Feb 1, 2008 11:23 AM
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San Francisco, 4:07 AM
Wed Feb 10
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Here's the action-packed climax of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, which Marvel reportedly paid millions to suppress. In this version, Reed Richards' main superpower is the ability to telegraph his punches worse than Tom Selleck. And the Thing's greatest gift is the ability to move as though he were in a full-body cast. As B movies go, Fantastic isn't so bad, but it makes some very questionable story choices.
The biggest mistake in this movie? The inclusion of an evil leprechaun named The Jeweler, who somehow becomes crucial to the FF's mythos. It's the Jeweler who steals the crucial crystals that power the Four's spaceship (while dancing a jig across a laser security system). Later, he adopts the Thing into his family of freaks and also kidnaps the Thing's girlfriend. Finally, he has a thrilling stand-off with Doctor Doom. If you've ever wanted to see the evil Latverian genius face off with a comedy leprechaun, this is your chance. Oh, and Doom's "I will destroy New York" speech is campy in a very, very bad way.
How did this disaster happen? A German production company owned the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie, but was unable to raise the $40 million it needed before the rights were due to expire. So the company turned to Roger Corman, who said he could make the movie cheap and quick. (As commenter ManchuCandidate points out, Corman was willing to take chances.) At $1.4 million, this movie had a huge budget compared to a usual Corman spectacle. After the film was completed, Marvel paid a few million to suppress it. The team worked in secret to complete post-production on it, but then Marvel ordered all prints destroyed. So it's a minor miracle that you're able to suffer through this clip.
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