Fantastic movie - it made my whole day!

Rating: 8/10 (4 August 2005)

What you need to know is this: They stayed true to the comic-book! Sure, Dr. Doom was changed, but he's been pretty much ruined in the comic over the years, so I think it was the right choice to reinvent him for the movie. The other characters remained intact in virtually every detail, and the movie was generally *great*. If you have any interest in superheroes and larger-than-life concepts, forget about the bad reviews. Those critics are just not sensitive to this stuff.
I have been reading FF comics for twenty years, so I was understandably worried that Hollywood would mess up this movie as well, as they've done with several other comics-based movies (esp. Elektra - argh!). But I also retained my optimism - fueled by the excellent trailers -, and despite the almost unanimously terrible reviews, I went in to this movie with high hopes. And throughout the movie, as no bad scenes or twists came along, my enthusiasm just kept climbing. Hey, maybe the Hollywood suits found the original story too complex to mess with, and left well enough alone?! For once!
In any case, this movie joins X-Men and Spider-Man as a truly successful new film franchise based on classic Marvel comics - and because the FF concept is just so much more grand and colorful and sci-fi-like than the regular-joe grounding of Spider-Man and the murky, moody mutants, I'd have to say that Fantastic Four is my favorite Marvel movie yet. A fantastic romp!
Every actor was totally great (although I would rather have seen Elisha Cuthbert as Sue). Especially Johnny Storm, who was far better than I'd expected. The bickering between Ben and Johnny was also GREAT. Just right. Beautiful. I don't understand why many critics found it boring - I thought it had lots of sting.
OK, the movie wasn't 100% perfect. There could have been a stronger focus on Reed and his great intellect. There could have been a slightly better dialog in places, and various plot points could have been better explained (like, Doom really only cures Ben so he can leech the cosmic energy off of him, and he does - so how can the human Ben just go back and become the Thing again, if his cosmic radiation went into Doom...? Well, I just would have liked this point to have been addressed). But overall a delightful, highly entertaining movie - if you belong to the true target audience! ;-)
I rate the FF movie a very solid 8 out of 10 - and I'm very close to pushing that up to a 9!