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Fantastic Four

Review By: J.P. Mangalindan
JPMangalindan@TheCinemaSource.com

In Marvel Comics’ pantheon of superheroes, The Fantastic Four is the one of the oldest and most respected of franchises, though in recent years, the harbingers of comics’ golden era were overshadowed by the more contemporary (read: cooler) X-Men or Spider-Man. And while several comic book adaptations have successfully made the leap to the big screen, Fantastic Four remained untapped. Several attempts over the years — a television cartoon, a woefully bad 1994 version —tried but failed to capture the spirit of the comic and audience’s imaginations.

Earlier this year, Tim Story (the mastermind behind um, Barbershop), took a stab at it, incorporating much of the comic’s original plot into his adaptation: Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) cooperate with Viktor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) running experiments on a space station to figure out the potential benefits of a space anomaly passing through the solar system; Reed’s former flame Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) and brother Johnny (Chris Evans) tag along. When the anomaly approaches quicker than expected, the group is exposed to its effects and finds itself genetically altered in unexpected ways: Reed can stretch and contort his elastic body, Sue can make herself invisible and create force fields, Johnny can engulf himself entirely in flames, and Ben discovers superhuman strength within a rock-hard exterior. As the Fantastic Four discover their gifts, Von Doom realizes he’s been affected too, and his power-hungry spree causes the four heroes to mobilize against their colleague.

Pretty typical superhuman stuff, but what made Stan Lee’s vision stand out wasn’t the cool powers (though they certainly had a quaint allure in their hey day), but the dynamic between the four heroes: the sexual tension between Reed and Sue, the heckling between Johnny and Ben, and an abundance of cheeky dialogue that kept readers flipping pages. The Fantastic Four set the standard for The Avengers, X-Men and every other Marvel franchise to come. Story’s adaptation lacks that human element completely, resorting to catchy one-liners, delivered mostly by Evans or Chiklis, whose tongue-in-cheek deliveries string together an anemic script. As for the two lovebirds, Gruffudd and Alba’s “chemistry” is about as believable as Alba’s dye job. Watch them try to act the hell out of their scenes together and fail as miserably as Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly did in The Incredible Hulk. As fun as it is to see them on their own, the two look about as made for each other as Britney and K-Fed (trust me on this).

To seemingly make up for lack of substance, Story bandies about eye candy like there’s no tomorrow. Troy and Mr. & Mrs. Smith may top the chart for most gratuitous skin shots, but Fan Four isn’t far behind. When at all possible, Alba and Evans scamper about in their couture costumes ...