Fantastic Four vs Mystery Men

Cliff: You remember in Spider-man, when he first realizes he has powers? That first time he tries to climb the wall?

Ryan: Sure.

Cliff: And he's all studying his fingers first, like he's not sure if they're gonna do what he thinks they might, but he's a smart kid, so he gives it a try.

Ryan: A slow try.

Cliff: Right, like sticking his toe in the water first.

Ryan: Right.

Cliff: See, Peter Parker—in the comics, in the movies—is a regular guy. He's not just a regular guy, he's actually sort of an odd guy. He's not the kind of guy who normally gets to do much for fun. So this—

Ryan: It's huge.

Cliff: It is. And Peter's a sci-fi kid, and he's a comic book kid, and he's a science kid and a computer kid and probably a gamer and on and on.

Ryan: Yeah, I always figured that too.

Cliff: That look on Tobey Maguire's face that first time is perfect. He's slowly moving up the wall, and he gets this look of realization on his face that is pure bliss. It's like all the theories he probably came up with in his room, all the cool experiments he studied that everyone thought was boring, are paying off. He believed, and now this is his reward. That look on his face, it's like he's thinking…

Ryan: Comic books are real.

Cliff: Yeah. That's it exactly.

Ryan: So.

Cliff: Yeah.

Ryan: Fantastic Four.

Cliff: Yeah.

Ryan: Yeah.

Cliff: Reed Richards's Hair.

Ryan: What?

Cliff: It's really black.

Ryan: Quite.

Cliff: Very.

Ryan: Noticeably.

Cliff: Remarkably.

Ryan: Yes.

Cliff: Yes.

Ryan: And?

Cliff: Well it's obviously fake. It looks like asphalt.

Ryan: It looks like a roof.

Cliff: And in the comics, Reed Richards has gray at his temples, and in this one, he gets only a few gray strands after being exposed to the cosmic storm.

Ryan: Right.

Cliff: Because he couldn't just have gray hair. Oh no. He could only have gray hair if something happened. Under any normal circumstances, Reed Richards would have solid black hair. Johnny Cash #7.

Ryan: Yeah. It's ugly hair. What's the point?

Cliff: That shitty hair dye represents everything that's wrong with Fantastic Four.

Ryan: Such as?

Cliff: Well, they make a point to show us that the gray hair is out of place, and they seem to be saying, you know, that otherwise this guy couldn't possibly have gray hair.

Ryan: Because he's too young.

Cliff: Exactly. Because if he's not too young for gray hair, then maybe he's too old to have gone to school with the Invisible Girl, who is obviously young to have completed college in the first place, let alone be the top genetic whatever in her field.

Ryan: She does own a pair of glasses.

Cliff: But they never would have cast a woman in the part when a hot barely post-teen would do just as well.

Ryan: Gotcha. So, you're saying they cast Reed Richards, then Sue Storm, then Reed Richards's hair.

Cliff: Yes. Reed Richards's hair joined the cast later.

Ryan: So, what else does it tell us is wrong with this picture, aside from casting?

Cliff: Well, it's a shitty job. It's a terrible, at-home-in-the-bathroom dye job. It's like a Halloween dye job. And if the standards for special effects are low for hair, then it don't look good for the other departments. That snowboarding scene. Good Christ.

Ryan: That was terrible. For a second I thought Roger Moore was going to ski past them. Or maybe the mountain climber from The Price is Right.

Cliff: And the ugly city sets, like that bridge that looks about twenty feet long, and the street Ben lives on, which obviously has Muppets living in the garbage cans.

Ryan: And Dr. Doom's costume.

Cliff: And Dr. Doom's terrible performance.

Ryan: Dr. Doom is from…here? What was that accent? Toledo? Portland?

Cliff: Yeah, somewhere between Portland and Soap Opera.

Ryan: Which wouldn't have been so bad if he did a single thing.

