Dis movie nowhere near fantastic but, all in all, not de worst fan film monster have ever seen. De skript be cliche and contrived, de akting hokey and over-de-top, and de special effekts soooo cheezy, but you have to remember dat dis movie not made by profeshiunals. It a produkt of love by group of people wit absolutely no experience making movies and even less money to…wait. What? WHAAAAT?! Dis NOT a fan film?
WHAAAT?!!
Okay, apparently dis a real movie. Or is it? It was made for 1.4 million dollars. Direktor and aktors were told it was real. But producer only made movie so he would not lose rights to Fantastic Four. Movie never released and producer went on to make bigger budjet Fantastic Four movie in 2005 (which monster hear be not dat much better). Dat explain A LOT.
Movie begin wit Reed and Victor, best friends, who decide to harness de power of…COLOSSUS an energy asteroid thingy dat flying by Earth! (Pleaze do not try dis at home!)
Experiment not exactly smooooth sailing. Lab blow up. Victor badly injured! Reed go to visit him at hospital but creepy Borat doktors tell him dat Viktor dead.
BUT it turn dey not just your run-of-de-mill creepy Borat doktors. Viktor still alive and dey kidnap him! Why? Who are dey? Audience never find out. Mebbe we have to wait for direktor’s cut.
Ten years later, Reed and his buddy pilot Ben plan to fly into space and harness power of…COLOSSUS! (Please do not try dis at home!) On way to outerspace, dey drop by home of friends Sue and Johnny Storm and invite dem to join. Why? Sure, dey may not have proper astronaut training, but Reed not want to make dem feel left out. Even tho he not seen dem in 10 years!
Meanwhile, really lame charakter called De Jeweler (who live underground wit fellow hobos who akt like dey in a children’s theater produktion of Oliver Twist), fall in love wit blind sculptor, Alicia, who in love with Ben after he bump into her, destroy her art, den lift her up off her feet and proklaim: “You’re safe wit me!”. What a douche. Jeweler decide to steal a diamond for her, de biggest diamond he know – which happen to be what Reed will use in his spaceship to harness de power of…COLOSSUS! (Did me mention you shouldn’t try dis at home?) Anyway, diamond kept in high-security laser-protected lab – which, apparently, can be beaten by a good game of hopscotch. Jeweler steal diamond and switch it wit fake.
As a result, space mission not exaktly go as planned. Ship blow up in space!
Crazy 70’s kaleidoskope effekts! Somehow, pieces of ship and all four crew members (Reed, Ben, Sue, and Johnny) survive re-entry and all land in de same place. Turn out dey all have superpowerz! Johnny can make fire! Reed be stretchy! Sue can go invisible! In one of best scenes in movie, military arrive and talking to Reed when Ben show up. Everyone shocked except Ben who, for some reason, not even happen to notice he turned into…A BIG ORANGE ROCK MONSTER!
Military take dem to lab where goofy doktor examine dem. Nyuk nyuks ensue. Thing sit and break chair. Johnny scare doktor with flame. Sue startle doktor and cause him to stick hisself wit needle. Reed uses stretchy arm to take needle from doktor. Ho ho ho!
Fantastic Four (dat what Sue and Johnny’s mom call dem) get suspishus.
Turn out dey not being held by de military. Dey being held by Victor who now goes by name of DR. DOOM (me tink he got honorary doctorate from Latveria U) –
Dr. Doom walk around in metal suit and green robe. His voice sound like he in a tin can somewhere in de next room (monster guess produktion couldn’t be bothered to bring aktor in for dubbing). He always tapping his metal fingerz, click-click-click-click-click. And laughing in good ole’ cheezy superillain fashion: “Moooohoooohahahahahahahahahahaha!”. At least he have positive attitood.
FF eskape. Bullets bounce off Thing. Reed (aka Mr. Fantastik, aka Stretchy Stretcherson) stretch out his leg and trip every soldier running into room. EVERY soldier. Dey just trip right over his leg and knocked unconscious by fall.
