FF Movie Not so Bad

Rating: 7/10 (12 July 2005)

This film has been released to a lot of bad reviews, but I enjoyed it a lot. It actually succeeds DESPITE itself. So let me start with its problems:
Cons: 1. Jessica Alba as a Red-Haired Sue Storm? Huh? Oh, well - this is Hollywood... 2. Reed Richards is a young, green, timid guy? Excuse me? This is Reed, the tough, brilliant, fatherly perfect husband guy - he's the LEADER of the FF! How can he be callow and insecure to start with? Oh, well, at least the character has some room for growing up.... 3. Last, but not least, the major complaint - THEY PROMISED US DR. DOOM, SO WHERE IS HE? Julian McMahon is a good actor, but he plays Doom (Doom? The arch-nemesis and arch-megalomaniac, Marvel's premiere figure of melodramatic tragedy and horror, the Phantom of the Opera of the whole Marvel world? The Marvel counterpart to Milton's Satan? The Tyrant Hold-Fast of Marvel mythology?), he plays Doom rather like Star Trek's "Q"! And his whole nature is changed - instead of the angry, lonely, self-obsessed, self-righteous yet dastardly and evil magician-scientist megalomaniac Latverian son of a Witch, a man utterly alone and utterly embittered, we get a smarmy, oily, even womanizing Victor, a financially well-established, conventional, American business-fish, swimming in boardrooms and oceans of money. Why throw away the great iconic character just to replace him with a common, generic one? His name is Doctor Doom, for cryin' out loud!!!
Okay - so those are the basic gripes. But there are other things that work well:
Pros: 1. The characters of the Four are well-realized by actors and company, after a kind of shaky, "who are these people?" start, and if they seem to be thin, at least there's some development to fill them out a bit. 2. The action scenes are well-realized, in the current visceral way, eg the cosmic storm, the cars and trucks come flying across the screen later - done well enough that an old guy like me is going "ouch" and cringing at the worst visual impacts. 3. The Ben-Johnny rivalry is pretty well-rendered, and as long as it doesn't descend into toilet-humor can be a strength in the sequel to come.
But the main advantage, in the end, is that the characters Lee and Kirby created still come through, and despite the miscalculations and occasional goofiness in the film they are still appealing and exciting. Perhaps the Fantastic Four can survive even a lame Doctor Doom!