Outside View: Fantastic Four....Too By The Numbers?

Let’s get this right out in the open: I am the comic book fan that never was. As a child, my knowledge of the X-Men came from collectable cards with stats on the back. I always wanted to get into comics, but never had the opportunity to get hooked. While I’m now struggling to catch up, reading whatever I can get my hands on, I can’t be called a knowledgeable chap when it comes to the medium.

What I do know is movies. And it’s in that vein that I was cajoled into offering my thoughts on movies and comics. A little bit of news, a hint of commentary, and just a dollop of movie geek. Consider me the outsider’s point of view, looking into a world I know nothing about and offering my criticism based mostly on my cinema knowledge and my extremely limited comics familiarity.

So if I say something wrong, let me know. If I say something sacrilegious to the fandom or unpopular, give me a break. But I am going to say what I think.

That having been said, the trailer that was exclusively attached to “Elektra” for the new “Fantastic Four” movie is now available online and it’s a heck of a lot better than those 20 seconds of footage from MTV everyone’s been griping about. Better in terms of quality. Visual quality.

To be honest, it feels by the numbers and anything but fantastic. All the effects seemed antiquated by today’s standards. Mr. Fantastic in particular looked like he was being rendered on a home computer with Poser. I thought The Thing was made of rock, not Cheetos. I will admit, if you freeze frame the trailer at the right moment, The Human Torch does look a lot better than I expected, like an actual man of fire than a mere man on fire.

Also, who edited this trailer? As if the ticking clock flashing the words twice wasn’t annoying enough, the whole play on numbers made me feel like I was reading the back of a middle school yearbook. I half expected the tagline to read: “4 friends 2gether 4ever!”. I hope the rest of the advertising campaign isn’t that silly. The last thing this film needs is for people to think “oh, how silly.”

Then again, many a film has gone out to impress me because of low trailer-set expectations. Plus, this is a teaser trailer. I shouldn’t expect to be filled up on an appetizer. And there is one thing that I’ve seen that’s proven to me that this film can be done right. Unfortunately for Fox, it wasn’t Tim Story’s “Taxi.” It was the “The Incredibles”.