Comic book movies have come a long way in recent years. The current success of this genre can be attributed back to the early 2000’s thanks to films like Spider-Man and X-Men. Even though those films were well-received hits, the genre still had a lot of growing up to do. Films like Daredevil, Hulk, and Catwoman proved that the chances of landing great superhero flicks were very slim. But how is it that a property as iconic and influential as the Fantastic Four receive such bad treatment? Desperately trying to emulate the tone of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (without any of the charm, personality, or earnestness), Marvel’s First Family’s “first” cinematic adaptation is squandered by dated effects, languished pacing, woefully miscast actors, and worst of all, a group of superheroes who rarely ever act heroic. It may not be the worst comic book film ever made, but that doesn’t
make up for the fact that almost everything about this film is the opposite of fantastic.
Physicist Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) is convinced that evolution on Earth was triggered by the
planet being bombarded by clouds of cosmic radiation, and has calculated that another cloud is on its way. Reed convinces his former classmate and rival Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) to allow him access to his private space station to test the effects the cloud will have an a biological sample. Together with his best friend Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), ex-girlfriend Susan Storm (Jessica Alba), and her younger brother Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), the five come aboard the space station only to hit with cosmic energy that gives each of them each new abilities and alters their physical forms. And when Doom goes rogue, it’s up to the remaining four individuals to harness their powers and save the world from a threat that- Just kidding, they spend most of the film not being superheroes.
Surprisingly, the characters get their powers really early into the film, but after that, they spend most of the remaining runtime bickering, partaking in angst-y romantic conversations, and just sitting on their asses not doing anything of value. This wouldn’t be so bad if any of the actors had any chemistry. The only two who seem to gel together are Evans and Chiklis, who are actually spot on with their characters. Gruffudd and Alba are less fortunate. Not only do these two have no romantic chemistry, but Alba is incredibly miscast as Sue Storm. She’s not convincing as either as scientist or a superhero. It probably doesn’t help that her only active roles in this film are to be at the center of a groan-inducing love triangle and to be a sex object who constantly strips off her clothes for idiotic and contrived reasons. Yeah, Fantastic Four is not a film that is necessarily kind to women.
But she’s not the worst performer here. Nope, that (dis)honor belongs to Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom. I’ve given Marvel Studios well-deserved flak for their inability to craft memorable villains, but they have yet to give one of their villains the neutering that Fox gave to Dr. Doom. A character who is arguably Marvel’s greatest villain gets turned into a whiny, frowning priss who essentially turns evil because Reed stole his girlfriend. To make matters worse, his descent into villainy is so quick that his character becomes completely unbelievable (that can also be attributed to the fact that his very first scene casts him in the shadows during the day. *Groans*) He also has no hesitation about resorting to murder. McMahon’s hammy performance puts the final nail into the coffin of a character that should’ve been portrayed with intense gravitas. Doom deserved much better than this.
The film’s greatest flaw is just how very few heroics are present in this superhero movie. There are only two action sequences in the entire film and both are almost equally brief. The first one takes place on Brooklyn Bridge and involves the team using their powers publically for the first time to save people from a disaster that was caused by them. Between that and the film’s final showdown, the pacing just drags its feet as we see our “heroes” take part in the aforementioned bickering and talks about finding a way to cure themselves. There isn’t even a scene where one of them considers using their powers to fight injustice or help others. We don’t see the four fully assembled in their costumes together until the film’s climax, which happens 90 minutes into a 105 runtime. Not only is this climatic battle embarrassingly short (it only lasts two minutes), but it’s just so underwhelming (the city of New York even throws the team a “Thank You” party for saving themselves, for crying out loud). This isn’t even the kind of superhero movie where you only bear with it just to get to the cool action sequences. I’m not the kind of person who complains about the amount of action in a film, but when you make a superhero movie where the hero(es) only put on their costumes for a short action beat at the very end of the film, something is seriously wrong.
Fantastic Four is not a good film. It’s not even a mediocre one. The film doesn’t imbue itself with the typical superhero clichés, but it doesn’t even make an attempt to replace with anything either. It’s a half-assed cheap entertainment that was just cashing in on what was popular at the time (Spider-Man) and only appealed to those who didn’t ask much from their comic adaptations. But with the origin out of the way and the promise of a couple recognizable Marvel characters making their cinematic debut, there was a slight glimmer of hope that maybe the powers at be would right the wrongs the previous film and give audiences the Fantastic Four film they deserved. That never came.
Final Rating: 3 out of 10
Tomorrow- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer