Marvel once again succeeds to bring a fresh set of super heroes to the big screen

Rating: 8/10 (11 July 2005)

I was pleased with the quality of the Fantastic Four (F4) movie. When I left after movie I thought that it would do best with younger audiences and female movie fans. The demographics on the reviews seem to support that idea. I was aware of the Fantastic Four comic books, but I became more familiar with the characters watching the animated TV series. Each Fantastic Four character has an interesting opinion on their new found powers. The actors seem to portray this very well. Doctor Doom was also a good choice for the villain. He is a very popular comic bad guy who looks really cool. If/when FF4 becomes an ongoing movie series, I believe the sequels will have tremendous opportunity to improve on the success of this first movie. (Obviuosly Wall Street agrees as Marvel stock rose 12% on the Monday following the release.)
Since comparisons between F4 and the X-MEN movies are inevitable, I would say that F4 does not take itself as seriously the X-MEN series or as previous Marvel releases. (However, it never turns to the camp that has brought down the original DC Batman and Superman movie series.) Which may be a good move on Stan Lee's part. This will help him to build a well-rounded watchable library of Marvel films. I have even heard of possible crossover between Marvel movie series possibly involving the F4 and a planned Silver Suffer movie. That would cool. With the release of the Fantastic Four movie, Marvel has now brought all its biggest products to the big screen (X-Men, Spider-man, Hulk, and the Fantastic Four).