PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 7/8/05)

So far, the summer season has been in a very bleak mood, measuring by its shadowy psychological transformations to the Dark Side and Dark Knight or its survival nightmares of alien and zombie invasions, so it would seem that a zippy superhero pop-tart might be just the kind of counterprogramming breather that action—cravers need. Based on the oldest Marvel Comics franchise alive, Fantastic Four lives the same retro-stunted, golly-gee, daylit existence that has been inked since 1961, but if ever there were a comic adaptation that needed a stiff shot of contemporization, they should have made this dysfunctional superfamily a double. In lieu of modernity, we get the broken freshness seal of hack helmer Tim Story (Taxi), whose cinematically retarded reign — plus dozens of millions of dollars in cheeseball sets and anything-but-special effects — turn a pun-bursting origin story by Michael France and Mark Frost into a petty, go-nowhere comedy of superpowered errors.

Not as revision-free as it is lazily simplified, the screenwritten mythos of the legendary New York quartet who develop überhuman abilities remains largely unchanged. After their space station is hit with random cosmic radiation, it's crazy mutation time for hotheaded studboy Johnny Storm (Chris Evans); his cleavage-spilling sister, Susan (Jessica Alba); her sometimes beau of a milquetoast scientist, Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd); and his Brooklyn mook buddy, Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis, the only actor worth toasting here). Safely back on Earth, the market-tested B-listers become, respectively, the flying firestarter Human Torch, the self-controlled Invisible Girl, the elastic—limbed Mr. Fantastic, and an orange stone-hulk called The Thing. For more than two-thirds of this childish romp, the team gains and learns about their powers (sometimes through hijinks—filled '80s montage), bickers without the family-relations depth that made fans of the comic, and occasionally changes setpieces. Finally, the astro-experiment's vain investor Victor von Doom (Julian McMahon) — who was also exposed and is turning metallic, media-obsessed, and mean — tries to exploit and kill our heroes, becoming incapacitated in a climactic fight that lasts under ten minutes. From less a purist's standpoint than a seeker of serviceable junk food, this comprehensive waste of time is too bouncy to be an Elektra bummer, but should make Marvel mascot Stan Lee think twice about burning another lucrative bridge with unintentional hilarity. —Aaron Hillis