Every once in a while a movie comes along that far surpasses your expectations. Whether you chalk it up to some sort of spontaneous creative synergy, a bulletproof script making lesser talents look good, great acting lifting mediocre material, particularly inspired directing, just plain movie magic, or what have you… every once in a great while you go into a movie expecting nothing, and end up getting something great. Fantastic Four is not that movie. Fantastic Four is terrible.
I will admit that as soon as the cast and director were announced, I wrote this film off. Why were Reed and Sue Richards being played by actors in their 20’s? Why is the guy who made Barbershop in charge of this? Why is Dr. Doom an Australian actor from an FX drama? These were the questions that immediately came to mind. These were the questions that seemed to have validity. In the end, Fantastic Four turned out to be just what it seemed; a huge miss.
Of course it couldn’t have been all bad, right? Surely there were some things that worked? They had to have gotten something right! Eh, I guess. I was happy that they used mostly practical effects for The Thing and didn’t make him a CGI monstrosity of the fakest order. Michael Chiklis actually didn’t turn in that bad of a performance, and proved to be the FX drama MVP of this film. Also, John Ottman’s score was palatable enough, as usual, though he’s most effective when both editing and scoring a film so that he can create and pace something truly personal. Unfortunately, other than those small points, there's not much here to crow about.
Jessica Alba is an awful actress. Luckily enough for her, she is also smoking hot. So while the concept and casting of this film were mishandled from the very beginning, if we had to cast the film with pretty 20 something actors, I don’t think she was the worst choice. What? I said she was a bad actress! Ioan Gruffudd, on the other hand, simply shocked me as Reed Richards. His turn as Mr. Fantastic is perhaps the most stilted, wooden performance I’ve seen in a mainstream film in years. It doesn’t help that he had to read some of the cheesiest, most pathetic dialogue I’ve ever heard (I expected better from a writer credited on two modern classics The Hulk and Cliffhanger), but he went above and beyond the call of bad acting. Chris Evans was passable as one note character Johnny Storm, but he was used only as comic relief and to look good with his shirt off. There’s not much to say about Julian McMahon other than he was bad as the non-character of “Victor Von Doom“.
I use conspicuous quotes in the previous sentence because what this movie called Dr. Doom didn’t resemble the actual character in any way. Gone was the arrogant and scarred but well meaning dictator; an interesting character who’s egoism forces him to attempt to take over the world because he honestly feels he’s the only one who can save it… and in it’s place is a generically evil businessman who goes nuts and tries to kill the FF for seemingly no reason. Yes, that’s the extent of the great Dr. Doom’s aspirations, to kill the Fantastic Four. Great plan generically evil villain #9979!
Being a superhero filled comic book movie, I suppose it’s necessary to comment on things like special effects and action. However, nothing from either category really stood out that much. The super power effects are generally capable but unimpressive; with the exception of some truly embarasing and outdated work on Mr. Fantastic’s stretching powers. The action is nearly non-existant besides the rushed letdown that the movie's anti-climax offers. Yep, instead of peppering the film with entertaining action bits throughout, we’re subjected to ridiculously boring pseudo science babble and paper thin, poorly constructed “character” moments. What a boring, awful movie.
Some of my favorite nuggets of awfulness to look out for… Ben Grimm’s non-explanation as to what exactly happened to them in space, Reed Richards' boldly labeled ‘Reverse Mutation Machine” diagram, and all of the raging rock music that played while Johnny Storm did extreme sports (letting us know he’s young and cool). This movie is another in a long line of comic book movie duds. Avoid at all costs.