FANTASTIC FOUR (2005)

Fantastic Four is an extremely weak movie which plays safe on just about every level, and it also fails on just about every level too. The all important action is extremely tame especially for a comic book movie, the accompanying special effects are choppy at best and the plot is full of soggy melodrama which will most likely make you cringe in your seat. There are a few things that work, but the bad far outweighs the good here.
Ioan Gruffudd does a pretty good job as Reed Richards, and Jessica Alba is an decent stand-in for Sue Storm. Their relationship elements however are stupidly annoying, and take up way too much of the running time. A movie based on a comic book like Fantastic Four should be all about the action and special effects. Instead what is at the forefront here is horrible melodrama. Julian McMahon plays a bland and dull Victor Von Doom. Michael Chiklis is good as Ben Grimm aka 'The Thing', but his costume could have been designed a little better. Chris Evans delivers the most entertaining performance with his very funny portrayal of Johnny Storm. His little back and forth jabs with Ben Grimm are very humorous and are the most entertaining aspect of the entire production. Acting isn't really the film's major problem. Bad writing and cookie cutter direction are.

Tim Story, who previously helmed Taxi (based on the 1998 French film) and Barbershop, has no real style or substance to his direction whatsoever. Every shot in the movie is very bland and uninspired with a heavy reliance on basic, bare-bones cinematography instead of using the type of flair which we have come to associate with modern superhero movies. You can't necessarily blame Oliver Wood, Fantastic Four's cinematographer for these problems either as his credit's list some mighty titles (and some not so mighty!) including the Bourne Identity series and Face Off which proves he has the creativity for big budget actioners. Why Story was picked to direct this big budget fare is a mystery. The fact that Fantastic Four will inevitably make big money at the box office and go on to spawn a sequel is an even bigger mystery. The screenplay is garbage and leaves the viewer drowning in cheesy drama, begging to be saved by some adrenalin soaked money shots. On the whole, when the action does come into play, it's just a big letdown.
'The Thing' gets to clobber some stuff and smash some things up which is fun for the brief time that he's on screen. The computer effects used for Reed Richards stretching powers are just weak (even after enhancing them due to the impressive stretching powers of Elastigirl from The Incredibles), and Sue Storm's powers are executed even more poorly. The only character that is well conceived from an effects stand point is 'The Human Torch'. The effects done for this character are actually very impressive, but sadly he's not used enough. The final showdown between Doom and the Fantastic Four is also another big letdown and basically ends in a big splashy mess of special effects. The budget for the film is supposedly well over $100 million. That's a pretty hefty budget so why does Fantastic Four look like it cost about half of that? Where did all this money go? Was it spent on The Thing's ass? Jessica Alba's makeup maybe? Batman Begins had a massive budget as well, and when you watch that film and see what's on display you can see the quality. Great sets, huge action sequences and a strong story. Fantastic Four has none of that and actually feels cheap in comparison. Maybe Dr. Doom stole the money so he could have a better looking costume in part 2. Who knows. Who cares.

Fantastic Four, like Daredevil, is another Marvel comic book which would have been best left in ink rather than adapted for the big screen. To be fair it is a much harder concept to pull off when compared to almost all other comics and because of this it suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. It seems like it doesn't know what it wants to be or where it wants to go. Sometimes it feels like a strange comedy and at other times it feels like a bad soap opera. And it doesn't help matters when you put it in the hands of an average director whose best and biggest hit movie starred Ice Cube and took place mostly in and around a hair dressers. Maybe Tim Story should have cast Ice Cube to play Dr. Doom. The movie would still be bad, but at least you'd get to laugh a lot more.