The essential Fantastic Four captured on film

Rating: 7/10 (11 July 2005)

I've been waiting a long time to see this movie. The Fantastic Four are one of my favourite comic book hero's. So you can imagine, with such expectation the likelihood of disappointment is high. I took my daughter to opening day and left the cinema with confused thoughts.
The strength of the movie was it's development of the characters. They were real, even Von Doom (considering the things that went wrong in his life I'd be mighty angry too). I loved the by-play between Johnny and Ben, hilarious. Some of Johnny's lines were predictable but were delivered with such roguish charm that it was hard not to enjoy his character.
The down side of the movie was it's lack of drama or incident. We had the space station, the bridge, Doom's attempted elimination of potential threats to his plan and the final battle with Doom. But for a feature length movie of its type, this was not enough. At least not for my 12 year old daughter. Overall, she enjoyed the movie and had a few laughs along the way but next time can 'we' add some extra drama and tension (I know for the first installment this was meant to be light hearted but .....).
Anyway, being an obsessive personality I had some free time the following night so I took myself off to see the movie again and you know what, I enjoyed it even more. I had a greater appreciation for the work and left the cinema satisfied in the knowledge that the team who put this work together did a great job in introducing us to the Fantastic Four. It displayed some of the original freshness we were treated to way back in the early 60's. Can't wait for number 2. Wouldn't mind seeing Galactus and the Surfer!!!