Fantastic Four

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

Four superheroes for the price of one? In the comics and cartoons, this made for a pretty fantastic concept, but on the way to the big screen, The Fantastic Four unfortunately loses some of its powers. The basic plot is the same—a team of astronauts develop superhuman abilities after a cosmic cloud engulfs their ship, mangling their DNA—and when the Human Torch (Chris Evans), the Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba), the Thing (Michael Chiklis) and Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) return to New York, they're greeted with a fervor typically reserved for women at Comic-Con. But as any fanboy knows, a comic book movie is only as good as its villain, and this one, a billionaire industrialist named Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), just rings hollow. While the stunts and effects dazzle, an awesome downhill ski sequence soars, and Evans provides some needed comic relief, much of the otherwise charming Fantastic Four is stacked with warmed-over ideas better realized in the Spidey series, X2, and even the Incredibles. But what else would you expect in a movie that casts Jessica Alba and then makes her invisible for half the film?

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