...CONTINUED

Doctor Doom then meets all of them and talks about how he's the supreme monarch of the place they currently find themselves in. He tells them to return to their room or they will know pain far greater than their worst nightmares. Wow, I guess that means he has a copy of the 2005 Fantastic Four movie too and is willing to use it on them? If I were them, I'd listen to the Doctor.

Like all idiot super-villains, he exits the room and leaves his bumbling henchmen to finish off the Fantastic Four. The Thing then delivers his infamous "IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!" line and the action begins.

Johnny, the Human Torch, turns on his inner flame and tries to burn an escape hole in the wall, but has very little success while the others are fighting the henchmen. Isn't he supposed to be able to get hot as the sun and what, now he can't burn his way through a wall that is, in all likelihood, made of cardboard? Bah!

The invisible woman vanishes just before two henchmen shoot her, and as a result they shoot each other. Gotta love it when your own henchmen kill each other instead of their targets. You'd think Doctor Doom would've had a more refined interview process... you know something that asks questions like: "If you see a co-worker and an enemy about to engage in battle, do you a) Shoot the enemy. b) Shoot the co-worker. c) Ask Doctor Doom for assistance. d) All of the above." Maybe then he could avoid hiring complete idiots like these guys.

Seeing some more henchmen about to enter the room with guns-a-blazin, Reed improvises and extends his leg to trip them all. Don't you love it when, in cheesy movies and TV shows, the bad guys trip and fall down and somehow they end up in a big unconscious pile of stupid? What is it about getting tripped that always renders these criminals completely useless? Unless you land face first in a poison-tipped porcupine storage unit, chances are you're gonna be AOK after getting tripped. Sure, you may scrape up your hands a lil', but it's nothing that's gonna put you out of commission. But hey, maybe Mr. Fantastic has some kind of fantastic tripping power which makes his trips incredibly brutal!

Anyway, since Johnny is unable to burn a hole in the wall that the four of them can escape through, The Thing bashes his way through it instead. I think they used TWO pieces of cardboard for the wall this time instead of one! WOW! THEY'RE SPLURGING!

Now back at his lab, Reed figures out why they all reacted to the Colossus exposure differently. Susan has a problem with being shy, so she can become invisible. Johnny has a quick temper, so he catches on fire. Reed stretches himself thin, so he can become all rubbery. Ben always relied too much on brute strength, so he becomes a big rocky brute. Colossus has made their worst character defects into their greatest strengths.

Funny, I sometimes think that my biggest problem is constantly watching cheesy movies like this, so where's my super power? Oh wait, maybe that IS my greatest power! Being able to withstand watching these things and then write long-winded articles about them?

It is my power... it is my curse. With great power comes... a bad DVD collection.

Anyway, Ben is upset because while everybody was changed by Colossus, they can all still lead normal lives, but he will always look like a walking pile of rubble. And so, he leaves his friends and goes wandering the streets feeling sorry for himself while many onlooking pedestrians are completely horrified by his mere sight.

He can't even hide in an alley without some restaurant cook getting freaked out by his appearance. Poor Ben... poor, poor Ben. While he's busy being depressed, Sue decided to pass the time by sewing some new costumes for the Fantastic Four! Naturally, she made the costumes because... she's a woman... and women sew... because... that's what they do... right? Hey, if it's in a comic book and in a movie based on a comic book, it must be true. Her brother Johnny thinks the costumes are lame, but Reed is all too excited about them. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it's one of the only times that he his facial expression changes in the entire movie. Calm down there Reed, no need to kiss her ass. It's invisible after all, so you wouldn't know where to place your lips anyway.

Still wandering the streets, the Jeweler's henchmen discover The Thing as he warms up by a fire. Why he needs to warm up a body that is made of stone is still a mystery to me, but whatever helps him battle his crippling depression. Anyway, the homeless henchmen are amazed by him and want him to join their underground society. They tell him he belongs with them and that he can get some rest at his new home. He doesn't even speak during this scene, he just grunts and acts like a timid ape who has just seen humans for the first time. Eventually, they win him over and he holds hands with the lead henchman as they walk back to the underground lair. The same underground lair where his true love, Alicia Masters, is being held captive. What a coincidence!

