Definitely not Fantastic...

Rating: 5/10 (7 October 2005)

It could've been fantastic but unfortunately this movie manages only to pass off as average...
As far as comic book licensed movies go, Fantastic Four did get a lot of things right. First of all they got most of the characters' personalities and relationships right. The Thing and Human Torch's exchanges were very faithful to the source material and did provide the most fun parts of the movie... The costumes were also spot-on as well as the Thing's make up. The special effects guys deserve special praise because the Thing didn't look fake at all. The Human Torch looked cool too...
But unfortunately, the good elements stop here. The movie has huge problems. Its biggest problem is its story. Its far too simple and devoid of any depth. The only thing that provides some substance in the story are the scenes exploring the Thng's situation since he's the one who was hit the worst by the mutation. The problem with the story is that for a Super-Hero based movie, there's pretty much nothing heroic going on. The only times that the F.F. get to act as heroes are when they help people get out of an accident on a bridge, and when they fight Dr. Doom. Other than that they just have fun with their powers or try to find a way to get rid of them... Dr. Doom, the villain, is one of the most under-developed villains of all time and he only appears as his evil masked persona for about 5 minutes towards the end of the movie... The ending too is really disappointing and anti-climactic to say the least. Another problem was the casting. The actors playing the Thing and the Human Torch were both excellent choices for their parts, unfortunately though pretty much everyone else is a bad choice. The guy playing Mr. Fantastic is way too young to play the part of the genius and the team's voice of reason. Mr. Fantastic in the comics is like in his early 50s and this man wasn't even in his early 30s... The same goes for Jessica Alba, although i can't complaint about seeing her for 120 minutes or so in a skin tight outfit but there's no chance in hell she'd pass for a genius in biology. She doesn't even look old enough to have finished college for Pete's Sake. Finally we have Dr. Doom. The problem with the guy playing him is that he doesn't look evil at all... He has to be the most unconvincing villain i have ever seen.
Now i can't say that i wasted two hours of my life watching Fantastic Four. It was quite faun, it was filled with funny scenes and it definitely did have its very good moments and one can't say that it was boring. But after all those excellent comic book movies out there like X-2, Spider-Man and Batman: Begins the bar has been raised high and Fantastic Four certainly didn't have what it takes to go over it. Just your average Super-Hero movie then and to paraphrase Blur's On Your Own: It's not that good but it's not that bad... 5/10