Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's the Fantastic Four (2015)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
In 1993 a proposed movie of THE FANTASTIC FOUR was given to Roger Corman. The idea was to produce it on a low-budget but to then turn it out to theaters where it would become a big hit. The film was rushed into production, the cast dreamed of big futures and finally the movie wrapped. Then the movie became a legend because it was never released.
This highly entertaining documentary from Marty Langford gets a great number of people involved with the project to sit down for interviews and by the time it's over you'll not know whether you should laugh, cry or scream. Perhaps all three? I had known about this movie for quite sometime but the story behind it was rather hazy but all of that has been put to rest as you really couldn't have hoped for a better documentary on the subject.
The greatest thing about this is the fact that you've got the film's director as well as the majority of the cast members being interviewed. It was quite fascinating getting to hear from them because most documentaries are about movies that were made, movies that were expected to be huge but flopped at the box office but that's not the case here. Sure, a lot of movies start production but don't finish it but that's not the case here either. Getting to hear from the cast members talking about their hopes for their futures thanks to this film and then not have it released was quite interesting and certainly among the best stuff here.
If I was disappointed in anything it's the interview segments with Roger Corman. He's only given a few minutes worth of screen time and it's really too bad he wasn't pressed more for his version of what happened. I'm not sure if he just didn't want to discuss it or what but it's really too bad we didn't get his side of the story. We're pretty much given a great idea of what happened but it still would have been nice hearing from the man himself.
DOOMED will certainly appeal to Marvel fans, comic book movie fans and even those who don't normally enjoy those types of movies. This is a well-made documentary that does a great job telling its story.
