Funny dialog mud wrestles with mind-bending stupidity

Rating: 4/10 (11 July 2005)

I guess I shouldn't have expected much from the director of the aggressively forgettable Taxi. Taken as a whole, the script feels like something that--at one point--had meat on its bones but was badly mishandled and mangled by a mission to prioritize merchandising over delivering a competent film. While this mercenary cynicism isn't surprising to find in a high-concept summer blockbuster, it's a disappointing step backwards after Batman Begins and the X-Men and Spider-Man films. Tim Story and his screenwriters don't seem to get the appeal of the Fantastic 4 or grasp the dignity granted to X-Men and Spider-Man. Worse, I can't tell how much they really care about being faithful to the source material.
Also, some migraine-inducing plot stupidity drains whatever enjoyment you might get from some snappy dialog or from ogling Jessica Alba.
Let's say, hypothetically, that you save a man from getting hit by a truck, but in the process you cause a massive pileup, a chain reaction that leads to people dangling over precipices and flying into the abyss. Dozens of bystanders witness the domino fallout of events. Yet because you manage to salvage this traffic catastrophe that you created, you are hailed as a hero as soon as the dust settles. The plot of Fantastic 4 is shot through with nonsensical set pieces like this that. By the time the film wraps up its by-the-books, slam-bang action movie conclusion, you're mind will probably already be working on where you parked your car.
Surprisingly, Alba was the most consistently engaging character, despite the script she had to work with. She managed to utter reams of inane dialog with charming dignity and made her character almost believable. She's also nice to look at, and the cinematographer new how to make her shine. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for a pretty face.