Good fun entertainment

Rating: 9/10 (11 July 2005)

I know the current trend in comic book adaptations today is to clad the protagonist/s head-to-toe in black and pull out the thesaurus to see just how many ways they can be described as "serious." "Grim." "Gritty." "Dark." "Hard-edged." Blah, blah, blah.
Well, thank goodness someone had the sense to buck that trend where this film and these characters were concerned. It's The Fantastic Four for crying out loud! Hats off to the filmmakers for remembering that!
All the actors turned in stellar performances, but special mention must go to Michael Chiklis as The Thing and Chris Evans as The Human Torch. Both of them did an outstanding job portraying these comic book character legends and their back-and-forth banter was delivered with such precision timing that you actually believed you were watching two friends bicker as opposed to two actors doing their jobs.
Jessica Alba could have easily been sidelined as the obligatory pretty face, but The Invisible Girl was well-written and she handed in a performance that was neither aggravatingly passive nor overwhelmingly shrewish - she played the role of exasperated sister and pining lover with subtle perfection.
Ioan Gruffud and Julian MacMahon must likewise be credited for turning in performances that didn't scream melodrama. If anything, it looked like they got in front of the camera and enjoyed themselves. And fortunately for all of us, they remembered to include us in the fun.
The script did take some liberties with the comic book origin - but these liberties were taken well. Too often a screenplay tries to be faithful to the source material and the writer forgets just one key factor: that comic books are comic books and movies are movies. Their dramatic structure is different and the written word is not the same as the spoken word.
The changes, such as they were, were perhaps not the most inspired, creatively-speaking, but neither did they insult the viewer's intelligence.
Fan of the comics or not, The Fantastic Four will be a thoroughly enjoyable film to all viewers. The acting, as I said, was A+. The special effects? Superb. The action sequences? Lacked the MTV-type editing that makes my head hurt and were expertly choreographed and well-paced.
All in all, see this movie for what it is - a good excuse to sit down and enjoy yourself. That's all it promises and it certainly delivers!