Fantastic Four - Extended Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Buy This Item Fantastic Four - Extended Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition) by 20th Century Fox  Available from Amazon  $14.49  on 11-24-2008     Prepare for the all-new, action-packed Fantastic Four 2-Disc Extended Edition. Bursting with hours and hours of bonus material including an exclusive 100 minute "Making of" featurette and an Inside Look at Fantastic Four 2, this Extended Edition also features 20 minutes of footage added back into the film. Reader Reviews If you are like me, somebody who read the Fantastic Four (FF) comics in your youth, then you'd come to a film with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. I found the FF the most human and engaging of the Stan Lee characters, precisely because of the unstable personal dynamics of the personalities. It really was an American family ideal, they even had children, relatives, nannies and Aunt Petunias. They grew up and had history. It was, to be honest, a novelist's achievement that Stan Lee accomplished via comic strip while simultaneously shaking up that entire world. So, would a film capture the nuances, the personality and of course, the extraordinary powers with which Lee invested these pivotal characters? In a word, yes. In two words, yes nearly. Its a damned good attempt to lift the comic into celluloid, and works as a fabulous parable for many of the early FF stories, as it weaves elements of several together of necessity. (Spiderman does the same with that series.) The film has levity, pathos and drama in equal measure. The casting is spot on, a crucial factor with this diverse quartet; if anything, the Torch surpasses Lee's characterisation. Its also fun, just like the comic. If you prefer your films serious and hard boiled or cutting edge with philosophical similies, this ain't it. There is a very clever adaptation of the Reed Richard/ Victor Von Doom relationship that works well even though it is the most significant deviation from the origin. The 'love triangle' (if that does not overstate it) with Sue may be Hollywood but it works and its under control. The Thing (Ben) retains his classic 'tragic monster' status and the welded-on character of his fiancee, Debbie, is more of a symbol of his loss on being transformed and her role is sensibly truncated. Ben's fiery yet clownish relationship with Johnny (the Torch) is also very well captured. He has some great lines..."Susie, look at me, you've no idea what I'd give to be invisible..." I suppose the new ground the film cuts is with the far more intimate portrayal of Reed and Sue's relationship, which was never so well mined in the comics. And Sue's character is perhaps the one moved on most by the movie scriptwriters, again, fittingly for modern sensibilities. Doom only latterly becomes inhuman enough to meet Lee's portrait, but he gets there, and with more intellectual coherence than Lee provided for. There are occlusions in the plot or the editing or the direction. Doom's Latvian origins arn't really explained or credible, for example. But these do not detract. They may be spotted by we purists. The film is a really good realisation of the comic and does not trespass heavily on my affections. The personalities and dynamics work. So does the plot, albeit not an extensive one, and the effects are only now really capable of recognising the weird powers and look of the characters. Stretching your limbs and being made from an orange rock epidermis could have looked naff. It doesn't. You can accept the effects and the adventure is well paced. In short, its fun film. They pulled it off. But fun is where it stops. For great art, go see something else!

Fantastic Four - Extended Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition) Available from Amazon Price: $14.49 Updated on 11-24-2008.

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