The Jeweler sees Ben and calls him his "beautiful brother" and then tells all the henchmen to treat this "weary traveler" well. Boy he knows all the right things to say to a big rocky guy who's feelin' down. Forget about the Queen, the Jeweler will be in Ben's panties in no time!

Dr. Doom soon shows up at the underground lair to spoil the party and makes the kind of entrance you'd expect to see from Criss Angel during one of his Mindfreak shows. Fireworks aside, Dr. Doom has arrived to put on more than just a fancy pyrotechnics show. He and his henchmen make short work of most of the Jeweler's cohorts. Doom then goes to grab the diamond cluster, but the Jeweler gets in his way with Alicia in his arms. "You touch it and she dies!" the Jeweler threatens. Doctor Doom then replies, "So? Please don't let me stop you!" like the truly sardonic bastard he is. At least he's honest.

Ben then shows up and says "Let her go!" not once, not twice, but three times. It's as if being turned into this big rocky creature has given him oratory abilities which rival that of a caveman. Finally, he says "IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!" but before he has a chance to strike Doom, Alicia tells him not to... and that she loves him. Arooooooooooo?

A whirlwind of emotions overcome Ben. Rage and sadness all competing within his mind. The stony formations around his body disappear and he then runs out into the moonlight screaming to the heavens, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" as the screen flickers back and forth between his normal human face and his Thing face. Then it's time for yet another funtastic adventure on the whirl-around-the-screen ride as he is turned back into The Thing!

I DO NOT BELONG IN A
WASHING MACHINE! :(

Back at the lab, Doom taps into Reed's overhead video display to show them a demonstration of what his recently completed laser weapon can do. We're then treated to some archival footage of houses being blown to shreds, complete with a red hue to make it look all the more evil. What's great, or fantastic, about this scene is that Reed isn't even looking up at the screen half the time. It's as if he's in his own little world, thinking about a pastrami sandwich or something completely unrelated. Some things you just can't learn in acting school people. You gotta have the gift. This guy has it.

Like squeezing blood from a stone, Sue tells Reed she loves him and actually gets him to crack a smile and even say that he loves her back. Ben has also returned from his homeless getaway vacation and they all now know that Doctor Doom is really their old friend Victor. They put their hands together and decide to go after the bad guys for the ultimate showdown of good versus evil! Or, at least, boring versus evil.

Oh by the way, now they have their very own skyscraper that just happens to be building number "4444". I guess building number "4" wasn't available so this was the next best thing? Oh, and also... now they have a crime-fighting aircraft that can fly in and out of the top of the building any time too. Just thought I'd keep you up to speed with what's going on here and no... it's not really explained how they got all this stuff, but do these miniscule details really even matter to you? Didn't think so.

The Fantastic Four arrive at Doom's Draculaesque castle and talk about how they're obviously walking into a trap. Still they continue to move forward. Isn't Reed supposed to be a genius though? Couldn't they just stop for a minute and let him try to think of a better way to proceed instead of walking directly into Doom's trap? Apparently not, because they're caught in Doctor Doom's force field after blindly entering the main room. If you have a copy of the movie, be sure to keep an eye on Johnny when the force field comes down. He clearly misses his acting cue and purposely steps into the force field after it is already turned on. Guess they didn't have re-shoots in the budget for this flick, huh.

What I really love about the guy who plays Doctor Doom in this movie is that he knows that nobody is gonna see his real face. Unlike Hugo Weaving in "V for Vendetta", who was able to show a wide array of emotions despite being behind a rigid mask, this Doctor Doom guy does everything he can to get his feelings across by using his hands in a ridiculously exaggerated manner. Whenever he speaks, his hands are all over the place. I swear though, sometimes when he talks, especially when he calls them "pitiful", Doctor Doom sounds almost exactly like James Lipton. Sadly, it's not really him under that mask. I bet Lipton lives in a Draculaesque castle just like Doctor Doom though.

WILL DOCTOR DOOM BECOME A MIME AND USE HIS CLICKY HANDS TO REVEAL A PLOT FAR DEEPER THAN ANYTHING YOU OR I COULD'VE POSSIBLY IMAGINED?
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