Not bad, but not *Fantastic*

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2006)

Fantastic Four - Five scientists go into space for some reason and get bombarded with gamma rays or something. I'd go into more depth, but the Fantastics weren't my favorites in the Marvel universe. First Off, I enjoyed The Thing (Micheal Chiklis)'s acting as he goes through the trials and tribulations of being covered in Kaptain Krunch cereal and being unable to hold a drink (could he get a straw or something?). I also liked Ioan Gruffudd's Mr. Fantastic character, and wish he was given more to do. Finally I liked Julian McMahon as Dr. Doom, even if it was mostly a psychotic super-powered rehash of his character on Nip/Tuck. That's not necessarily a bad thing. His sparingly used evil scenes were fun. As for the other two, Chris Evans was mostly really annoying at first, but he's grown on me. Jessica Alba was really whiny. She needs acting lessons, as there was little to nothing endearing about her character.
Sidenote: The film's idea of keeping the team away from everyone and trying to undo their condition was kinda boring. The only time anything interesting really happened was when they left their H.Q.
Some of the effects are better than others. Some of the Mr. Fantastic effects look like they were done on the cheap. Same goes for the Invisible Woman force fields. Maybe they can fix that in the sequel.
The movie doesn't have a real story per se. It has moments and one liners. While that's not a terrible thing (The Thing threateningly telling kids not to do drugs was buckets of fun by itself), it keeps the movie from being anything other than adequate and being in the league of such comic book films as Spiderman, Superman, and Batman Begins. It is, however, in the league of fun no-brainer comic book films like Daredevil, The Punisher, and Darkman.
Fun but hardly Fantastic, Fantastic gets a B-