My Review of Fantastic Four (2005)

 

Written by Mark Frost And Michael France

Directed by Tim Story

Reed: "I'm trying to figure out why we each ended up with different symptoms."

Johnny: "Oh, well that's easy: I'm hot. You're... well, you're a little limp. Sue's easy to see through. And Ben's always been a hardass."

With the imminent arrival of the MCU version of this particular group, it was time to back twenty years and watch the first successful attempt of a live action translation. I mean there's a certain hot guy here who became even hotter when he took up a shield six years after this movie's release.

Now, for the titular group themselves, we've got scientists and former couple Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Susan Storm (Jessica Alba), the latter's younger and reckless brother, Johnny (Chris Evans) and the former's best friend, Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis). Add a space mission at the behest of their boss, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) and suddenly this group levelled up.

Yup, within the first half of the movie we had Reed discovering he could stretch, Sue becoming invisible when her emotions heightened, Johnny literally being too hot to handle and Ben having his skin harden and gaining super strength. Out of them all, Ben was the one who liked his powers the least.

It also didn't help that Johnny not only counted the Fantastic Four terms but Mr Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch and The Thing were also on him. Personally, I think Ben almost went easy on Johnny as the latter was definitely pushing his luck. On the other hand, the new powers were also instrumental in getting Reed and Susan to reconnect, much to Victor's jealousy.

Yes, there's a love triangle between Reed, Susan and Victor and the latter himself also got infected by the same accident as everyone else. Victor's transformation into Doctor Doom was done pretty well and he certainly did his best to try and kill off the Fantastic Four. Even Susan wasn't safe from his wrath but it was Doctor Doom's attack on the group that finally made them unite as a team.

After a lot of bickering and fighting between the title team, it was great to see them band together in order to defeat Doctor Doom and become a proper team. As for Doctor Doom, well, let's just say that we haven't seen the last of him.

- Stan Lee had a cameo appearance as Willie Lumpkin and a deleted scene also had Reed change into Wolverine (Hugh Jackman).

- There's some nice supporting roles for Kerry Washington as blind artist, Alicia Masters and Hamish Linklater as Victor's assistant, Leonard.

- Some changes were made to the movie in order to avoid comparisons to The Incredibles.

- Chronology: 2005 New York with Doom also being transported back to Latveria.

Fantastic Four has aged pretty well as a movie. It's light, fun, breezy and doesn't overstay it's welcome. The title group and Doom are cast well and the origins for both are nicely handled. It's a really fun debut for this group.

Rating: 7 out of 10