Fantastic Four -- 2005 -- PG-13

Going into watching this one, I wasn't expecting much. I'd been hearing people harp on how awful it was since it came out, but all that does is entice me into watching it, so here I am. After watching the film, I really don't know what the problem is.

What we have here is a basic movie adaptation of comic book super heroes, so we are going to start with how they were created. This being the case, the movie starts out very simply with a proposal to go into space to check out the cloud thing that supposedly caused the evolution of life on earth. The five (Dr. Doom being the fifth) go up to the station and bang, they get altered.

From there, we go through their reactions on how they feel about the change. Some are only concerned because this could be a disease, another wants to exploit his powers, and another is devastated and goes through a larger arc, because he has to change his life around what happened. The film follows a pretty standard superhero story where you end up with good supers vs. the bad super in a huge effects-ridden showdown.

The plot is pretty well laid out since it does follow a kind of formulaic storyline, and the characters aren't that bad off either. We get a little history between several of the characters as well as what's going on with their lives outside of the plot. We get some characteristics and idiosyncrasies since those actually do play into the plot and their abilities. From that angle, it's not that bad but not without its flaws.

One problem is why is the bad guy bad? I can see him being upset that he lost everything over the mission. I can see him being angry at the scientist guy for promising the shield would protect them and it didn't. But he seems to like his new abilities, so it's hard to say why he's so upset and wants them removed so bad. I guess I either missed his beef, or it just wasn't well clarified. It's hard to accept that someone is bad for the sake of being bad.

Another hiccup is this cloud thing. In space, I can accept it. No problem. It's actually a clever little concept. However, science boy was able to recreate this cloud in his lab. Huh? So you're telling me this scientist guy has the ability to recreate a cosmic cloud that alters one's fundamental DNA structure? You know, I can buy a lot of things, but this was one thing that was too much. On the bright side, while this part was central to the research section, it actually played a very minor role, and the story focused mainly on the characters.

So I'm not sure what all the fuss was about. This was not a bad film; God knows I've seen much, much worse. Overall, it was a pretty good movie with some better-than-average characters and a clever plot. I think there are some things that can be questioned, but given that it was based on a comic book, there's also a lot of latitude for forgivability. So, it's not as avoidable as everyone says.