Fantastic Four (2005)
Prepare for the fantastic.
Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Hamish Linklater, Kerry Washington, Laurie Holden, David Parker, Kevin McNulty, Maria Menounos, Michael Kopsa, Andrew Airlie, Pascale Hutton, G. Michael Gray
Director: Tim Story
Running Time: 105 minutes
US MPAA rating: PG-13UK BBFC rating: PG
Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Since their first appearance in 1961, the 'Fantastic Four', conceived by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, have long been amongst the most popular Marvel Comics heroes - but their bizarre powers, especially the limb-stretching plasticity of the quartet's leader Reed Richards (aka Mr Fantastic), have made the cartoon series resistant to live-action treatment. In 1994, director Oley Sassone was set the superheroic task of turning the comic into a feature length Roger Corman production for under two million dollars. With so low a budget, the project seemed doomed from the start to be a B-grade failure - but what neither Sassone nor his cast and crew knew at the time was that all their fantastic efforts were intended for the satisfaction of lawyers rather than viewers. A 'Fantastic Four' production on a much larger scale was already being planned, with Christopher Columbus slated to direct, but in the meantime the studio that held the rights to the comicbook story needed to rush a dummy project through to retain its option on the material. So a cheapo 'Fantastic Four' was produced merely to be shelved - making subsequent bootleg copies much sought after, if not much loved, by fans of the comic.
Cut to some ten years (and countless rewrites) later, and at last the 'official' feature-length 'Fantastic Four' has come out. One can only speculate what might have been if indie wunderkind Steven Soderbergh's one-time interest in the project had led anywhere - after all, putting the leftfield Christopher Nolan at the helm of
It's Got: Technically advanced (but still naff) special effects and CGI; one-note characters and no-note drama; absolutely nothing which was not done better, funnier and more winningly in 'The Incredibles'.
It Needs: Another eleven or so years' gestation - apart from the bigger budget, it is little improvement on the 1994 dummy version.
Alternatives: 'The Fantastic Four' (1994), 'X-Men
Summary: Fantastic for the very young - superficial and unengaging for anyone else.
Review Date: 21th July 2005
Image Gallery
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External Links
Official Web Site
Fantastic Four at the IMDB
Comments2 Comments |
| this movie is so cool !!!!! i like their powers specially johnny storm's power!!! hope you'll make a part 2 of it!!!!!!!!! |
| Comment by:- | | 06 August 2005 | ip: logged |
| Was a bad movie, face it. There's what? One fight scene in the whole thing, the villain only actually becomes the villain in the last 20 minutes of the film and the 4 cause more accidents than they prevent! |
| Comment by:- | | 22 March 2006 | ip: logged |
