Vapid and Lifeless

Rating: 1/10 (17 July 2005)

Despite the recent glut of superhero comic book adaptations, many films have actually been good enough to warrant a viewing, with some even bordering on greatness (Spider-Man 2, X2, Hellboy). Sadly, it also becomes inevitable that once in a while, we get uninspired films such as Fantastic Four.
It enrages me whenever people defend crapfests like F4 calling it "escapist entertainment", therefore making it critic-proof because no matter how banal the dialogue or how atrocious the performances, it is just meant to be "mindless" entertainment right? I don't hate F4 because it's fun-spirited and candy-coated. So is Spider-Man, Singin' in the Rain, or the upcoming Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. But the reason why I despise F4 is that it never strives to be more than a heady string of superhero clichés bound together by a lame script. The whole thing reeks like stale cheese. The sorry attempts at injecting some character development (such as Thing feeling like he doesn't belong) has been done before, and done much better. F4 just wallows in its own mediocrity, perfectly self-content that it's not meant to be taken seriously anyways. And we, as the movie-watching public, have to compromise by saying "It's good for what it was!" But why should we compromise, when there are other, better movies out there? I believe there is no such thing as perfection in cinema, but there are films that come dangerously close to achieving it. We have the veritable pick of the litter -- why we continue to patronize trash such as F4 is beyond me.