Fantastic Four :: Just Right

Tonight, we finally got to see The Fantastic Four. After getting a lot of shoulder shrugs from folks who’d seen it, I expected to be somewhat underwhelmed. Thankfully, that was not the case. Don’t get me wrong, this film was not Batman Begins or even Spiderman or X-Men, but I think it was an almost perfect Fantastic Four film.

For starters, the FF have always been a throwback to the golden age of comics. While I never was a huge fan of the book, I appreciated the characters and their longevity. And truth be told, I’ve always had a soft spot for Ben Grimm a.k.a. the ever lovin’ Thing. At the core, the FF is a story about family and this is portrayed perfectly in this film. The cast pulls off the tense, but tight-knit family dynamics of the FF in a very subtle, real way that pulls the viewer in and makes you root for them. Roger Ebert complains, but this just shows the film is not targeted for general audiences, but rather loyal FF readers.

That said, there are some quibbles about the film’s take on the origin stories, particularly that of Dr. Doom. And, I am sure some folks will whine about the fact that Alicia Masters is black in the film. However, like the costumes in the X-Men films, I think minor changes to the continuity are OK if they make comics more accessible to a new generation.

Effects and fight choreography were excellent. My only beef is that The Thing should have been a bit more “larger than life”. The costume/prosthetics were amazing, and allowed Michael Chiklis to really act inside out. So, the complaint is not that the suit is not well-designed. Rather, the problem is scale. As shot, it is 80% scale “The Thing”. That said, Chiklis was perfectly cast as Ben Grimm. I love Chiklis in general, but he was born for this role.

Overall, I liked this film and recommend it to both comics fans and general audiences who like a good action adventure yarn.