finally a film that puts the fun back into comic films

Rating: 8/10 (27 July 2005)

After a succession of dark and/or self-important comic book adaptations, such as batman, sin city, spiderman and the like, fantastic four makes a very refreshing change. It is very bright, lots of colour, and a fun, light-hearted tone, with a plethora of puns and gags which will have you giggling and groaning at the same time.
It also makes a refreshing change to see them (eventually) embracing their powers as gifts, and using them and not being shy about remaining anonymous, as most other superheroes will do. This perhaps makes the four seem more human - the public know exactly who they really are. Anyway, this also gives a touch of grounding in realism  guys that looked like that, with powers like that  we'd know all about them surely? It's not like a pair of glasses each would make them Joe (or Josephine) regular, a la Clark Kent (how did Lois buy that for so many years anyway?) But I digress. Ioan Gruffudd manages a competent if rather textbook American accent, and Jessica Alba fulfils her assigned role by being as hot as ever (though why are female scientists always knockouts? They never were in my school!). The stars of the piece though are Michael Chiklis' heartfelt portrayal of the thing, and Julian McMahon camping it up superbly as the villain. Chris Evans (no, not that one!) rounds out the heroic quartet as the arrogant guy who takes full advantage of his fame, cut straight from the template.
The special effects are superb (although that comes almost as standard nowadays), and all of our heroes get chance to fully show off their powers, even if some of them have been amplified from the original comics.
One criticism of the film is that although running at 1 hour 45 minutes the story was too short in itself, and that most of the film seemed to be all about setting up a series of sequels - as if this was merely the first chapter of the full film. Be that as it may, as a franchise launcher, it has certainly whetted the appetite. A sequel will be eagerly anticipated, and will be expected to improve on its predecessor.