As I'll come to mention with my review of the incoming reboot of the classic comic book characters, the Fantastic Four have had an interesting history with feature film adaptations, with the original 1994 version being limited to bootleg copies, this version and its 2007 sequel Rise of the Silver Surfer, and now the new reboot which is having a troublesome time at being produced and marketed (at the time of writing, it's being said that none of the actors have seen the final product). But for this version, which began production in 1995 came an issue of interchangeable directors and writers – including Ant-Man's Peyton Reed – before things finally kicked off in early 2004. But with the results of 20th Century Fox's hard work leading to a middling reception and one of their heroes being picked up by their newest biggest competitor under the guise of Captain America since 2011, was the original mainstream adaptation of Marvel's First Family worth the effort?
Dr. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) has a theory that human evolution was provoked by clouds of cosmic energy, and when his calculations suggest that another cloud is heading towards Earth enlists the help of CEO Dr. Victor von Doom (Julian McMahon) to fund his research and test the effects of the energy. He agrees and accompanies him, alongside Richard's long-time friend Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), his ex & Doom's researcher Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) and her brother Johnny (Chris Evans) to his private space station – only for Reed's research to be wrong and for the storm to hit them. Once they return, each of them discovers that they have gained strange new abilities, and the main four decide to go into hiding to sort themselves while Doom gets locked out of his own company, blaming Reed for it and wishing to exact revenge. Can the Fantastic Four control their powers and stop the angry mad Victor?
Fantastic 4 is an interesting film compared to past and present counterparts because its story is focused less on these heroes using their powers or being born with them and jumping straight to it (give or take a little motivation in Spider-Man's case), but instead has these characters fight to get rid of them. It's an interesting idea, and the inevitable reluctance of Evan's character to keep and exploit their new abilities is understandable and somewhat clichéd, but sadly the execution causes the film to falter against its competitors instead of lead against them, as it ultimately derives from its main theme and alters itself to a typical superhero film from the early stages of the medium, complete with team breakages and a big battle at the end where they have to put their differences aside to stop the evil out there. Not that it's a formula that's bad (it did wonders for both Avengers Assemble and Age of Ultron), but the way it's done here is a big downgrade by comparison.
When you look at the First Family in this film, appearance-wise is mostly great stuff, with only the prosthetic Thing looking rather iffy (but still a good recreation of the classic character, and at that point a far better improvement over the 2003 design of the Incredible Hulk in Hulk). But unfortunately, they aren't entirely devoted to what they're working on. Gruffudd is a little wooden as the world's stretchiest man; Alba restricts her facial expressions and on more than one occasion does things solely to be eye candy; Evans is having fun in the role but isn't overly likable as the overly cocky Human Torch; and Chiklis sounds like he's garbling marbles in his throat with each and every one of his lines – which is depressing when considering that he has one of the biggest storylines revolving around his fiancée giving up on him, before sparking a relationship with a blind Kerry Washington. Meanwhile you have an pantomime villain in the form of McHanon's Doctor Doom. If anything, the best performance of the entire cast comes from the obligatory brief cameo from Marvel legend Stan Lee.
There really isn’t much to be said about Fantastic 4 which hasn't been mentioned before – it isn’t a terrible film, and not even a terrible superhero film, but it's a film who's story and characters have been done so much better before (at that time it was eerily similar to earlier release The Incredibles). It looks good enough for the time it was made, and considering its overly rushed production schedule is something of a miracle, but is certainly one of Fox's lesser works. But considering how well things are working out right now for the upcoming reboot, this could actually be one of the best Fantastic Four films to date...which is kinda sad. 4/10.
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