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Fantastic Four Special Edition DVD
01/02/2006 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
DVD: 20th Century Fox FG-96B 28667SE. 101 minute film plus extras. Price: £24.99 (UK) but check around for the best deal as it can be found for about £18.00 (UK)). stars: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis and Julian McMahon. Buy Fantastic Four Special Edition in the USA - or Buy Fantastic Four Special Edition in the UK  check out website: www.fox.co.uk
Putting Marvel comicbook characters on the screen has certainly come to its own in the digital age. Even more remarkable, wading through all the extras with this film, how much a composite the 'Fantastic Four' film has been of physical and CGI effects and how much it has come out as a labour of love from director Tim Story. It's getting to be a standard practice of getting better results when the production side are familiar with the material.
The comic origin charts how the Fantastic Four gained their abilities after being dosed with cosmic radiation in outer space. Unlike in 1961, the film was not a privately funded illegal launch of Reed Richards' rocket but an official one owned by Victor Von Doom and his corporation up to his space station to examine solar radiation. Von Doom was also caught in the dose but saving himself in a radiation shielded room on the station had a somewhat delayed effect. In many respects, intermingling the origins together rather than have Doom, as in the comics, quitting university after a private experiment gone wrong and acquiring his armoured appearance in Tibet would probably have split the film up too much. Having him slowly turn into metal and having control over electricity might have made him more formidable to take on the FF but it did seem to make him into a cross between the X-Man Colossus sans muscles and Magneto.
As it is, the fortunes of the FF and Doom diverged here. Reed Richards determined to restore the now rocky appearance Ben Grimm, the Thing, to his previous look while Sue Storm's brother, Johnny, embraced his ability to flame on and become a Human Torch. Doom saw his own changes as a means to keep control of his own corporation and as a means to take out the one team who could take him on, the developing celebrities, the Fantastic Four, themselves.
Except for the slight changes with the exact origin, the 'Fantastic Four' film hit the points with everything else they showed from the Thing's disguise to the Baxter Building and postman Willie Lumkin (cameoed by creator Stan Lee) and even making an ethnic change with Alicia Masters wasn't too bad. It was important to stress the celebrity status the FF would achieve that would make them tolerable compared to the mutant menace on the other side of New York although I'd hate to foot the bill for all the damage that happens when they get involved with anything. The cast caught their roles and listening to the audio commentary about the order of filming makes it all the more...well, fantastic. The FF are served well by the effects and really look like they've come alive. I can even forgive the lack of brow ridge on the Thing although in the early days, he didn't have one anyway.
The DVD extras is definitely worth having and there's a beautiful piece showing a demonstration piece of the Torch flaming on and taking off had an almost ethereal quality to it. Hopefully, someone will run with this in the next film.
Undoubtedly, most of you will have seen the 'Fantastic Four' film in the cinema. If you're like me and had to wait for the DVD release then I think you'll be happy with this movie. Quite who the villains will be for the second film is going to spend a long time speculating. The FF certainly have enough powerful adversaries although one hopes that Galactus will be left until much later as a springboard for the Silver Surfer. In the meantime, enjoy this one.
GF Willmetts
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