Fantastic Four
Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) believes solar winds are the key to human evolution, but to test his hypothesis, he needs to get up to space to test his theory out. To do that, it means reaching out to one of his adversaries in the research business, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), a man with the brains, the wealth, and Reed's former girlfriend, Sue Storm (Jessica Alba). On Victor's term, they agree to a deal and the three of them along with Sue's brother Johnny (Chris Evans) and Reed's partner Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) travel to the space station. However, a miscalculation brings the solar wind much earlier to the station than they thought, flooding all of them with radioactive energy. All seems normal when they return to earth but soon realize each has the ability to do the unthinkable. While some uses it for good and others for fun, one uses it for evil (I bet you can figure out which one.)

I'll admit that I've never read the comic book, but if this story was entirely based on the Marvel comic book, I wouldn't understand how it turned into a movie, but here we are. Everyone likes a little turmoil between friends, but "Fantastic Four" stretches the turmoil to the very end, leaving behind a movie with some virtually unknown characters magically working together against a villain who quite suddenly out of nowhere turns into a metal machine with a sith's lightning powers. Not much character development occurs through the film...things just happen and we're supposed to fill in the pieces. To make matters worse, the whole thing seems childish and the script works to show off this childishness whenever possible, whether it's to have a flaming Johnny skiing down a mountain or to see Sue undress to her underwear only to have her invisibility turned off. Successful comic movies like X-Men and Spider-Man show seriousness and respect to the material they are based on. Fantastic Four tries to, but it comes too little, too late in favor of the cheap laugh. 1 star