FANTASTIC FOUR

3/5
ioan gruffudd, jessica alba, michael chiklis, chris evans, julian mcmahon

another marvel film. i heard people saying the story was pretty dry, and that the characters were very cardboard. and they were probably right. but to the film's credit, the script and timing of certain dialogue worked perfecting, eliciting a laugh of an "awwww!" all at the right times. at the session i was at, the audience was very responsive.

i've never read a fantastic four comic, nor had i ever seen the cartoon... so what i was watching was completely new to me. the film though seemed more like prelude than an actual movie as it mainly focussed on how they got thier powers and the immediate aftermath. there was no real gripping story, it was as if the film existed in isolation to the rest of the world.

but anyway... i think performance wise, FF was good. although the characters were VERY archetyped, the cast pulled them off remarkably well. a particular mention goes to mike chaklis for his protrayal of the Thing; all his scenes, to me at least, were the emotionally heavy ones, and being in a huge organe suit didn't stop him from executing those emotions perfectly.

johnny storm AKA the human torch (played by evans, "not another teen movie" and "cellular") is the literally hot-headed loose cannon that can't wait to use his powers. contrast that with sue storm (alba) who is the conservative, rational, but bold type. then there's richard reeds (gruffudd), the guy who analyses everything before taking one step. these archetypes provide a good foundation for conflict and resolution, but they seemed to caluclated too be truly believable.

victor von doom (mcmahon) is the power-hungry billionaire who is pretty much the typical bad guy as well - all he wants is power, world domination, blah blah blah.

stand-out performances were by chalkis as previously mentioned, and evans as the human torch, proding both comedic relief, and a perspective on what most people would do with their powers: show them off!

SFX were integrated well into the film; they were placed throughout the entire film instead of having two or three huge sequeneces that were full of them. i think that made their powers more 'real', since they used them for every day thigns and not only for crime fighting or whatever. there were obvious blue/green screen shots, but they can be overlooked since the human torch SFX were stunning (in my opinion).

ultimately, i liked this movie. the story (or lack of) was very "A to B", but i enjoyed its simplicity. i would probably see it again and it's one of those movies - you don't really have to pay attention to get something out of it. that, and jessica alba "takes it off" a couple o' times.

-LOki