FANTASTIC FOUR *** 

“But I just had to look / Having read the book,” sang the Beatles – to which we might add, Having read the comic, seen the TV show or heard the radio series. Almost everything in cinemas this summer is based on something else, and almost everything will be a disappointment to fans of the old (insert art-form here). It’s not all the filmmakers’ fault; one of this week’s movies [NB. That was The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy] is as faithful and respectful an adaptation as you could reasonably hope for. But you can’t wedge a book, or show or comic, into a celluloid couple of hours without something being lost.

 The question is, do you care? And do they? Not in the case of Fantastic Four, the latest movie based on a comic-book. “The more that you love the Fantastic Four – the more disappointed you’ll be in the film,” says Harry Knowles at www.aint-it-cool-news.com, and that’s really all you need to know. The rest of this review is mostly directed to people (like me) who’ve never read an FF comic in their lives; the geeks and fanboys should heed Mr. Knowles’ advice, and either skip the movie or go in with drastically lowered expectations.

 Personally, I quite enjoyed it. We’ve had far too many of these solemn comic-book sagas lately. Batman Begins and Spider-Man 2 may be admirably thoughtful, but it’s hard to get over the disjunction between real-world feelings and obviously fantastical action (I blame the influence of Lord of the Rings, with its po-faced “Behold!”s). Fantastic Four is different. It plays for laughs, and indeed it takes the piss – especially in young Johnny Storm, who becomes The Human Torch and treats his newfound powers like he does his snowboarding and motocross, setting himself on fire with whoops of adrenalised joy. “Care to join me?” he leers at a girl, having burned his clothes off and burned a hole in the snow before coming to a halt, grinning and naked.

 “That’s gross!” says Johnny when Reed Richards, the leader of the Four (played by Ioan Gruffudd) shows his own special powers, able to extend his limbs like Elastigirl in last year’s similar (and superior) The Incredibles – and devout fans will cringe at the cheap laugh when a reporter asks: “Is it true he can expand any part of his anatomy?”. There’s cheap laughs aplenty, especially at the expense of Thing, the team member who’s literally built like a brick wall; he gets shat on by pigeons, snaps the fork when he tries to eat, finds the numbers on a telephone too small for his rock-like fingers, and weighs everything down when the Four try to take the lift (“I’ll take the stairs,” he mutters, slinking off shamefacedly). Then there’s Sue Storm, a.k.a. the Invisible Girl. She’s also a scientist specialising in genetic research – but is played by Jessica Alba, which is something of a cheap laugh in itself. You just can’t see Ms Alba making presentations at seminars, though I guess she could be the girl who shows delegates to their seats. Or maybe she could hold up a card with the next speaker’s name on it or something.

 But I digress. The point is that Fantastic Four is puerile, and makes no effort to disguise it. The emphasis throughout is skewed to the teenage audience. After a bland opening act, most of the middle section is devoted to the Four finding out about their changing bodies – an obvious metaphor for puberty, as it was in Spider-Man. A lot of it is also devoted to their newfound celebrity status, how they cope with fame – a common adolescent fantasy, as per the wild success of Fame Story. Even their special powers are quasi-hormonal, often sparked off by sudden emotion. Invisible Girl has to learn self-control to harness her invisibility; the Human Torch has to move beyond immaturity, even if he’ll never quite become Mr. Sensitive – though I’d definitely pay good money to see the adventures of a superhero called ‘Mr. Sensitive’.

 Bottom line? Fantastic Four opened big in the States – then quickly faded as comic-book fans realised it wasn’t for them. “I think LITTLE kids will dig it,” concluded Mr. Knowles, “and mundanes (aka people not really familiar with the FF)”. Mundane? I’ve been called worse.