The only actor in Fantastic Four who turns in a performance of any merit is Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm aka The Thing, & even his role is so badly written that his performance is a waste.
A group of scientists return from space with their DNA altered so that they become stretchy-man (Ioan Gruffudd unable to overcome how ridiculous he looks animated as a rubberband), fading-girl (Jessica Alba being pretty but vapid), fireboy (Chris Evans so annoying it'd be more rewarding tif he got killed instead of the villain), disfigured-monster-man (Chiklis trying to act inside a rubber suit), & the villainous metal-man (Julian MacMahon who should've been stroking a white cat).
About half the time there are no actual actors in this dreery movie, but only the CGI FX, which rarely blend well with live action. Whenever actors should have been given something in the script worthy of acting, they just stand in one place waiting for the CGI FX department to cause them to turn into cartoons that can move. It goes back & forth from being incredibly stupid live action & incredibly stupid animation. Visually this is rarely convincing & character motivations are just as hard to believe.
Dr. Doom's belief that he can take over the world by tweeking with electricity & turning into metal never makes a lick of sense. Ben Grimm, cured of Thinginess, instantly concludes the world is doomed by Doom if he doesn't change back into a monster for all eternity, which again made no sense beyond the script pretending it does. Johnny Storm, warned the world's atmosphere will catch fire & the Earth be destroyed if he "goes nova," is later instructed to go nova to help defeat Dr. Doom, because hey, the world will be fine if the invisible girl creates a forcefield sufficient to contain a supernova, never mind that her forcefield was formerly barely enough to knock down Dr. Doom let alone enclose a supernova.
These characters are superpowered when the plot wants them to be, but not so superpowered when the plot needs them not to be. And when it turns out all ya gotta do to defeat the undefeatable Doom is get him really really wet, criminy, what could be more cool that that? Pretty much anything could be more cool than that.
Someone seems to have scooped this turd out of the same litterbox where they found Catwoman.
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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