Film review: Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four? More like "Reasonably Good Four" at best!

The latest attempt to bring beloved Marvel comic book characters to life finds us discovering the origin of the Fantastic Four, when 4 highly intelligent young people and a 'plus one' in the form of a schoolyard friend create a machine that zaps them into a new dimension.  Unfortunately the new dimension takes a wrong turn and our heroes and heroine turn into a group of superheroes and one bad guy who decides to take his dislike of our planet a little far. Sure, we all have days when we think the universe is against us but there is no need for actually following through on the threat to destroy it!

The cast includes Miles Teller (Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic), Michael B Jordan (Johnny Storm/Human Torch), Kate Mara (Susan Storm/Invisible Woman) and Jamie Bell (Ben Grimm/Thing). In the bad guy corner we have Toby Kebbell as Victor Von Doom/Dr Doom and handing out fatherly advice to both his own children and anyone who will listen is Reg E Carthy as Dr Franklin Storm. There is also a cameo by the voice of Homer Simpson, Mr Dan Castellaneta. Directing our superheroes is Josh Trank, whom is also listed as a writer along with Simon Kinberg and Jeremy Slater. 

Let's try and focus on the positives first. The film is not overly long, and there are some fun special effects. The guys in the audience will probably enjoy admiring the Invisible Woman, although sadly for us ladies the closest thing to eye candy is the Thing, and all his over-sized rocky goodness. 

And now for the negative! I'm sorry but the storyline is just boring. Whatever action there is seems limited to something that wouldn't scare a five year old. I think the problem may lie in the fact most people attend these movies expecting a lot of excitement, and this movie is more focused on helping young people figure out how to cope in a world where they are different to the normal. Hence the fatherly figure dishing out regular advice on "living up to your potential" and "it is important to always look out for each other". Both ideas are important, but it wasn't enough to draw me in and make me look forward to the next film in the series.

In trying to be diplomatic I will offer the fact that my opinion might have been less than kind due to the fact the movie cinema played the trailer for the film ad nauseum for 30 minutes before they ran the actual movie. Not only was this mind-numbingly boring, it also made me want to run out the door and find a soothing glass of wine. Perhaps if this doesn't happen to you, you may end up enjoying the film much more than I did.

Rating: 2.5/5