Cliff: That's all I'm asking. Just a single, solitary act of villainy. Not bullish things like killing his doctor, but actual I'm the Bad Guy Here I Go stuff. Threatening stuff. Be the fucking villain already.

Ryan: Well, he froze Reed Richards.

Cliff: Well, we didn't see any freezing, of course. We only saw the absolute shittiest make-up job of the past ten years. The freezing, because it would have been interesting, happened off-screen.

Ryan: Thing rolled up Johnny's car. Off-screen.

Cliff: The space station was hit by a cosmic storm, causing fantastic transformations to the main characters. A second later, they're quarantined on Earth. How'd that happen?

Ryan: Off-screen.

Cliff: I hated it. I did. Usually stuff like this is fun, or at least funny. It was so vague and boring, I can barely remember my opinion.

Ryan: You think it sucks.

Cliff: They're just so unimpressed with it all. They all get their powers at the same time, and it's like they're flipping through their junk mail. Oh look, I can turn invisible…and I may already be a winner. Oh well.

Ryan: Yeah, she turns invisible. I mean, think about that. Invisible! It's at once terrifying and your greatest wish come true. They're scientists. It should be staggering. Instead she was all—

Cliff:--“We've got some symptoms.”

Ryan: I know! Symptoms!

Cliff: And do you remember Reed's reaction? To being able to stretch his body, to reform it completely in any shape he desires?

Ryan: Honestly? No.

Cliff: But when he got his new costume, he ran right over to it, and couldn't wait to study it under a microscope.

Ryan: Yeah.

Cliff: And the hair? What did he do when he found his gray hair?

Ryan: He rushed to a mirror and got all gaspy.

Cliff: A couple gray hairs? Panic. Being able to stretch his body down the side of a skyscraper? Nothing.

Ryan: I can't believe they put one of those Mastercard lists into the screenplay. That's so old and cheap.

Cliff: Yeah, they might as well have said “Wazzzup!” And don't get me started on the wacky roommates montage. With the toilet paper and the shaving cream and the hijinks.

Ryan: A hundred more interesting things could have happened in that moment.

Cliff: Anything. I mean, did this guy see the Spider-Man movies? It's possible to tell an origin, to build the characters, to employ some serious action, and to make it fun and smart and interesting.

Ryan: It's been done correctly quite a bit now.

Cliff: It's done better on Smallville, for crying out loud.

Ryan: We've barely even talked about the actual movie.

Cliff: They barely made one.

Ryan: So, what now?

Cliff: Seriously, it could be anything.

Ryan: Spider-man?

Cliff: Well that would just be mean.

Ryan: The first X-Men movie does basically what this set out to do.

Cliff: Yeah, minus all the tacky product placement and the wink-wink sitcom bullshit.

Ryan: You should just make a comedy if you're going to make a comedy.

Cliff: Just watch Mystery Men. At least it's parody. Goofy on purpose beats just plain goofy any day. Fantastic Four raises Mystery Men to brilliant.

Ryan: Mystery Men gets a bad rap.

Cliff: Yeah, people don't get it. Or else I don't. I like it. I think it's a good time.

Ryan: It's got the perfect late-nineties cast. You can't get those people together again for that movie. It's too much a mix of people that are too famous now and people that are no longer famous at all.

Cliff: The sets and costumes are supposed to be funny, but they're better than Fantastic Four.

Ryan: And sometimes when it tries to be funny, it is.

Cliff: Imagine that.

Ryan: And you know what else it gets right? I understand everyone's powers. If I didn't have a comic book background with Fantastic Four, I wouldn't have understood any of their powers. I'm not sure they did. Is Mr. Fantastic made of rubber?

Cliff: No. They treat him that way in the movie though. Can I just say how much I hate the fucking Invisible Girl in this movie? And Reed Richards? And Dr. Doom? I'll take the Bowler any day.

Ryan: And the Shoveler.

Cliff: And the Shoveler!

Fantastic Four: D
Mystery Men: B-