Jean-Paul’s Rating: 1/5 stars

Bottom Line: The amount of good material in this movie adds up to about five minutes.  The rest ranges from mildly interesting to “oh, get on with it already”.

Longest.  Origin story.  Ever.  Why, oh why did we have to sit through a half hour of Reed Richards and Ben Grimm becoming bestest buds in grammar school?  Who thought that was a good idea?  You want to establish that they’re best friends?  Do a five minute back and forth between the two of them prior to their high school science project.  But that would have required someone who could write.  Which this movie didn’t have.  And we’re only half way through the origin story at this point.  Another half hour or so is spent introducing Sue and Johnny Storm and Victor Von Doom.  None of them are interesting.  Well, maybe Von Doom is a little interesting, but his story is completely glossed over and it’s only interesting because you fill in the blanks yourself.  Then finally, FINALLY, they become the Fantastic Four.  And are immediately captured and tested on for a half hour.  Then they fight Dr. Doom for ten minutes and the movie’s over.

So yeah, don’t waste your time.  It’s barely worth writing this review.  There hasn’t been a good Fantastic Four movie yet and, in fact, they keep getting worse.  Marvel had quite a good streak going and they blew it.

Now, let’s talk about how chicken shit Hollywood is.  Spoiler warning for all you racist comic book dweebs.  Johnny Storm is black.  *gasp*  Yes, there are a lot of people pissed off about that.  Welcome to post-racial America.  Actually, I’m pissed off about that too.  Not because Johnny Storm is black, but because Sue Storm is white.  She was adopted, you see, and they have a very cringe inducing scene where they explain that.  Heaven forbid two of the four heroes are black!  And we couldn’t possibly have a mixed race relationship between Reed Richards and Sue Storm in this day and age.  Too many racists would need to be led to the fainting couch and given smelling salts.  And every movie needs its pretty white woman.