It's clobberin' time!
The movie news site Coming Soon is showing off new photos of the actors starring in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, complete with costumes.
My first reaction: I hope they fix the gloves on Michael Chiklis's Thing costume, and make the seams a little less obvious. It looks as though his left hand is breaking off at the wrist. Ouch!
My second reaction: I'm sure Chiklis will be fine — and given his appearance in this film, it's no wonder he's chiklis (Thank you! I'll be here all week! Try the shrimp cocktail!) — but the casting of the other three primary roles still feels peculiar to me. Ioan Gruffudd seems a little young, or maybe just a little too callow, for the role of Reed Richards. There should be a greater disparity between his age and that of the actor playing Johnny Storm — in the original Lee-Kirby comic, when the Four become Fantastic, Reed is already an established (if not particularly distinguished, in the eyes of his peers) scientist, and Johnny is still in high school (as Peter Parker was when he became Spider-Man). Likewise, Johnny and his sister Susan should not be the same age; it's essential to the group dynamic that Sue be substantially older than her "little brother." And Reed and Ben Grimm are supposed to be old college chums, and thus about the same age — here, Chiklis is 11 years older than Gruffudd. Ideally, Reed and Ben should be mid-to-late 30s, Sue early-to-mid 20s, and Johnny about 16. (I'll admit, though, that the casting decision about which I was most skeptical, Jessica Alba as Sue Storm, looks pretty good in this photo.)
I'm always nervous when comic icons — particularly Marvel characters, because I have a greater emotional and nostalgic connection to them — are translated to the screen. The Fantastic Four has already been done badly, in a never-released micro-budget production produced by Roger Corman. But Marvel has had remarkable success of late, with the Spider-Man, Hulk, Blade, and X-Men films (I didn't care for Daredevil quite so much, but it was still very well done; it's Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner I didn't like), so I hope this one turns out okay. That they've hired a director known mostly for comedy (Tim Story, who directed Barbershop) doesn't thrill me, but I'll cross my fingers.
My first reaction: I hope they fix the gloves on Michael Chiklis's Thing costume, and make the seams a little less obvious. It looks as though his left hand is breaking off at the wrist. Ouch!
My second reaction: I'm sure Chiklis will be fine — and given his appearance in this film, it's no wonder he's chiklis (Thank you! I'll be here all week! Try the shrimp cocktail!) — but the casting of the other three primary roles still feels peculiar to me. Ioan Gruffudd seems a little young, or maybe just a little too callow, for the role of Reed Richards. There should be a greater disparity between his age and that of the actor playing Johnny Storm — in the original Lee-Kirby comic, when the Four become Fantastic, Reed is already an established (if not particularly distinguished, in the eyes of his peers) scientist, and Johnny is still in high school (as Peter Parker was when he became Spider-Man). Likewise, Johnny and his sister Susan should not be the same age; it's essential to the group dynamic that Sue be substantially older than her "little brother." And Reed and Ben Grimm are supposed to be old college chums, and thus about the same age — here, Chiklis is 11 years older than Gruffudd. Ideally, Reed and Ben should be mid-to-late 30s, Sue early-to-mid 20s, and Johnny about 16. (I'll admit, though, that the casting decision about which I was most skeptical, Jessica Alba as Sue Storm, looks pretty good in this photo.)
I'm always nervous when comic icons — particularly Marvel characters, because I have a greater emotional and nostalgic connection to them — are translated to the screen. The Fantastic Four has already been done badly, in a never-released micro-budget production produced by Roger Corman. But Marvel has had remarkable success of late, with the Spider-Man, Hulk, Blade, and X-Men films (I didn't care for Daredevil quite so much, but it was still very well done; it's Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner I didn't like), so I hope this one turns out okay. That they've hired a director known mostly for comedy (Tim Story, who directed Barbershop) doesn't thrill me, but I'll cross my fingers.
SwanShadow was randomly pounding the keyboard at 10:54 AM
1 insisted on sticking two cents in:
Re: FF.
I had similar feelings with only Sue being casted correctly (and how!).
It's obvious that Hollywoods going after "The OC" market. And maybe they'll succeed IF they got a good story down. Otherwise, like the early Image comics, there's only so much eye-candy one can take before wanting something substantial.
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