Apparently an established set of Marvel Characters, the very attractive Jessica Alba, and a mind boggling special effects budget are enough to save the world, but not enough to save Fantastic Four from middling reviews.
Roger Ebert says the movie should almost be ashamed to show itself in the same theaters as better super hero films like Superman, Batman Begins, and SpiderMan 2.
Although James Berardinelli spends the last few sentences of his review attempting to enumerate the movies good points, they feel like a tacked on apology. The real message in his review, the one he spent the previous full page presenting is -- Fantastic Four feels small.
Bruce Kirkland muses in his review that perhaps they should rename the movie to the "Okay Quartet" saying that Fantastic Four falls too far short of the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises to be called fantastic.
It's too bad. I was in the mood for a "super" movie. Thankfully, Batman Begins delivered the goods. I guess I'll go see it again.
