I was very excited when I heard that they were finally making a Fantastic Four movie, almost as excited as when I learned that they were making an X-Men movie. Like X-Men, this is an origin story. The four explorers (with Victor Von Doom for a twist) go into space and get zapped by strange cosmic rays that forever change them...
But unlike the X-Men and most of Marvel's superheroes, the Fantastic Four are welcomed by the people they protect. They are celebrities. The series is also more lighthearted in tone than that of X-Men, Blade, and Daredevil. This translates pretty well into the actual film, especially the characters' various relationships, except for the Reed-Sue-Doom love triangle that never was. Unfortunately, the humor goes too far sometimes (like the pigeon thing, the dog covering its eye, etc) and could possibly hurt the viewing experiences.
The cast overall was pretty solid. I liked Ioan Gruffudd as Richards (my favorite character) though his gray streaks as a result of the cosmic rays seemed a bit silly. Chris Evans and Michals Chiklis were born for their roles, and can only make the usual rocky relationship between Ben and Johnny all the more amusing. While Jessica Alba wouldn't have been my choice for Sue, she held up better than I thought, leaving Julian McMahon as the weakest link.
But that might not be all his fault. His character, Von Doom, is an unfortunate clone of Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborne: After having business troubles and exposed to strange matter, Doom just decides to go crazy and start killing people. And the final battle between the FF and Doom seemed all too short. (That whole "First lession in chemistry.." started to get a little cheesy too.)
The movie's a commendable effort to bring Marvel's First Family onto the big screen. It's better than X-Men and Daredevil, but just doesn't hit the heights of X2, Spidey, and Batman Begins. Still, it was one of the most enjoyable introductary-exposition movie since Hellboy. B
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