The Fantastic 4 is a fairly mediocre superhero movie with just about enough to make it worth watching. You meet most of the fantastic foursome early on, and if you can’t work out who the baddie of the piece will be within the first few minutes then you really need your head checking. It’s pretty formulaic with a typical love triangle and predictable plot, but it’s done in a tongue-in–cheek style that has quite a few humourous moments in the dialogue.
The plot, such as it is: some supposed scientists experience a lethal dose of radiation while on a space station, and thus develop superpowers rather than die, because dying is boring and only for non-superhero / supervillian types. As they discover their powers, they also realise the downside of their situation, and seek to devise a cure. Meanwhile a curious public want to get to know these self-styled fantastic four, and an evil dude pops up because that’s what evil dudes to.
And… well, that’s about it really, very much standard superhero fare. The fab four are: Paul, John, George, and Ringo. Oh no wait, sorry that should have been the Fantastic Four:
Mr Fantastic who is fantastic because… erm… he can stretch. Yes, that’s fantastic alright. He can never use the excuse “I can’t reach it”. He’s kind of the leader of the group, almost… Played by ???, I just found his character to be really uninteresting, though the fact that he gets so absorbed in his work to the exclusion of even the gorgeous Jessica Alba does give rise to a couple of funny moments. Ioan Gruffudd plays this character and perhaps takes the nerd factor a little too far.
Invisible Girl is played by Alba, who really didn’t come across as very convincing and really, what’s the point of having someone as beautiful as her playing the role when you don’t see her much of the time? Ah well, I expect her picture on the front cover of the DVD case accounted for about half of all sales. Her acting here won’t win her any awards, but she was really only here for eye candy for the lads (and doesn’t really provide that either!). Er… what was the point of her character again? Oh yes, she provides the blonde third of the love triangle. Starts off as obnoxious, then becomes vaguely annoying. But not as annoying as…
The Human Torch, invisible girly’s brother. He gets hot and… that’s sort of it. Hot-headed as well, he just goes round causing trouble for everyone and annoying the only really sympathetic character in the film, who is ironically called… Chris Evans has all the charm and depth of Chris O’Donnell playing Robin to George Cluney’s Batman here. Like Orville, The Human Torch wishes he could fly…
The Thing because… well, he’s a thing. A big, strong, grumpy thing. I quite liked the way Michael Chiklis played him, and he was at least a likeable … thing. Dumped by his girlfriend because he looks like a golem, will the Thing ever find love, or the solace of being his old self again?
(The villain wasn’t too bad, but if case you’re in the centile of the world’s population that won’t work out who he is straight away, I’ll leave you in suspense as to his identity.)
So you might have guessed that I wasn’t too thrilled by the plot, amazed by the characterisation, or impressed with the acting as a whole. To be fair the plot moves along quite nicely, perhaps a little slow but certainly not as pedestrian an affair as some had led me to believe. The effects were quite good in most places, though some of the space scenes early in the film definitely looked more like they belonged in a computer game than a film.
However, because there was quite a lot of humour in the film, including jibes at other superheroes, it managed to be quite fun entertainment despite all its flaws. I actually got the distinct impression that Director Tim Story was having to fight an urge to film this almost entirely as a spoof – but of course fans of the original comics would have been outraged. The only memory I have of the Fantastic Four is a cheesy kids’ cartoon on the TV many years ago, and I only have very hazy recollections of that.
Overall I did enjoy this film for its humour and some of the action sequences, though when it was trying to be serious I often feel like I was watching an inferior version of X-Men (well, the first two X-Men films). I have no real idea of whether fans of the comics would like it, but in general I find that fans of the originals are very rarely happy with the film versions. As light, ridiculous entertainment, I enjoyed it, but as superhero movies go it’s very unremarkable. Almost… not fantastic…
(Fans may be interested to know that a sequel is planned for 2007 - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486576/ for more details.)
Other Information
Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action, and some suggestive content (UK rating PG)
Runtime: 106 min
Year of release: 2005
Also known as: Fantastic 4 (duh)
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