What Were You Expecting?

Rating: 10/10 (9 July 2005)

For this longtime comic book reader, it worked.
I didn't go into this theatre expecting Million Dollar Baby, the Aviator, Traffic, Gladiator, Titanic, As Good As It Gets, Goodwill Hunting, Forrest Gump, Godfather, Fargo, Toy Story, the Incredibles, On The Waterfront, Gone With the Wind or any other critically acclaimed or Oscar winning movie.
I WANTED to see the Fantastic Four. Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny.
Did Doctor Doom's connection to their origin interfere? Not really.
Did the alteration to Doom's comic book origin alter the characterization? Arrogance, self-destruction in defeat, blame Reed. It was all there.
Doom's romance with Sue? No harm done there. Sue didn't care for Victor.
Once the characters' relationships to one another and their rivalries, were established and I understood what was done (as I had to do with the Xmen movie when it came out, Rogue being a teen ager, etc., as well as Spiderman, the webs coming out of his hands instead of a mechanized device), the FF was all in place.
Could it have been better? Only if this one was completely unbearable, which it wasn't to me.
Instead of Peter Parker learning about his powers on his own, this time there were four people doing the sorting out, which was what the FF has always been.
The movie is called "The Fantastic Four", not "Doctor Doom and the Four" nor is it "Alicia Masters and the Four".
Doom could become a woman, Alicia could become Black, it's not going to drastically alter anything.
After the cartoon Hulk movie with Eric Banal, I appreciated the costume Chiklis wore. If you want to see an animated Thing, there are three Fantastic Four cartoons, as well as "Thing Ring! Do your thing!" to be checked out.
If you don't want to watch this movie, then don't. But it is hardly a stinker, 'got the comic book all wrong' and so on.
CGI would be perfect if the sequel had the IMpossible Man in it. Now there is someone made for computer animation!