Don't bother

Rating: 2/10 (31 July 2005)

This movie doesn't even do a decent job of being bad. The flat script, the contrived plot, the brain-rotting "science," the cardboard characters: the whole schmeer is just one great big fused cliché ground out of the Marvel/Hollywood cliché machine. And that's it. From the typography of the opening titles to the point where I walked out of the theatre, I found the film to be dull, hackneyed, laboured, predictable and inane.
Michael Chiklis could act, given half a script; Chris Evans is good when he has his shirt off and his mouth firmly shut; The Thing has genuine pathos; and the special effects are seamless and convincing. But these few glimmers of quality are nowhere near enough to redeem the movie.
But hey, maybe I was just having a bad day. In the last third of the movie it picked up: there were thrilling fight scenes, realistic character development, a cathartic climax and an emotional resolution for the lead characters. Or so my companion tells me, but by then I was outside eating pizza.