The Distinctly Average Four

Rating: 6/10 (13 June 2007)

The Marvel Comic Book Heroes are getting snapped up by studios as quickly as they can buy them. Ever since X-Men and Spiderman proved to be huge hits for the individual companies the comic book heroes have had movies made about them y the bucket load. To date we've had Spiderman, Blade, Hulk, Daredevil, Elektra, X-Men, Ghost Rider and hundreds more are inevitably on the way. Yet it wasn't until 2005 that the original Marvel superheroes, the ones that many comic book fans hold dear to their hearts, made their baby steps onto the big screen. Of course I am speaking of the Fantastic Four, admittedly until I saw the movie I knew next to nothing about the origins and the story behind the Fantastic Four, at most I knew their names, that was all. What followed after its release was a hell of a lot of disappointed comic book fans moaning about how they didn't get certain characters right. This of course never bothered me, but still I found the Fantastic Four to be a major letdown in almost every aspect. I found it dull, cheesy, not action packed enough and too focused on everything but progressing the actual characters and story itself. The movie left me underwhelmed, yet still sort of wanting a sequel to be made due to the potential of the characters. So with the upcoming release of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, I decided to return to the original movie and see whether it has aged any better. The simple answer is that it now seems a better movie, but its still a deeply flawed one.
So let me first begin with the actual cast of the movie, namely the supposed "fantastic" four themselves. I suppose the two main cast members are what frustrated me most originally, Ioan Gruffud and Jessica Alba as Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Neither of them seem anything above average. Ioan Gruffud has no material to work with, which is a shame as I've seen him in some movies and he's actually a reasonably good actor. But there is no excuse for how pitiful Jessica Alba is. Despite the odd moment where she seems to be making an effort, she generally seems in a daze. Its not until later scenes that I actual began to acknowledge her character, at the start she was so bland it was unreal. Thankfully the rest of the major cast work pretty well. Chris Evans pretty much is the Human Torch, he's cocky, he's arrogant, but he's funny and he has a great personality. Chris Evans was a newcomer here and he managed to steal every sequence he was in. Michael Chiklis also is the best person to play The Thing, a shame his costume looks ludicrous at times, but the performance underneath it is pretty well done. Now is the time to mention my first change of opinion from when I original saw the movie. At first I didn't like Julian McMahon as Dr Doom, mainly because I had been lead to believe that Dr Doom is the very best super villain you will find in a comic book. So when I sat and watched the movie, and realised he'd been interpreted as this villain who was killing people, just because he lost some money and his girlfriend, left me a bit underwhelmed. However after another viewing I came to realise its not the performance that's to fault. In fact he steals pretty much the last quarter of the movie when stuff really gets going.
The actual story of the Fantastic Four is my biggest fault with the film. Its just the fact that after the Four get their powers, we end up standing around for forty five minutes while nothing happens, and I seriously mean nothing happens at all! We get a fun insight into using their powers in regular life, but after that all we hear is The Thing moaning about looking ugly, Reed doing all his quantum physics talk, Johnny being an idiot by trying to be a celebrity and Sue, well Sue frowning a lot. That's it. Thankfuly the movie realises its fault in the last twenty minutes and we get a pretty well executed fight with Dr Doom. It might not be the best superhero fight, but after such a huge gap of anything action packed its nice to see something happening on screen. The opening scenes are a bit rushed, and the bit in space is horribly animated, but the actual story going on is passable for a comic book movie.
The action of the movie is perhaps another one of the movies faults. When the action gets going its entertaining, generally its well executed and we get a good insight into the powers. We see this in the entertaining Brooklyn Bridge sequence, the well filmed scenes in the finale. But apart from those two scenes, there really isn't much else in terms of action. Now this might be seen as a good thing because origin stories are about how the heroes become and learn to be super. But the trouble is this movie tries to focus on entertainment, its lacking in a good script, it hardly relies on its stars to draw crowds in, all that its left to fall back on really is its cheesy humour, which admittedly at times works, and its action sequences. The lack of action sequences just becomes frustrating after a while.
Anyway Fantastic Four isn't an awful movie, and I can definitely sit and re watch it without wanting to kill myself. But the movie is definitely flawed and never lives up to its full potential. I have high hopes for the sequel, the promising trailers and the fact the origin story is out of the way is always a positive. But they desperately need to do a bit more with the storyline next time.