That Thing you do... A Fantastic Four Movie Review

I’ll preface this by saying there were THREE comic books that were a huge part of my childhood. Spiderman, X-Men and The Fantastic Four. My sister actually used a black pen and drew on the above comic cover when we were kids. Right on Reed Richards head. I think she was coloring in hair for some reason.

Since then I’ve been waiting for movies to really show off these comic books and their characters. The Fantastic Four was the last of the Glenn Comic Book Era Trilogy to successfully make it as a high budget action movie for the big screen. I was extremely excited about this movie. Especially because I was going to see it with Jake.


Fantastic Four (2006)
My Rating: 6/10

Quick Review: Four scientists’ DNA are altered by cosmic rays during a space voyage. The four, Reed Richards can stretch, Sue Storm can turn invisible, her brother Johnny Storm can control fire, and Ben Grimm’s whole body has turned into a super-strong ‘Thing’. Little do they know there is one more person out there who was also altered and that person is out to destroy, THE FANTASTIC FOUR.

Uh……………

Yes, I was extremely excited about this film!

And unfortunately...

I was extremely disappointed.

The main thing that I found this movie lacked was in the acting. Actually, Alba looked like she tried, and Julian McMahon actually did a decent job. But the poor acting possibly comes from a weak script. The characters lacked depth when in fact these characters have so much depth. Compared to The X-Men, the FF characters were flat and completely uninteresting despite their obvious DNA altering.

The desperation to find a so-called ‘cure’ was only desperate in talk, but not in action, which this film really lacked. An action hero movie should include TONS of action. The last bit of action was great, and made me want to stand up and cheer – because that’s how I remember the FF battling it out with bad guys. But up until then, talk was cheap, dialogue was on the nose, and emotion was worn on the character's sleeves and didn’t come from the gut.

Even Ben Grimm, despite his depression from losing his fiancé, to his obvious deformity, just moped around and hit us on the nose too many times with him breaking dinner ware. This should have been the darkest character of the bunch, and all he did was walk around with his head down.

My rating of 6/10 is very conservative. I give it a 6 because I love the FF. But the movie itself truly deserves less.

HIGHLIGHTS
I saw this movie with Jake. I love the fact that he is finally old enough to go to the movies with me and enjoy it. Right after the film he said, “That was good. It was cool. I liked it. Can we see it again.” Followed by a recap of his version of the movie. Which would confuse anyone who hasn’t seen it.

A quiz later of the characters led to this discussion.

Papa: Did you like the Thing?
Jake: What thing?
Papa: The Thing!
Jake: What thing?
Papa: The guy who turned into a rock.
Jake: Who’s that again?
Papa: The Thing.
Jake: What thing?!!!
Papa: That’s his name.
Jake: Who’s name?
Papa: The Thing’s name.
Jake: WHO’S THE THING?!
Papa: The guy who was super strong who looked like a bunch of rocks and was really heavy and wore a hat.
Jake: Yeah, I liked him. What’s his name?”
Papa: The Thing.
Jake: Yeah, what’s his name!

Papa takes a deep breath.

Papa: His name was Ben Grimm.
Jake: Ben Grimm?
Papa: Yes.
Jake: Yeah, he was cool.

Hair falls out of Papa’s head.