Better than the hype, unfairly judged

Rating: 8/10 (22 July 2005)

Fantastic Four was a strong action movie of the comic book variety. It had good action, great special effects, and a good backstory and cast chemistry. It is unfairly judged as an average superhero movie, when movies like Batman Begins and last year's The Incredibles (which takes liberally from the Marvel's FF), takes its thunder. It looks so normal and regular b/c the Fantastic Four created the superhero team dynamic. A lot of the clichés of a superhero team were created by this team. Most importantly, it had a strong human dimension, and was well acted as such. If people just wanted a special effects film and not a film w/ strong character development, they should go to something else. Though the action and effects were really good, they were not the film. Only criticism was of Dr. Doom, but only b/c I had certain conceptions of who he was. Since he was created in this film too, it makes sense if he isn't the controlled cool menace he will later become.