves Alicia touching a statue of Ben's face with one hand and rubbing her hand all over her face and in her mouth. This is unnecessary for a comic book movie and for children.

This writing and dialog in this film is horrid. At the beginning of the movie we are informed that Reed lives in a boarding house with the mom of Susan aka Invisible Women (Rebecca Staab) and Johnny Storm aka Human Torch (Jay Underwood). Days before Ben and Reed go into space; Reed decides to take Sue and Johnny with them. They are several years younger than him, since they were children when he was in the boarding house. Ben says the smartest thing anyone in a movie or in real life would say, and that is they don’t have any type of degrees or training to help them prepare for this.

Reed doesn’t care and the next scene Reed and Ben are at the boarding house, mother Storm at the door, and Reed says, "Hi, can Johnny and Susan come into outer space with us today?" Really, who says that? As the four of them are about to leave the house the mother says, "Look at you! You’re the Fantastic Four!" 

The effects in this movie are bad. At one point in the movie The Thing transforms back into human form (which in the comics can’t be done and has only happened temporarily a few times due to special circumstances--he had a cure or was on another planet), and then he transforms back into The Thing. This scene has him screaming and we see his human form and as The Thing while the screen is spinning around flashing back and forth between them. This takes several seconds and then he is The Thing again. This was the worst transformation of anything I have ever seen. Even movies from the 50s had better transformation scenes than that. Watch the Wolf Man and you'll see that even his transformation is better than that.

I really disliked Jay Underwood (Johnny Storm/Human Torch). He can’t act and he made me hate his character. He turns the movie into the 60s Batman TV show by saying “Holly Freud, Batman!” After the spaceship that the Fantastic Four was on blows up, he runs around a field and is super excited about the crash saying how he wants to do it again.

The special effects on Human Torch are bad. When his entire body turns to fire he doesn’t even look like fire, but just a blob of orange. There is a scene where he is flying trying to catch up with a laser and if the laser was orange you would never tell what was what. For 1994 they could have used better computer effects. This would have been acceptable for the 70s but not the mid 90s.

The fight scenes are horrible but the most memorable scene is when Mr. Fantastic is fighting Dr. Doom. His stretchy body looks fine until the scene goes to widescreen and we see how terrible it is. I mean did they use silly putty or use the toy Stretch Armstrong for these scenes? The entire fight between the two is scripted badly. I seriously think the director said: Reed punch Doom in the face, Doom fall down and then stand up, Reed repeat, Doom repeat, and so on. Worst fight scene I’ve seen in years.

Good

The intro to the movie is pretty cool because we have a minute intro that was a camera floating in space going around to different planets. What helped this intro seem cool was the intro music wasn’t too bad.

I know I said Alex Hyde-White had bad acting but he delivered on the emotional scene when he sees Doom’s body go by on the gurney. I thought he was just going to stand there emotionless, but he started to cry, so I had to give him props for that. The only thing good I can even say for Rebecca Staab and Kat Green is that they are both pretty to look at.

I used to tell people that The Thing looked horrible in this film, but after this rewatch, I think he looks alright for a guy in a costume. Most of his dialog was bad, but I had to pause the movie because I was laughing at him when he said, “What am I supposed to do with these guys?” He was in a room with some guards he knocked out and he didn’t know what to do with them afterward.

Dr. Doom’s costume looked good, too. After all how hard is it to get metal armor and some green clothing wrong? While his acting was bad, too, I found myself laughing at his cheesy lines. Speaking of Doom, his lair was cheap looking but I did like the image they were obviously trying for.

Overall Thoughts

This movie really wasn’t that bad. The movie had a million dollar budget and Roger Corman helped with the production, so naturally it wasn’t going to be anything amazing. You may be asking how you can get a chance to watch this and after about a minute of searching I found two ways to do this: you can buy an expensive copy that comes with a case and cover on random websites or on eBay, or you can stream it on YouTube. I watched the first ten minutes on YouTube to see how it looked compared to mine and it was a little bit better looking, but not by much. So, I am going to give this two verdicts.

If you are a fan of comic books or the Fantastic Four, I say give it a shot and watch it on YouTube. I do think that if you watch it, you should watch it with friends so you can laugh together. If, you dislike comic book movies, don’t watch it.

Comic book fan- watch it on YouTube.
Everyone else- skip.