Less than Fantastic: watch "The Incredibles" instead.

Rating: 4/10 (22 April 2010)

Not having read the comics this is based on I can't say how well the story compares or if the actors portraying the characters were similar enough their comic counterparts. The first part of the film showed us how the four heroes and their adversary gained their superpowers, it does this reasonably well unfortunately it doesn't give us any real insight in to their characters.
Of the five main characters only Michael Chiklis's "The Thing" inspired any interest perhaps because he was the only actor who didn't look like he was hired for his good looks. The other characters were fairly forgettable; Ioan Gruffudd's Mr Fantastic didn't live up to his name, I was far more impressed with him on TV's "Hornblower" series than here, Jessica Alba who has been good in other things seemed to be there solely to appeal adolescent male viewers but it takes more than looking good in her undies to make the character interesting, Chris Evan's character the Human Torch was just annoying, he acted more like a twelve year old attention seeker than an astronaut and finally Julian McMahon's Doom is never going to be remembered as one of the great, or even good, super villains.
The four heroes of the film seems to spend more time arguing with each other than doing anything interesting which seemed more annoying than entertaining and when they do something it is hardly world saving; just saving a few people after an accident which was caused by one of the four anyway, likewise Doom doesn't do anything world threatening, he merely kills a banker then goes after the four heroes.
I'd only recommend this if you have to see all super hero films or want something that isn't too scary for the children... although if I was picking a super hero film for youngsters I'd pick "The Incredibles" as that had far better characters who seemed much more human even though it isn't live action.