Fantastic Four (2005)

Dir: Tim Story
IMDB
Trailer
Release: Wide theatrical release July 05.

The latest in a long series of comic books brought to big screen, The Fantastic Four probably won’t disappoint. I am not a comic book person, it seems like I am the only one of the people I know who has never really even read one, but I know a little bit about movies. I see a lot of them, and as a whole, this one was not that bad.

The Story

Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) is the President of a failing company. When his old friend Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) comes to him with an idea of using Doom’s space station as a way to test the affects of a passing solar flare, Doom sees it as a way of boosting his stock value and agrees to allow the experiment. Doom and Richards are joined by Doom’s love interest, Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), her brother Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) on the space station.

When the cloud approaches Earth far earlier than expected, they are not able to protect themselves in time and are exposed to the full power of the passing flare and their genetic makeup is completely rearranged. It is not until a few days later when they are recovering that they discover their new powers and thus are reborn as the Fantastic Four. Ultimately they must face off with Von Doom who has become even more evil with his powers.

The Film

This film felt like what it was, the first in a franchise. While there are good action sequences, the main purpose of the film seems to be an introduction to the characters for those of us who have not read the comic books. The last battle of the film functioned as way to get the four to accept who they were and that they could use their powers together for good. It did not give a sense of conclusion, but of a beginning.

I liked the playful way that the characters began to explore their powers and their limitations. Plus, even though love interest plot lines usually make me sick, I wasn’t bothered by it here. The film was entertaining and I felt good leaving the theatre. Though why they kept insisting on dressing Johnny Storm, I will never understand. He was just fine when he wasn’t wearing many clothes, they could have kept that up. Which actually brings up an interesting point, it is not often in today’s films we see a topless hairy younger man and it was appreciated.

See this film on the big screen with good sound, it deserves it.