Just saw thw Fant4stic four film on Netflix... and after the ton of criticism it received, I really expected it to be far worse that it was. It wasn't great, but it wasn't Spider-man III either.

Sure, it wasn't THE Fantastic Four... the characters had the same name and powers, but hardly the same personality as in the comic (were they closer to their Ultimate counterpart? I had that impression but never actually read Ultimate FF).

The tone was far more serious than in most superhero movies, what with the lack of costumes and code names, and the perceptible guilt carried by Reed brought an unexpectedly believable pathos to the story. The first part of it kinda worked, with a convincing tale of starry-eyed whiz kids doing things that their elders can barely understand. That was cool and had grat potential. Doctor Storm was also a pretty sympathetic father figure and mentor.

Doom was naturally a disappointment, although his anti-establishment stance gave him a bit of depth beyond his usual egotism. However, I really don't understand why the FF movies need to give Doom superpowers; one of his main appeals is precisely that he doesn't have any but is very respourceful in acquiring power in its many forms (through study, politics, money and ruthlessness). We were also once again treated to a superfluous Reed-Sue-Victor triangle, albeit one that wasn't as cringe-inducing as in the previous Fox movies. In this subdued form, it even worked for me here.

When it went bad is in the final third.

The cataclysmic ending looked neat visually, but felt very tacked on. Doom wanted to go back to his new planet, and succeeded; why did he suddenly feel the need to destroy Earth apart than to give the movie a climactic ending? And despite the feel good final scene, I really can't see these four characters deciding to establish a permanent team. Right before Doom went bonkers, Ben made it clear he didn't want anything to do with Reed, Sue barely spoke to him and she, Johnny and Ben all considered that Reed had abandoned them. Hardly an auspicious start for what's supposed to be Marvel's first family. (And if there's one thing that I found lacking in the script, it's some fleshing out of Ben's story arc. After some moping, he really seemed to be taking his fate in stride; as for Reed, who promised to make things better, he really seemed to be otherwise occupied. Some explanation as to why things stood as they did would have been welcome).

As a standalone genre movie, I guess it was satisfactory. I just don't think anything more needs to be said about this iteration of the team. Their story seems to be told.

Oh, and the CGI ape was pretty bad. Why not use a real-life puppy if you need a test animal for a scene instead of a stupid CGI chimp? I hate unnecessary and obvious CGI!!!