fantastic 4 review

After the War of the Worlds review, it is down to a film I rather enjoyed.

It has been a long time coming for fans of the Fab 4, but finally Fantastic 4-the movie is here. And it is not too bad. Although it pales in comparision to say the Batman and Superman franchises,let alone the X-Men or Spiderman movies, it does fulfill the obligatory dual role of pleasing non-fans and those who grew up rabidly following the adventures of The Fantastic Four.

As much as I would like to get into Jessica Alba's pants,I think she is more a distraction here and is a tad too young for her role as The Invisible Girl. And add to that she is not that great an actress who has relied more than her looks and sensuality than anything to get to this point in her career. Miscast.

Chris Evan's is given a better role which plays better to his strengths. As a cocky Xtreme sports enthusiast/pilot/model he is given some of the best scenes and line in the film as a comic foil to the straight-playing The Thing.

Michael Chiklis does it again as he brings a rare sensitivity to his character as the depressed The Thing, who see's his whole world crumble around him because of his new found abilities. He somehow weaves tragedy,comic moments,character and insight into the behemoth using just his voice inflections and blue eyes.

Ioan Gruffudd plays the leader of this foursome, and is aptly named Mr Fantastic. The thing is he does not come across as having any leadership-like abilities. Ioan is rather wooden in his acting and lacks any on-screen charisma, which in my view is crucial since he is the pivot on which the entire story..umm...pivots...on.

Lastly, Julian McMahon. Most remembered for his role in the TV series Nip/Tuck, he does play the Devil's advocate here to a T. He is given a campy role as a campy villian and he plays it campily. Enough said.

Plotwise the plot was rather plodding. Think it took a little too long to get to the part where our hapless astronauts became superheroes. In between the mishap at the space station and the finale where the heroes finally combine to vanquish the evil Dr. Doom is a whole lot of talking, only saved by funny lines (between The Human Torch and The Thing) and set pieces setting up(what else?) the characters and their respective new-found abilities. The love story kind of falls flat due to the lack of chemistry between the 2 leads(?). But as it stands such comic adaptations tend to be better the second go-round (see Spiderman/X-Men/Batman). So maybe I should not take them to task for the slow character development and skimpy plot.

The Fantastic Four are, in short, underwhelming. How could I be amazed by a movie that makes its own characters so indifferent about themselves? The Human Torch, to repeat, can burn at supernova temperatures! He can become so hot, indeed, that he could threaten the very existence of the Earth itself! This is absolutely stupendously amazing, wouldn't you agree? If you could burn at supernova temperatures, would you be able to stop talking about it? After Johnny Storm finds out he has become the Human Torch, he takes it pretty much in stride, showing off a little by setting his thumb on fire. Later he saves the Earth, while Invisible Woman simultaneously contains his supernova so he doesn't destroy it. That means Invisible Woman could maybe create a force field to contain the sun, which would be a big deal, but she's too distracted to explore the possibilities. The entire nature of their existence has radically changed, and they're about as excited as if they got a makeover.Make that not even as excited as those people who get makeovers on reality TV. The exception is Ben Grimm, as the Thing, who gets depressed when he looks in the mirror. The others look normal except when actually exhibiting superpowers,unlike poor Ben.


But all things considered it is a fun film and has a huge upside in the sequels if the flaws are dealt with and the strengths acentuated.