Dr. Doom go to steal diamond from De Jeweler who has kidnapped Alicia to make her his Queen. Doom’s Doom Trooperz kick ass and take diamond. Dey also kidnap Alicia, knocking her out wit kloroform(?). We see from Alicia Point of View as she sprayed in face, kloroform take effekt, den tings go all fuzzy and…
Uh, waitaminute. Isn’t Alicia blind?
Shhhshhhshhhh.
Dr. Doom plan to use diamond to power laser he will use to destroy New York! He send Reed proof: stock footage of nuclear blast blowing away house. Fantastic Four go to Doom’s hideout in new outfits Sue sew for dem (Dat a girl!). But dey get trapped in forcefields!
But not very good forcefields. For some reason, Reed able to stretch his leg out and kick over laser. Yep. Just kick it over. Explosions! FF is free!
But laser already fired at New York! No problem. Johnny turn into Human Torch and chase it down. For real. Laser traveling at SPEED OF LIGHT! And he still catch up!
At dis point, movie turn into cartoon. Human Torch save de dey.
Reed chase down Dr. Doom. Fight! Doom hanging off building and ask Reed to help him. Reed reach out – at which point Doom give de old “You don’t have what it take to kill me!” speech. Doom lose his glove and disappear into de cloudz below. Cloudz below?! How high up are dey?!
Hurray! Johnny save New York from laser! Reed defeat Dr. Doom! Thing beat up all de Doom Trooperz! And Sue sewed de nice outfits dey’re wearing. Dat’s team work!
Happy ending! Reed and Sue get married. In deir costumes for some reazon. Dey get into car and, as dey drive away, Reed stretch out his arm and wave bye bye.
Whew! Monster can’t believe he sit thru dis entire movie. (PLEAZE do not try dis at home!)
Verdikt: If Fantastic Four taught monster anyting, it dat crappy moviez be crappy moviez, but crappy superhero moviez be de crappiest of all! Also, apparently most homeless people be failed Shakespearean aktors.
Rating: 1 chocolate chippee cookie earned by costume department.
Cookie, I think even the one chocolate chippee cookie was stretching it. Ugh! After this movie, my brother was convinced he would never see anything decent with the FF. He did go to the 2005 movie and liked it, but I think that one could have been better too. Listen, I have a question. Is there ever going to be a decent movie to rate? I’m sure you hope so. 🙂
Have a great night, everyone!!!!!
Well this is my first entry in the superhero movie of the week club, and going into it expecting nothing, I was pleasantly surprised. It moved along pretty fast, and while the music was really annoying, the effects, writing, acting etc, was all better than I expected. Still terrible, but better than I expected.
Favorite part: Doctor Doom’s cutting off his returning victory speech with “Oh.” after Fantastic Four escaped. Even squeezed a laugh out of me.
So what’s next week’s movie? Count me in!
Well, given this production’s strange back story, I don’t think it can be reviewed in the same way as a “normal” movie. Since it was never supposed to see the screen, it’s interesting to see what a movie studio would do when they were actually TRYING to make a crappy movie. I know that often times it’s hard to tell, but still. So, I will try to only point out the positives and the things I thought worked well. First, there was the, um…. well, at least there was the part where they, uh….
Okay, so maybe that wasn’t a good idea. However, trying to pick out individual bad parts is like trying trying to grab an individual snowflake in a blizzard. That said, I will try since, well, it’s what I do!
First of all, I have to admit that because of either the writing, the crappy acting, or the abysmal production values, I found it kind of hard to parse even what was going on other than the generalities of the plot which I already knew. I give you great credit Cookie, for being able to figure out the level of detail you did.
The visual effects were just terrible of course and testified of their bargain basement roots. It’s interesting to note that the stunning visual effects of Jurassic Park came out a year BEFORE this movie did. That sure puts things in perspective.
