Fantastic Four
(2005 review)

2 outta 5

Fantastic Four is a cookie-cutter superhero movie. Insert Origin Plot A, mix liberally with a climatic fight with supervillian Plot B, stir and serve. There’s hardly any superheroing done in the flick until the very end. Nothing is driving the movie, aside from a laundry list of explanations about superpowers, complaints about superpowers, and a laden romantic subplot that has no spark to it. Actually, it’s more of a broken cookie cutter superhero movie.

When it comes to superhero origin stories, the Fantastic Four always had the weakest one.  Spider-Man, Batman and Superman all had a key element of tragedy in their origins, so basing movies around them can work.  Fantastic Four is simply four people go into space, get bombarded by cosmic rays, and become superpowered.  That’s the whole damn flick.  No action sequences, no exterior conflict (until the end), just, “Hey, we have superpowers.  Huzzah!” for the majority of the runtime.

The four are compromised of Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd), Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba), the Human Torch (Chris Evans) and the Thing (Michael Chiklis).   Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman pout at each other about a failed relationship and it really adds nothing to the plot of the film, save for boredom.   There is a real cheseball scene when Alba’s invisibility powers first manifest; she whines about how Mr. Fantastic never seems to “see her” as she begins to disappear.  It’s about a subtle as a brick to the face, and the whole movie is full of moments like that. 

As for Mr. Fantastic, actor Gruffudd seems lost, trying to put some meat behind pedestrian dialogue.  When his “stretching” ability kicks in, no matter how many digital hairs the FX team can add to his arm, it still looks fake. And, yes, they even go for the obvious, “Can he stretch everything?” gag. Oh, and there’s also a bit when Mr. Fantastic stretches out to grab toilet paper.

Then there’s the Thing.   He’s supposed to be made of rock, but it looks more like rubber and foam.  In a certain lighting and framing, the Thing can look . . . slightly less like rubber and foam. Yeah, it’s pretty bad.  There is a nice, brief moment when the Thing tries to pick up an object, but he can’t accomplish it because his fingers are too big. It’s kinda touching in a clunky, b-movie way.  By the time the movie repeats the same Thing character beat for the 10^th time, any limited charm that moment had has long worn off.  

As the Thing, Chiklis tries to emote through the goofy costume, and succeeds in small doses.  He does have one of the movie’s genuinely funny moments in him. As he stands over two awestruck children, Fantastic whispers at Thing to say something inspirational. The Thing, dressed up like McGruf the Crime Dog, sputters, “Uh, kids, DON’T DO DRUGS!”

Chris Evans as the Human Torch is one of the few bright spots in the film – he interjects a lot of energy and humor in his discovery of superpowers. The antagonistic relationship he has with The Thing is good for a few chuckles.  However, it’s kind of ruined by his penchant for X-Treme! snow boarding and motorcycle ridding.  As Poochie the Dog eloquently proved to us, X-Treme! is no longer cool.

Julian McMahon is deliciously evil as Dr Doom. McMahon knows how to play crazy and adds a lot of campy evilness to every line.  Its great if you love over the top sci-fi villains, ala Palpatine or Kahn.  Him and Evans are the only two people who have any fun with the movie. If a sequel is made, they should just made a Human Torch and Dr. Doom buddy cop movie. God knows they won’t have the budget or the inspiration to go with the planet eating, super villain Galactus – a truly epic Fantastic Four storyline that was abandoned for this formulaic tripe.

The movie is barely above an hour and a half but it feels a lot longer. Interminable scenes of the Fantastic Four bitching at each other with no real wit or insight probably contributes to this. You just keep waiting for something, anything, to happen. The script seems to repeat the same points over and over between the four characters: “I don’t like this!” “I love this!” “I’m trying to fix this!” “I’m Jessica Alba and I suck.”  For a summer blockbuster there is barely any action in the flick.

When I say, “barely any action”, I’m not trying to be Mr. Snobby Movie Critic.  I literally mean there is one extended action sequence at the end of the movie.  That’s it.  The other “action” sequence is more of a car crash around the 40-minute mark, and not a very good one at that. To be fair, when the climatic throw down does occur, it comes together in a flashy and fun way.  All four characters use their separate powers to become a fantastic whole.  This was also done in a much better way in The Incredibles.  Hell, everything was done better in The Incredibles.

I hated how the climax of the movie is the only time all the characters come together and actually accomplish something. Most of the movie felt like a waste of time and potential. The movie is stuck in a boring origin plot the whole time with no added jeopardy to make the flick enjoyable. “Fantastic”isn’t the adjective to describe this movie; “flaccid” is.