Reviews & Previews - Fantastic Four

Posted on Sunday, July 10, 2005 at 06:00 PM

Fantastic Four

By: S. Tran

Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon
Directed by: Tim Story
Running Time: 106 Minutes
Rated: Rated PG-13 Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action, and some suggestive content.

Well, the Four Part is Right

Hollywood is in a downturn. Revenues are down this time from last year for weeks now. Can the Fantastic Four pull the box office out of its slump? In a wordno.

When I first heard about the Fantastic Four being made into a movie I really questioned such a move. Obviously the suits making decisions about green lighting projects know next to nothing about comic books. Otherwise they would have known that as dorky as comic books are, the Fantastic Four are probably one of the geekiest, nerdiest, un-hip franchises out there. I mean come on, with names like Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Girl and The Thing you had to think these characters may not make the jump easily to the big screen as the next cool superheroes. Compared to characters like Wolverine and Batman, these guys are the debate club superheroes.

Sure enough the movie is lightweight summer fare. To call it a summer blockbuster would be a bit of hyperbole as it doesn't even offer enough in the special effects department to warrant seeing it just for that alone. There won't be anything you haven't seen before in this movie. Also some things such as The Thing's rock suit just look plain silly. That would have been one character where CGI probably would have been the way to go.

The performances are decent but it seemed like everyone was acting in a different movie. By far the most entertaining was Chris Evans as The Human Torch, Johnny Storm. He is given the best lines and seems to understand that this movie isn't exactly Shakespeare. Ioan Gruffudd is a bore as Mr. Fantastic however and the rest of the cast seem like they want the movie to be more than it really is. It would have probably worked better if everyone played it a little more lighthearted. Having Jessica Alba strip down in multiple scenes was an inspired decision however.

As this movie is meant to introduce the characters there really isn't much of a story beyond that. We find out about how they get their powers and then there is some gratuitous life saving and bad guy fighting that happens. In the end our nerdsI mean our heroes, win and the producers give us the set up for a possible sequel.

If a sequel is made I hope the people involved make more of an attempt to plug up the plot holes. I'm not sure if it was bad editing or bad writing but some of the scenes just didn't make any sense. For instance, in one scene Jessica Alba has to get invisible to make it past some police. In the next scene however all of the heroes are now past the police as well. If it was just an excuse to get Jessica to take off her clothes I'm not complaining but it leaves you scratching your head.

If you are a huge Fantastic Four fan go check it out. Otherwise, just wait until they show it for free on TV, which should be soon.

2 out of 5 stars.