Not as Fantastic as Spider-Man

Rating: 6/10 (12 July 2007)

If the scenes with the Silver Surfer weren't so great, I'd have given the film three stars. The other bright spot in the film is Chris Evans who does a good job playing Johnny Storm. WETA, Spectral Motion and The Orphage do an amazing job bringing the characters to life. What they can do with CGI and prostethics these days is incredible. It's too bad that the writing and the acting couldn't have been as good.
I think it's a more and more common problem as they are making movies that are more and more technical. They spend so much time and effort making the special effects that acting seems to be an after thought in films like this. The Star Wars Prequels are another prime example. Great effects but wooden and lack luster acting for the most part.
Avi Arad did a much better job on Spider-Man I and II than he did on the Fantastic Four movies. Maybe that's because there were more character development scenes and fewer cgi infused fight scenes in the Spidey movies.
I love Laurence Fishbourne's voice so I was happy to hear it for the Silver Surfer. The credits say some guy named Doug Jones played the Surfer. He must have done the motion capture for the computer animators since Surfer looked CG the whole time. The most amazing costuming in the film was Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm. I bet it took hours to get all that orange rock on him. People criticize poor Michael for a poor performance but I don't see how he was able to perform as well as he did with all that stuff on. You try to emote with a face covered in foam (or whatever that stuff was).
It was an entertaining film, but the needless changes from the comic such as all of the Surfer's power being in the board when it never was in the comics, the lackluster acting and the unfunny jokes kept it from being as good as it could have been. I'm glad Stan Lee liked the film since it's based on his and Steve Ditko's comics, but I was less than impressed overall.