An Odd Confession

I have a confession to make. I actually liked the Fantastic Four movie. Yeah it was kind of dumb. Yeah it had plot holes and implausibilities galore. Yeah Jessica Alba has no chemistry with anything (I blame her, because while Ioan Gruffudd can come across a little...well, uninterested in women, Julian McMahon has chemistry with walls). But it had the same *feeling* as the comic to me, so I was happy.

(And you know the fiancee chick would have been on that bridge in the comic too. Yeah, it makes no logical sense that given the traffic pile up and everything that she'd be there. She'd have been there anyway.)

And Ioan Gruffudd is really pretty. I'm shallow. They should have just let Reed be Welsh though, seriously. Then we wouldn't have the battle of "Whose American accent can slip the most" in scenes with Julian McMahon and Ioan Gruffudd acting together. Reed was always my favorite of the 4 and he got to be smart (I read a review that complained he didn't deserve to be referred to as a genius, as Doom actually figured it out. Nuh-uh, Reed built the Machine, AND figured out that it needed more power. Doom just charged it. He's just a generator. Meh). And Ioan Gruffudd is pretty.

Also, I've always liked the Four because, in essence, they remind me more of DC characters than modern Marvel characters. They're public with their identities, largely enjoying it (okay, it takes a while for them to get to that point in the movie, but well, it was a bit of a shot), they work with the UN and the government to make things better as opposed to fighting against it. And they're loved for it. (Which I always thought kind of proved Xavier as an idiot. While most X-men are mutants, a few, like Shatterstar way back when, were aliens or otherwise transformed. No different from the Four. But Xavier, for all his dreams of acceptance, built a damn secret army. Yeah, that's gonna make the people like/trust you man, seriously. But then I have issues with Xavier that I'l babble about someday)

But anyway, onto the real reason I loved the movie:

--- Contains many spoilers, but I'm sure if you care you've already seen the damn movie---

And as is probably common knowledge, I dig the homoeroticism. And hoo boy was that movie homoerotic. Seriously. Screw Sue or Alicia, the movie was about Ben and Reed's happy happy man-love.

Seriously: You have Ben agreeing to this mad scheme for Reed as well as engineering the means for a reconciliation between Reed and Sue.

You have Reed feeling immeasurably guilty for Ben's condition and seeking to cure it, working himself nonstop for practically ever. (And where the hell was Sue-the-head-of-Doom's-genetic-research-department for this. He's working to collapse, and she just comes by to convince him to rest.)

And the whole scene on the bridge when the fiancee places the ring down, and Ben can't pick it up...and then Reed does and places it in his hand. I sighed, I admit it.

Doom (who is obsessed with dominating Reed from the patents at the beginning, to even his relationship with Sue) convinces Ben that Reed's having fun with his girlfriend rather than helping him, so Ben gets jealous and they have a fight. (Which seriously, I thought was unfair. The guy takes ONE break and gets slammed for it. It's not like you couldn't have helped pass test tubes or something, dude. Stop whining and help him help you for chrissake)

Reed then takes an incalculatable risk testing the machine using himself. It is really gross and awesome. (and then Doom takes the credit, overhearing that it just needed more power...and Doom's got the whole damn building monitored with hidden cameras. Cameras that he couldn't have placed in there after being afflicted. So that means, while he was dating Sue and Reed was an absolute non-issue there, he was STILL spying on him.)

When Ben's cured and Reed's captured, Ben willingly goes back in the machine to go save his boyfriend...err, friend. Yeah. Friend. (I especially liked that bit, and later, when Ben refuses the machine again, because it means that unlike the comics, Ben's accepted and even grown to like the transformation. Yay. No more angst.)
---

Now see, I used to read yaoi manga. If you don't know what that is, it's basically gay comic porn for girls. It's usually as bad as it sounds. But anyway, the common staple plot is:

Character A (who is more macho and manly) and Character B (who is...not) are involved. Character C (who is also manly) is obsessed with Character B and basically wants to have lots of questionably-consentual sex with Character B. This usually ends up with some kind of kidnapping, in which Character A comes to the rescue. Then Character A and B live happily ever after. (Whereupon they also have sex, but usually of a more consentual nature).

Now take out the sex part. Does it sound similar? Heh, yeah.

The entire plot of the movie is Ben and Reed doing extreme things and taking horrible risks and making huge sacrifices for one another. Add that to the fact that Ioan Gruffudd, while presumably straight in real life, tends to come across not so straight on screen (which befuddles me because otherwise, he's a brilliant actor)...

Yeah.

So I liked the movie. And I'm glad there's gonna be another one. And I'm buying the DVD tomorrow.