When the laser fired at NYC, I immediately thought the same thing as you, Cookie. The beam should get there RIGHT AWAY. It’s light. And how could a superhero possibly beat it there? Everyone knows you have to fly around the planet REALLY, REALLY fast and it turns back time. Or something.
Speaking of Jurassic Park, was it just me or did the “sentimental” tinkly piano music in FF sound suspiciously similar to that movie’s theme? Also speaking of music, WTF was with the silent movie music during the scene where the little troll guy (aka The Jeweler) is stealing the diamond? Just bizarre.
I laughed my head off at Dr. Doom’s line about bringing the kids along for vacation to Latveria for the Summer. It was just so completely out of character and weird.
I have to say that it does feel kind of pointless to criticize a movie that so obviously was never meant to be seen by the public. I feel bad for the people working on it that they were duped by the studio into believing that they were going to be on screen. I mean, it’s hard to believe that a movie studio could be evil!!
So, a question for Joe, I guess, is how common is this sort of thing, where a movie is made with the sole purpose of trash canning it, just to fulfill a contractual obligation? And is it unusual for a good part of the production people to not know about it like in this case? It all seems very cynical and mean-spirited.
Dear Cookie, You are a saint!
I’ve been thinking about Cookie’s rating system and come to the conclusion that it’s upside down. Cookie should be rating movies in terms of how many therapudic cookies he needs to eat to recover from the movie. So, a good movie would have a low number, while a bad movie would have a higher number and a really bad movie might measure things in terms of bags of cookies.
At least they got some use out of the Thing costume being re-used in Men In Black
Hey, Joey!! Lookie what you missed out on in Tokyo!!
http://www.france24.com/en/20120525-japanese-man-cooks-serves-own-genitals
:D… I mean, 😛
das
PS: Also, Joe, next time you’re dining in Tokyo, you might want to check to make sure the chef still has his wee bits. 😉
das
What a mess! This one makes me want to vomit cookies.
Oh boy! Where do I start?
I could only find a copy of this movie on YouTube which meant watching a 322×240 resolution video on a 1920×1080 resolution TV. As a result, for most of the movie I couldn’t actually see what was going on. All I could see was a grid of multicoloured pixels. From Cookie’s description it sounds like I didn’t miss much.
I seriously thought about chucking it all in and not bothering but, damnit, I intend to watch every one of these lame movies even if it kills me!
Cookie, I think you highlighted most of the WTF moments that I noticed while watching this “movie.” Who were the doctors that kidnapped Victor from the hospital? Who was The Jeweller and what did he actually contribute to the plot other than padding things out for another 10 minutes? Why oh why does Hollywood perpetuate the myth that jewels are protected by frickin’ laser beams that can be easily circumvented by a bit of gymnastics? (Actually, the Robert Redford movie Sneakers had possibly the most accurate portrayal of a security system and even that was pretty inaccurate.)
Mr Fantastic escaping from the forcefield didn’t bother me too much. There was obviously a small gap at the bottom that he could squeeze his elasticised leg through.
I didn’t notice Alicia’s POV fade to black shot and I’m almost tempted to go back and see it for myself. Almost, but not quite!
Grimm’s Thing suit was actually pretty well done considering the lack of budget.
@gforce: Good call on the music. It definitely sounded familiar to me. I’m almost tempted to go back and listen to it again. Almost, but not quite!
I’m glad this movie was never released. I’m sad that a bootleg copy was leaked and that I wasted my time locating, downloading and watching it.
Coming up: The Shadow (Never heard of it), Batman Forever (Seen it, have it on DVD, not looking forward to seeing it again), Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (Oh dear lord!) and The Phantom (I remember disliking it but am curious how I will feel after seeing it again).
PS: @dasndanger: I have to admit, when I clicked on that link and saw the photo of the chef slicing the fish I winced a bit.
Dr. Doom is a snappy dresser though. Wonder who is the Tailor to the Super-Villains? And does he do off the rack?
