Fun but dumb

Rating: 5/10 (25 May 2007)

Four better and worse, Fantastic Four is your completely predictable and stereotypical comic book come to life. Take one part mediocre acting, two parts serviceable special effects, and three parts conceptual action and you have the successful formula for franchise gold. The good news is the film stays so close to this formula that it rarely has time to indulge, lull, or pontificate upon any lofty Marvel notion, some of which their cousin movies often get swept away in. The experience is one of the less geeky endeavors for the booming genre, substituting the often found Achilles heel of excessive fanboy devotion for a more generalized, all- around fun time. Without wasting too much attention on character background, viewers settle into the more entertaining aspects of each superhero's special ability before things get too redundant.
The bad news is that these five various fleeting super-powers we get to enjoy pretty much guide the entire plot through to it's predictably boring conclusion. Nothing really distracts this wooden script from merely going through the motions, and at times it can get overbearingly numbing. Coupled with the pretty-faced performances, and we get a comic-foursome as sincere Stan Lee's acting. Sure, Michael Chiklis plays against his airhead crew's type and offers some of the only emotionally graspable sentiment around, but even his lines come off painfully clichéd and just another element to move along the mechanics. Despite being just another pretty face herself, Jessica Alba is The pretty face, and any warm-blooded male under the age of 40 should thank their lucky stars she was cast.
Choosing Tim Story (Barbershop, Taxi) to direct might have seemed odd to your typical white nerdy teen- the precise demographic for this fodder, but producers were thinking bigger then those narrow confines. Story does nothing to help elevate this one, but a more accessible urban vibe, however subtle, pervades the film and should be credited for helping expand the audience a little wider then expected. Helping refine the more mainstream elements inside this superhero spectacle, Fantastic Four may be an easily digestible dose of the Marvel universe, but becomes just as dumbed down for it.