Fantastic Four - The Film

Tonight was "date night", and we grabbed gyros and then went to see Fantastic Four in the theater. The quick summary: "Very cheesy, yet still light fun."

Based on the flagship Marvel Comics title, the essentials of the comic are here: Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) is a brilliant scientist, but in this was one whose lack of business sense has overwhelmed his intellect and dreams and left him broke, so to finance his latest project he's forced to work with his professional and romantic rival, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), head of Von Doom Industries. Reed's best friend Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) works with him on everything. However, Reed's lost love, Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), is now one of Von Doom's chief aides, and Victor is on the brink of proposing to her.

Reed's plan is to monitor an energy cloud about to pass near Earth from behind shields on Von Doom's space station, which they reach on a ship piloted by Sue's hotheaded brother Johnny (Chris Evans). Reed thinks the cloud may have jump-started life on Earth millions of years ago. Something goes wrong and the storm arrives too soon, striking the five while they're outside the shield.

Back on Earth, the quintet stays under observation. Johnny first displays his strange changes when he bursts into flame while skiing. Sue finds she can turn invisible. Reed can stretch his body fantastically. But then Ben turns into a giant orange rocky creature of tremendous strength and escapes to New York to find his fiancee, who spurns him. Distraught, he contemplates suicide by jumping from a bridge, but ends up saving another man making the same decision, causing a huge traffic jam when he demolishes a semi truck. Reed, Sue and Johnny have pursued him, and the quartet use their powers to help save lives in the ensuing mayhem, and are hailed as the "Fantastic Four", New York's new heroes.

Reed vows to return Ben to normal, and indeed is concerned with returning them all to normal as he's concerned that their condition may be harmful and contagious. Von Doom, meanwhile, has been affected by the cloud in that he's slowly turning into metal and has the power to control electricity. As the FF goes ever-more-public - largely thanks to Johnny's efforts - Von Doom plans revenge on Reed for helping bring down his company - which is going bankrupt after the failed experiment - and stealing Sue from him.

The movie has several good points, which make it watchable and even fun. The special effects are top-notch (although the screen cuts to obscure Reed's stretching at times are disappointing. Ben Grimm's look as The Thing is everyone one could have hoped for, though, as is Johnny's Human Torch look.

The film captures much of the essence of the FF's "family" feel: Reed and Sue's love for each other, Johnny's devil-may-care attitude, his ongoing rivalry with Ben, and the basic love and respect between Reed and Ben despite the tension caused by Reed's project turning Ben into the Thing. It's not perfect - Johnny is a little too callous, Reed maybe a little too wimpy - but it's not bad.

The film just can't transcend the fact that it's just a simple adventure story, though. This is partly because the acting just ain't there. Chiklis does a credible job as the Thing, and one could argue that Gruffudd does his best to act his way past the weak script, but none of Alba, Evans or McMahon seem to be doing much more than going through the motions. Plus, neither Alba nor Evans look much like the comic book characters to me.

The story (by Michael France and Mark Frost; it's directed by Tim Story) has nothing of significance to add to the comic book series' premise. Okay, the energy storm is slightly more credible than giving the quartet their powers via cosmic rays, but - enh. To be fair, the first X-Men film didn't do this either, although it did feature Hugh Jackman's superb turn as Wolverine. And Spider-Man did an impressively credible job of bringing the basic themes of that character - which are generally stronger than those in the FF - to life. The FF story is a fairly predictable arc, muddled by the largely ridiculous motivations behind Doctor Doom's actions (he seems to be evil mainly just to be evil; the revenge motive feels half-baked).

So when you get down to it, Fantastic Four is not a horrible film, but it only just manages to rise above the level of a B-Movie. Worth a look for a little fun, but not worth seeking out.