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F is for Fantastic!

There’s plenty to like about the latest comic book adventure to fly across the big screen this summer. “Fantastic Four” directed by Tim Story, who gave us “Barbershop” and last year’s “Taxi” with Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon. The film mixes the right amount of humor and adventure to create yet another superhero franchise. I think it’s safe to say that we will all be seeing Dr. Doom again.

The film focuses on the origin of the team’s powers acquired in some kind of space storm. It all happens pretty fast so that the “Four” can get down to battling Dr. Doom. It isn’t until the final reel that we get to see Doom come forth in his mask and cloak, a classic creepy bad guy from Marvel. Before his transformation, which takes up a good portion of the film, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) is merely a smarmy billionaire creep, kind of like Donald Trump.

Doom goes into partnership with Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), a scientific genius who is near to losing all he has. Reed’s already lost beautiful Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) to Doom. However, his high-minded humanitarian ways won’t let his jealousy affect his work. Sue’s hotshot brother, Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) and Reed’s right hand man, Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) tag along to the space station where they all get their DNA altered to the delight of humans everywhere.

Once back on earth in quarantine, strange things begin to happen to each of them. It’s fun to watch them react as they transform from regular people into superheroes. Reed’s arm stretches unexpectedly and his surprise is ours as the camera pulls back to reveal his taffy-like powers. Sue Storm learns to control her invisibility with some practice and a lot of embarrassment. Johnny has a blast igniting himself and learning to fly.

It’s left to Ben Grimm’s lonely transformation into The Thing for the story’s one shot of pathos as he faces his wife who ultimately rejects him. She slips off her ring in front of a crowd of people who have just witnessed the team’s heroics on a battered bridge. Ben struggles to pick up the souvenir with his giant fingers to no avail. Eventually he moves on and settles down with a nice blind girl. Chiklis inhabits The Thing’s skin with pen and ink accuracy. I found it interesting though, that The Thing, originally conceived as a hulking rock man, is now about the same size as your average professional bodybuilder, only with really dry skin. It’s amazing what a few decades and a lot of steroids can do.

There’s one “thing” that keeps this foursome from becoming too heavy, and that’s the humorous banter between Johnny and Ben. They play off of each other well. Their characters are the most fun to watch and their personalities, the liveliest. Reed and Sue are the serious ones, the love element, trying to work things out between them as they fight Von Doom.

Julian McMahon has fun being mean to people while he frightens everyone with his dark eyebrows. There’s no rush to his slow melding into metal, but the Dr. Doom we all know and love is here and gone too soon. Maybe it’s all part of his evil plan to create a sequel and buckets of money. I could have used another half hour of his Phantom-like swoops and electric mayhem. As for the Fantastic Four, I could use a bit more stretching and burning and crushing.

The invisible girl’s cute and all, but her force fields are a little boring. And being invisible, well, that’s sort of nowhere, isn’t it?