Banter, Alba and expensive special effects paid for by cynical advertisers

Rating: 4/10 (2 December 2005)

...but wasn't it fun! Well..a bit. I liked Alba's jumpsuit! For the most part though Fantastic Four (note the irritating loss of the group's personal pronoun)is a photo-chemical womb incubating a stillborn celluloid-foetus. It just might be the most cynically commercial movie you've seen in years. In fact, if your one of the gazillion companies(including Fox of course who made it in the first place) who paid up front to get the human torch on ESPN or the Thing to wear Nikes, then you must be delighted to watch a flick in which the only real characters are the corporate sponsors and the only reason to keep watching is the (vain) hope that Jessica will take off her clothes prematurely before she becomes translucent. Sure, its colourful, inoffensive stuff - cine-ice cream you might say (and even if you wouldn't, I have) but these comic book flicks don't have to be so light do they? X-men, which began this noughties marvel onslaught, had vague pretencions of substance, Batman Begins wasn't entirely mindless - it doesn't have to be this way y'know. In fact watching the Four, you're reminded of why the film snobs hate Hollywood. Its Crude, over blown commercial candy floss with admittedly likable stars who get to do very little but joke around in the kind of self-satisfied tongue in cheek style we all despise. Fox should remember that the kind of limp and fluffy Eighties comic-flicks this often resembles lead to a death of these movies toward of the end of that decade. No more of this please.