Fantastic Four (2005)

Time: 106 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
Jessica Alba as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman
Chris Evans as Johnny Storm/Human Torch
Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm/The Thing
Julian McMahon as Dr. Victor von Doom/Doctor Doom
Kerry Washington as Alicia Masters
Director: Tim Story

Four astronauts have their lives changed forever, when they end up being hit by a cloud of cosmic radiation. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) now has the ability to stretch his body like elastic. Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) is now the invisible woman. Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) becomes the human touch and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) becomes the ‘Thing’, a man made out of rock. But there is one problem. The journey’s sponsor, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) has also been affected and with full power, is a dangerous force which needs to be stopped, before it’s too late.

After hearing about how bad the latest Fantastic Four movie was, I decided to check out the first attempt at a Fantastic Four movie. Fantastic Four came out in a time when superhero movies were trying to be good with Batman Begins, X-Men and Spiderman, so naturally this wasn’t appreciated upon its release. While I don’t think it’s a horrible movie, Fantastic Four is not by any means a good movie. It has two dimensional characters, not much of the Fantastic Four doing anything and the cheesy tone which really worked against the movie.

The worst part about Fantastic Four is that they don’t do much with their powers. There’s one incident (which was caused by them) which had them save people and then there’s a fight with Doom at the end, that’s it. The rest of the time they are just dicking around with their powers. There’s so many opportunities for the Four to do stuff but they never do much of value. This is also a lighter hearted comic book movie, which I’m not against, Guardians of the Galaxy is one of my favourite Marvel movies. But the jokes are so cheesy and sometimes terrible and works against the film significantly.

The acting wasn’t great and the worst part is that all the characters felt two dimensional. Ioan Gruffudd in this movie was very bland and didn’t leave much of an impression. The worst casting for me though was Jessica Alba as Sue Storm. I think this might be the worst casting in a Marvel movie, even though Alba looks the part, she’s supposed to be playing a scientist, and there’s no moment where she reflected that. Also she and Gruffudd share no chemistry whatsoever, despite there being a ‘romance’. I will say that Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans are actually well suited for their roles and do fine with what they have. From what I hear, Victor Von Doom in this movie is not comic book accurate but he even fails as a villain on his own. He is such a cliché villain and by the end, you are left wondering what Victor’s plan was, the film forgot to give a reason for him to be a villain.

The effects can be pretty goofy, Human Torch’s flames and Invisible Woman’s shields have pretty fake CGI but Reed Richards’ stretch powers is some of the most cringe worthy effects I’ve seen in a superhero movie. To be fair though I don’t know how it’s possible to show it on screen without it being silly. The Thing is shown by using a body suit, which wasn’t the best option. I know that if they went with CGI they would make him look terrible but still, he looks like something out of a B movie.

I can’t say that there isn’t any enjoyment in the movie, when the action is on screen, it is entertaining, if badly done and fake looking. I also don’t hate this movie as much as everyone else but it’s not a good movie either. The effects are terrible, the humour is annoying and there isn’t enough of the Fantastic Four actually doing anything. I’ll have to check out its sequel and the reboot but I hope that they aren’t worse than this film.

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