A new day is dawning! The day of the Fantastic Four!

Rating: 5/10 (15 January 2006)

This film is hilarious! It is also highly entertaining and light hearted and more importantly it has the spirit of the comics and opposed to many other comic book features it doesn't have any pretensions to be something its not. I don't know why people are so negative towards this film. Obviously its not as good as Batman Begins the other super hero extravaganza of the summer but it is definitely entertaining and most actors are very well cast.
Ioan Gruffudd who was extraordinarily bad in King Arthur proves that he does have talent and is worthy of being a leading actor in Hollywood. His performance as Reed Richards is unique. Not exactly like in the comics where Reed is a much older man. Instead Gruffudd makes Reed a nerdy science rat and that worked too. Rising superstar Jessica Alba plays Sue Storm and she is smoking hot. Seeing her in the blue Fantastic Four outfit really had my heart pumping but there is more to her than her pretty face and her body she actually does a somewhat decent job in bringing Sue to life. Unfortunately the chemistry between her and Gruffudd is somewhat lacking and this makes their scenes together seem a bit forced. Chris Evans is just plain funny and provides some of the best laughs in the film and his persona fits the character of Johnny Storm very well. I could not imagine anyone else in that character. He is hot-headed, brash childish and 100% lovable. Michael Chiklis has the best performance in the film and really brings out all the characteristics of Ben Grimm. He works great both as a comedic actor but also in the dramatic scenes. In short, he is excellent. The only part where I feel the casting falls short is in Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom. He spends too much time being suave and sophisticated so when the time comes for him to start being menacing it doesn't work. He is decent enough, however, but I guess the fact that in the comics Doctor Doom is pretty much the ultimate bad guy and with that kind of expectations you're bound to be a little disappointed. Stan Lee has his trademark cameo. Unfortunately this time around they gave him dialog and he is not much of an actor and his scene comes off a bit ridiculous.
In terms of writing the film is not as sharp and well written as other films in the genre, most notably X-Men, but the dialog is light hearted and entertaining and some of the exchanges between Chiklis and Evans are genuinely funny. As previously stated the scenes between Alba and Gruffudd are somewhat forced. This comes, in large part, down to the writing. Their scenes are painfully American and clichéed and can be strainfull to watch. When critizising the script Dr. Doom much be mentioned as he is by no means the bad guy you could have hoped for. Much of McMahon's dialog is pretty dodgy and not as good as it could have been. The origins of the characters are almost exactly what they were in the comics and this was good. Also I found it good that not too much time was spent on the origin as this could have slowed the film down considerably. Another slight point of critique is that the movie is too short. I would have liked it to be just 10 - 15 minutes longer just to get more out of the characters.
The effects were generally very well done and had a comic book feel to them which is of course appropriate. Chiklis' costume was very well done and it was probably better having it this way rather than have The Thing done in a computer as it would probably have lessened the humanity of the character. Besides the only computer generated character to date that have worked fully as it was intended was Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. Speaking of computer generated images The Human Torch is undoubtedly the best eye candy of the movie and he does indeed look absolutely amazing. Not completely believable but then again it is a comic book movie. Two thumbs way up! Doctor Doom and The Invicible Woman work as well and Doom's mask is pretty menacing and contrary to popular belief he is not inspired by Darth Vader it is the other way around. Mr. Fantastic work the first time you see the film but after having seen the film a few times you get to see that he is obviously computer generated.
Overall Fantastic Four is not the best film of the year but it is very entertaining and definitely worth a look. The market is flooded with superhero movies these days and Fantastic Four doesn't really bring anything new to the screen which is probably why it scores so low on IMDb.
6/10