Strange but true, I came away from Fantastic Four with the feeling that there was a touch of estrogen in the screen writing. The group dynamics, a sorted love triangle, overcoming one's personal demons... The only thing this one was missing was somehow Reed and Sue turned out to be long lost cousins and they had to go to Mississippi to get married. I smelled a rat in the Marvel comic hen house. I was feeling a disturbance in the force of this movie....
After doing a little research, I came to find out the truth of the matter. Low and behold, BK was on to something. Most Chubbers hallow the name of Mark Frost for writing numerous Twin Peaks episodes and Fire Walk with Me. Mark must have hit a shallow spot in his writing, because his last movie credit was in 2000. What was that movie credit? A little known Lifetime Movie called The Deadly Look of Love. Say it aint so Uncle BK. If you don't believe me check out the IMDB link For those of you that further have doubts, Lifetime is airing The Deadly Look of Love (TDLOL) on 20 July 05. I can only imagine that the Lifetime execs are hoping to ride the feel good Mark Frost wave to boost ratings.
Now let's examine some of the plot points and compare and contrast FF to Frost's epic Lifetime piece.
FF: Reed goes hat in hand to Victor von Doom for help with his cosmic storm experiments. Only to find his old flame Sue is shacking up with the boss (No matter what that vixen says later in the flick, we know she's been sleeping her way to the top.)
TDLOL: Janet Flanders, generic woman that's bored with her existence, starts to write romance novels. She meets Brett Becker who is a taken man and falls in love with him. (The subtext is that she makes lists of 18 girly things... 18 ways she hopes to ruin his life, 18 things she can hold over his head, 18 sexual experiences she will never give him, yet promise to, 18 things he will never be able to buy with THEIR money)
FF: After the cosmic storm, the members of the FF come to grips with their super powers. Ben Grimm feels like a stone cold freak and smashes a lot of things. It's a long dark clobberin' time of the soul when he gets jilted by the world's dumbest woman. (Come on, they all say they want us to stay rock hard all night... Hell, The Thing is rock hard all the time)
TDLOL: Flanders copes with turning into a nut case because Becker is taken. She's thinking what idiot wouldn't want to get involved with a psychotic romance novelist that wants to lock you under the stairs so she knows where you're at all the time.
FF: Johnny Storm engages in extreme sports to keep his mind off the fact that it always burns when he pees.
TDLOL: Janet Flanders engages in all sorts of extreme woman-that-can't have-what-she-wants-with-the-man-she's-got-the-hots-for-behavior. Somehow sending him flowers to make Becker's bride to be green with envy, makes the cut for the psychotic woman's X-Games.
FF: Reed attempts to make them normal again by recreating the cosmic storm that changed them into freaks into the first place. (Which begs the question, if he could create the cosmic storm in the lab, why ask help from the guy that's boinking your old flame in the first place?) But we find out with enough power that Reed's machine works like a charm.
TDLOL: Flanders experiments with killing the object of her affections. She succeeds and didn't need to run up her electric or gas bill to do it.
FF: The climax of the movie is not when the FF kick Doom's butt. It's actually when Reed proposes to Sue. Given the mechanics of relationships in the movie, why should we care if the FF can really bust up a bad guy? Their ability to kick a little ass is secondary to the fact they have feelings...
TDLOL: Flanders ends up in a titanic court room battle. The fact her lawyer has the super power of being able to bill a client down to the millisecond, is overshadowed by the fact that she really committed murder because of pure love. The court room climax of her lawyer finding a loop hole in laws that date back to Colonial America doesn't mean a thing. It's all about love baby.
Doesn't this put things into perspective a little bit? Lifetime movies have taught me one thing... People have to do what people have to do. If it's taking your step son as a lover, or escaping from drug crazed kidnappers. One must rise to the challenge and make decisions that will make one feel great about themselves again. And without a writing credit for 5 years, I'm trying very, very hard to find the Tori Spelling lining in Mark Frost's cold, cold heart...
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