Three's a crowd, 'Four's a bore.

Rating: 4/10 (15 May 2008)

My Take: Lives and breathes in special effects. It only ends up silly and tiresomely forgettable.
Like all summer movie throwaways, it's best if you don't expect anything brilliant in FANTASTIC FOUR, a big-screen romp of the famous Marvel creations by Stan Lee. It is what it is, a big-budget comic book of a movie, complete with busy special effects and... well special effects. I wasn't expecting Shakespeare, but even so, FANTASTIC FOUR is a style-over-substance action picture. A big dumb summer movie that does its job, but that ain't worth remembering for. Once the credits rolled, there's hardly anything to remember in this lively but predictably forgettable summer movie of the generic order.
The characters are, unlike those in other superhero movies like BATMAN and SUPERMAN, have no back story other than they are superheroes. Hence, these "supers" aren't interesting to the least. They're just a bunch of special effects creations with no heart, or even soul. Even if they are played by real actors like Ioan Gruffud (Mr. Fantastic), Jessica Alba (The Invisible Woman), Michael Chiklis (The Thing) and Chris Evans (The Human Torch, the most annoying of the batch), they never really shine as humans and more of special effects creations.
Firstly, they hardly have an origin. Sure, it is briefly explained that they were victims of an unknown space cloud, but then what? When they become super, they save a couple of people, but not enough to outnumber how many times they act like a couple of celebrities at Tinsel Town. A real superhero wouldn't do that. No, a real superhero is very secure about his personalities. These guys don't seem to have some either. When I'm in a middle of a crisis, I'd like a hero that doesn't come with paparazzi.
Besides the special effects which were actually good, everything else is bad. The acting is mediocre, with Alba being the weakest and Evans being the most annoying (could you get a more annoying superhero?). The script baffles the worst lines of that summer (what do you expect from this thing?). If special effects will make your time, FANTASTIC FOUR might too. If you ask me, I forgot most of it until I saw it again. This ain't the kind of movie I'd watch more than once or twice.
Rating: ** out of 5.