Fantastic Four

Due to Hollywood’s desire to turn every single comic book character into a movie franchise, I am going to constantly run into comic book movies that I just don’t care about. Fantastic Four is one of those times. Since I was never a fan of the characters (strike 1), I was dependent on either great casting or a top director … that would be the second and third strike. Sadly Fantastic Four never overcame these obstacles and lived down to all my expectations.

Although I may find many negatives about Fantastic Four, this was nowhere near the basement level of Catwoman, Elecktra, or Batman and Robin. There were actual positives to highlight. Vic Mackey was a damn good choice for Ben Grimm. Maybe I am just that big a fan of Michael Chiklis, but he was able to craft a real performance underneath The Thing suit. That in and of itself was a pleasant surprise since it is nice to have a movie not instantly go for the CGI version of a character like The Thing. The other great casting choice was Chris Evans as Johnny Storm. I wouldn’t go so far as to say something as clichéd as “breakout performance”, but he seems to easily slip into the role of The Human Torch. There will be no more kind words towards the cast of Fantastic Four. The only other praise that I have for the movie was that they got the tone right. This is not a dark and serious comic book. It is bright, shiny, family oriented, and occasionally goofy. This is a change of pace for the usual summer comic book franchises. This allowed Fantastic Four to look and feel different for better or worse. That is to say I much prefer darker films.

Remember all those nice things I said about Chiklis and Evans, well having Julian McMahon behind the mask and making Jessica Alba invisible swung the pendulum well into the negative range. I am not sure which is worse; McMahon’s awful attempt at Victor Von Doom or how once he put the mask on his performance may have gotten worse. There was no intelligence, menace, or even the overbearing personality that make him such a strong character in comics. How the hell do you screw up Dr. Doom? Obviously the answer is giving the role to the dude from Nip/Tuck. Was that the low point? Maybe, but the idea of Jessica Alba as Susan Storm is downright goofy. Let’s see; she doesn’t have the age, complexion, hair color, or presence to inhabit the Invisible Woman but damn she’s hot! Now if you have been keeping track of all the cast members then you realize that Reed Richards is all that’s left. And that is just about all that Ioan Gruffudd brought to the part. So if the 3 main characters are disappointing, I wonder how good the movie will be? Hey it wasn’t all that good! It didn’t even have the decency to be awful. Fantastic Four was just forgettable and that is one of the cardinal sins.

So a Fantastic Four movie was made, I am not denying that. What I am saying is that all it provided was something to look at for 106 minutes then allow it to just drift completely from your memory. And, well, who the hell cares about the Fantastic Four movie? It feels exactly like what it is, something to place hold in between the more important comic franchises.

5 out of 10