Why all the bad reviews? This is pretty good!

Rating: 8/10 (15 July 2005)

Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), her kid brother Johnny (Chris Evans), Ben Grimm (Michael Chikilis) and Victor von Doom (Julian McMahon) are all exposed to cosmic radiation giving them superpowers. Richards can stretch any part of his body and is called Mr. Fantastic; Sue can turn invisible and project force fields--she's called Invisible Girl (it should be Woman); Johnny can turn into a living flame AND fly--he's the Human Torch; Grimm becomes a monster made of orange rocks and called The Thing. von Doom begins to go insane and turn into metal--he becomes the evil Dr. Doom.
Adaptation of the popular comic book actually isn't bad. They make only slight changes to the origins (unlike "Batman Begins"), cast them well and threw in tons of excellent special effects. The story moves quickly and has plenty of action (I've never seen so many car crashes in one movie).
There are problems though--and it's mostly with the acting. Gruffudd (completely covering his accent) does very well as Richards--he looks and acts like the character in the books. However Alba is TERRIBLE. Yes--she is beautiful but can't act. Her face had a blank expression throughout. Evans, surprisingly, is only so-so. He's a talented guy and I thought he could pull off the role of a young, cocky, arrogant guy--but he seems to be holding back. Chikilis is excellent as The Thing. Even though he's in a costume you can see his pain and anger at being turned into a monster. Also McMahon is excellent as Doom--he downplays it--but it works well.
It's loud, silly but loads of fun. I really can't see why all the critics are blasting this. It's not that bad! I give it an 8.