I blame the Federal Reserve for this movie. The prime rate had just dropped from a high of 20% in the early 80’s to a trough of 6%. People were high on the sudden availability of cheap loans and previously unfundable endeavors not only took off, but were actively sought out. The 90’s was a buyer’s market for foolhardy ideas. Projects that previously required a clear market demand, asset-rich financial backing, and a trusted name were now crowded out by internet start-ups, strip mall craft workshops, and investors sitting around a table asking where they can find superhero movie scripts, any superhero movie scripts.
While not the cause of the global financial bubble and burst that was to come, these superhero movies should have been a clear sign that something was dangerously wrong. You don’t just wake up one day and discover the laws of gravity have been turned on their head and then shrug and figure the world’s leaders would tell you if something needed to be addressed. Just the same you shouldn’t wake up and see a shop that sells cookie bouquets in a neighborhood where you can’t buy fresh fruit and think Alan Greenspan is saving us all.
The above applies generally to the cluster of bad Superhero movies in the 90’s, but spending more than a million on something to be trash-canned still sounds like something that can only happen when people are drunk on the sudden availability of cheap loans.
@ Line Noise – I made the mistake of looking at actual pictures of the meal. 😯 Yeah, I won’t be doing that again. 😛
In th end I can’t help but feel that this individual has a mental illness. I know a few transgendered people (my former neighbor, for one), and none ever thought of serving up their severed bits as a meal. There is something extremely disturbing about this, and I find it even more disturbing that some are just shrugging it off as ‘normal’.
das
Continuing the Miami zombie thing, there was this story from Ohio where a guy had part of his face ripped off, but it’s written in this suspicious tone, like the reporter doesn’t believe him and his friend that a pitbull did it.
http://www.whiotv.com/news/news/local/man-claims-be-victim-severe-pit-bull-attack/nPF69/
Joe – you mentioned in a past blog entry about a new series Jennifer Spence and Mike Dopud were going to be in. Is that Continuum? I heard it debuted on Showcase in Canada this weekend. Any idea if it will be shown in the US?
@das Yeah, this has nothing to do with raising awareness about sexual minorities. I have learned zilch about transgendered people from this. If anyone does think they’ve learned something, they need to unlearn it quick before they say something stupid.
@ DP – Yeah, that sounds a bit fishy. Sounds like maybe they were up to something and it didn’t go well.
As far as the Miami attack goes, I made the bad, BAD mistake of looking at pictures of the victim. I thought, ‘it can’t be that bad, a bite here, a bite there’…but I was SO wrong. The poor man. 🙁 No face, no nose…just raw meat. You can’t tell it’s even a face (save for an eye staring out of the gore). I wanna puke. Or cry. Or both. I can’t joke about this anymore.
das
Oh, and another thing, why did the laser, fired INTO THE SKY, wind up coming down aimed at NYC. Aren’t LASERs supposed to be straight? The beam should just keep going up into space. Must be one of those new bendy lasers. Or maybe it’s the new physics or something.
@das: I am so NOT clicking that link!
One cookie huh? I’ve never heard of this movie before you mentioned it. The Rock costume is very detailed. However, the actor must have been burning up in that suit!
We saw The Avengers and it was a thrill ride! They had some good zingers in this flick. I’m wasn’t surprised about the snappy dialogue when I saw Joss Whedon’s name in the credits. If anyone is going to see it out there, stay through ALL the credits. They have two small surprise scenes.
I have to disagree about NOT buying DVD/Blu-Ray. After our internet went out for a day, I was glad we had movies on disk as a back up.
Terrible costumes and sfx by today’s standards but good for the era. Kinda like how SG1 improved in that area every season.
@ Tam Dixon – There is a big story behind that last scene in Avengers after the credits. I found it on CNN – if you’re interested in reading about it, I can try to dig it up.
@ gforce – CHICKEN! 😀 (There are no gruesome pics on that link – I happened upon the actual pictures by accident. Needless to say, it’s put me off hotdogs for a while. 😛
das