Story is proving himself to be a disappointing director

Rating: 5/10 (10 July 2005)

Fantastic Four Reviewed by Sam Osborn
Rating: 2 out of 4
Director: Tim Story Cast: Michael Chiklis, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Julian McMahon, Ioan Gruffudd Screenplay: Michael France, Mark Frost, MPAA Classification: PG-13 (sequences of intense action, and some suggestive content)
There's so much giddy energy injected into Fantastic Four that it's difficult not to like. Despite so many missteps and problems, the film still manages to endear its audiences to the comic book hokey-ness that's absent from many of the new comic book to film adaptations. Point in fact, Batman Begins dropped the cartoon corniness for an affective grim surrealism. But Fantastic Four embraces the cheesy dialogue bubbles and uses them both to the film's advantage and to its disadvantage.
What's most frustrating when watching Fantastic Four is its absurd sense of pacing. For 90 minutes, director Tim Story develops his characters without much concern for the audience's excitement. We're treated to a single fight sequence in that entire 90 minute segment. Albeit, the sequence is amazing, but still, a bit more action couldn't hurt.
The film opens with failed corporate businessman Richard Reed (Ioan Gruffud) and his bodyguard Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) heading up to the top story of the Von Doom building in New York City. There they pitch their idea to Victor von Doom (Julian McMahon), the richest businessman in the world. Their theory one of a radioactive wave from space causing Earth's planetary evolution. Six weeks from now, another one of the waves will enter Earth's orbit. Reed would like to take a shuttle up to von Doom's space station and use its uniquely powerful shields to study the wave. Seeing it as a grand financial opportunity, von Doom bites and soon enough Reed and Doom's team are scooting around Victor's space station. The team includes Ben Grimm, Susan Storm (Jessica Alba), Victor's head of Genetic research and love interest, her brother Johnny (Chris Evans), a lover of extreme sports and former NASA pilot, Victor, and Richard. All is going well until unexplainable the wave closes in much faster than expected, catching the entire team by surprise. Not able to get the shields up in time, all the team members are exposed to the wave and consequently have their DNA strangely altered. Gradually, all their newfound superpowers are revealed. Reed is now Mr. Fantastic, with a rubber body. Susan is now The Invisible Girl, who also has the power of conjuring up strong force fields. Johnny is now The Human Torch, having the power to engulf himself in flames and somehow fly. Ben is now The Thing, made entirely out of rock. Lastly, Victor von Doom is secretly and slowly changing into a man made entirely of steel stronger than diamonds. When the former four decide to try and reverse the changes, Victor decides to use his power to take over the world. As if his name didn't give it away.
As I mentioned earlier, the desperately slow pace of the film puts a hamper on what could have been an epic comic book adventure. The screenplay strives to build three-dimensional characters, but leaves the dialogue to material we expect only from the little white dialogue bubbles in the comics. These work fine for comic books, but put to the actors the lines come out cheesy and ineffective. But the blame can't be dumped on the acting. Although none of the five main actors put up performances any more than acceptable, the material they have to work with is surely flawed.
However, when we do finally get to the action, it's simply stunning. Staying true to the long running comic book series, the film's action sequences utilize all the different abilities of the Fantastic Four. The action isn't minced into half-second shots as it was in the upcoming The Island and Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, but given large scope, allowing us to witness it in all its glistening entirety. But the CGI work, although abundant, is hit and miss in quality. Some of the earlier shots, a space-ship docking shot in particular, are strangely poor. But work with Alba's invisibility and force-fields are quite eye-widening. There's a great scene where the four are dukin' it out with Doom on the streets of New York; Johnny lights himself to the point of "Supernova", creating a boiling hot explosion contained by a half-spherical semi-transparent force-field of Susan Storm. In scenes like these, where there's this great mix of beautiful art design and clever action choreography, Fantastic Four finally finds its feet.
It's a shame that throughout the rest of the film, the disappointing Dr. Doom and his evil scheming are little more than backdrops to the corny, one-dimensional character development Tim Story tries to create. Some of this lack of comic book violence can be attributed to the film's apparent "lightness." It's rumored that an early version of the screenplay would have garnered a PG rating. And today, a PG rating is almost as suicidal as an NC-17. PG-13 reigns king over the summer box office. But even with a PG-13 rating, Fantastic Four still feels somehow light. Dr. Doom isn't all that scary, about on par with Spiderman's Green Goblin. And substituting for action sequences are lame extreme sports endeavors with Johnny Storm. Johnny's one of the more entertaining aspects of the film, but snowboarding and motorcycles rarely live up to superpower combat on the city's streets.
I feel let down by Fantastic Four. Tim Story is proving himself to be a disappointing director, coming off of Taxi last year and following it up with this high-profile letdown. The film leaves much open-ended material for a sequel. So lets hope another screenwriter and a drastically different director get behind the helm of our next adventure with the Fantastic Four.