Fantastic Four

Rating: 7/10 (11 July 2014)

Title: Fantastic Four
Condensed Storyline: Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm and Victor Von Doom go up into space to measure comic rays when their ship is struck by them. This leads to them all developing their own individual superpowers. But this leads Reed to work to try and transform them back to normal, but he isn't able to and Dr Doom is able to turn Ben back to normal, but then starts taking them out one by one, mainly because they cost him his company. So the Fantastic Four have to stop him and save the day.
Notable Acting: Just putting this out there first, Chris Evans plays Captain America better than he plays Johnny Storm. Ioan Gruffudd plays Mr Fantastic, and feels like that nerd who has to do the science project for his group while trying to stop them from fighting all the time. Michael Chiklis plays a great Ben Grimm as you can get the feeling that his is trying to come to terms with the way he looks I loved Julian McMahon as Dr Doom, he has that suave sense of evil to him which makes him perfect for a villain, but still a believable villain at that. Jessica Alba as Sue Storm. I felt like she really captured the helplessness and general uselessness of Sue Storm perfectly, while acting as the mother type character stopping Johnny and Ben from fighting.
Noticeable Camera work: What the movie lacks in creative angles, it makes up in creative frame up jobs for the camera, that is always a good sign to see in a cinematographer and movie. We are given a nice birds eye shot once we are introduced to Johnny on his way to the rocket. When Victor shows Sue the Earth from space station we get what looks to be a panning, tilting 130º crane shot, which was beautifully pull off. We get a POV shot so we see things from the view of Ben, but this is a little trick to the audience as they would think that Ben has transformed, but this is a little joke played by Johnny. Establishing shot of the alps when Johnny goes skiing. The shot the follows to him throwing Reed out of a window has him see his reflection which is mutilated so just as he brakes the glass on the floor, the helmet's class case in his office breaks. That is a nice translation shot.
Graphics: The CGI for Johnny's fire was impressive and nicely done at the very least. His fire seemed constant and realistic. Sue's CGI was OK, not really all too impressive as most of that can be done easily with green screen and such. Reed's stretch-armstrong type limbs are decent at worst. Victor's lighting is interesting as it borders on being good and bad at the same time with me.
Costume: The costumes looked quite nice and worked better than other renditions of the suits I've seen, they remind me of the comics as they are that similar. Quite a lot of people have said they disliked how Ben looked as the Thing, most of those other people said it should have been done with CGI. The Hulk in the 2008 movie was done with CGI and people didn't like that, this movie was done in 2005. So chances are the CGI wouldn't have been that good for making Ben look like a pile of walking rocks, even for the budget they had for the movie.
Incorrect Science: Radiation doesn't give you superpowers. When Reed is testing Johnny's fire in a test chamber constructed of titanium, the temperature shown on screen reaches 4000 Kelvin. Titanium melts at 1941 Kelvin, and boils at 3560 Kelvin. This would incinerate the building where they are working. Along with the added fact of no human being able to set them self on fire and stay like that, mainly because the fire would need a fuel source to stay alight. The sun does this by fusion. A human body isn't hot enough for fusion and doesn't have a fuel source. Sue's invisibility is pointless, mainly because she is bending light around her. This would mean that no light is hitting her eyes so this makes her blind. Don't get me started on how Ben's skin turns to rocks or how Reed's limbs can stretch. If Victor used magic to get his powers in the movie I would not question it, but seeing how he didn't, the question is how is he able to harness electricity? And why is his skin slowly turning into metal? Victor's space station must have developed artificial gravity, because they are casually walking around and not floating, we are at least 10 years off physics wise of creating artificial gravity.
Overall Feel: As far as adaptions go, this movie isn't as bad a people are saying it is. Yes, Dr Doom isn't a business man. Yes he got his powers from his mother's witch stuff. Yes his face is suppose to be badly burnt and not metal. Yes Johnny is suppose to have blonde hair and Ben is suppose to have hair in general. Remember the 1994 version? You shouldn't because that was only created so the company could keep the rights to the franchise. That is an example of people not caring or not putting any effort into a movie. This movie is much better than that, sure it messes with the source material, but so did the 2002 movie of Spiderman. That had Mary Jane as the love interest and organic web shooters. But we still love that movie. This movie has its faults and quite a few of them at that, but it is still a great and enjoyable superhero movie which is nicely paced and well written.