Flame On! - not too much here for comics fans to flame or complain about -- but the movie could burn more brightly

Rating: 8/10 (15 August 2005)

My husband and I saw "the Fantastic Four" last night at the big multiplex in Ipswich. The husband isn't a comics fan, but he's a big CGI fan. I was never a great Marvel reader, but I think the Kirby FF issues are every big as good as Marvel Zombies rave they are. "The Fantastic Four" struck us as the self conscious chapter one of a franchise, but still, we enjoyed the film. I agree that Chris Evans as the Human Torch made the film rock in more ways than one. I liked the depiction of him as a snow boarder and motorcycle devil. Too bad he couldn't be blond (The comics Johnny Storm is) -- surely he'd be the type to have a peroxide highlights job on his crew cut. By the way, the actor's name caused a bit of amusement in the UK gossip mags as Chris Evans is a British radio DJ notorious for binge drinking sessions that go on for weeks, and for marrying a teenage "singing" star and then divorcing her (Her name is Billie Piper and she was the assistant in the latest Dr. Who).
The actor playing the Thing also was outstanding,able to move the audience in spite of his foam suit. Reed Richards was too wimpy for me: I wanted him to have more gravitas, especially more gravitas by the end of the movie. Okay, it was an origin movie, I could see him growing into the role of the father figure of the FF, but he was still too weedy at the end. Sue Storm was too thin in more sense than one. Sorry, but there is no way I could see her wanting to be the love interest of a Lex Luthor-like Dr. Doom -- it was just too much like the TV Lois and Clark.
We rated the Dr. Doom separately because we are both Charmed fans and Julian McMahon tore a place in our hearts as Cole, part human, part demon. He gave a fairly effective performance as Doom, but the part called for him to be a Lex Luthor clone who becomes pure evil. McMahon had better scenes as pure evil when he played the Source, the head of the underworld on Charmed. He looked really fine in the skintight suit on the space station, but the part didn't give him much to do that was three dimensional, aside from putting on a metal mask. The scar weeping metal drops was really chilling, though.
The husband didn't rate the CGI very highly. He said the cloth effects on Mr. Fantastic were average, the invisible effects could be better, and the force fields came out of a Lightwave tutorial. He also thought showing peril on a bridge is clichéd, especially after the recent bridge scenes in the Spiderman movies.
But overall, we had a fun night out. The movie obviously sets up the sequel in the closing sequences. We would be willing to see the next FF film- providing it has stronger characterization for Sue, Reed, and Dr. Doom.