The real key to making a good movie adaptation of the Fantastic Four is to make sure the four main characters are handle correctly. That is just what Tim Story did.
A common complaint that some had was the look of The Thing. There was a body of fans who wanted the Thing to be CGI. The complaints were that the skin looked too fake, too much like a rubber costume. What did they think would happen if CGI had been used instead? You are dealing with orange, rocky skin that has to be able to move as normal skin would. CGI is not going to make that work any better. When dealing with the Thing a huge aspect that has to be there is the human side of the character and showing the emotion, which is going to come off much better using the actor’s real face. No matter how great CGI has become, you can still tell the difference between a CGI’s face and a real actor’s face. CGI characters still cannot act as well as live actors. After the horrible results we saw with the CGI used for the Hulk, I was more than pleased to allow the Thing to not follow that path. In the end the Thing was done in the best manner to insure the best form of the character be presented.
The other members of the team were also done equally well and true to the original characters. With the FF the most important aspect to focus on is their interactions with each other. They are basically just a family that has super powers. So they will get in each other’s way and have disagreements and such, just as any family does. But in the end they do care about each other and are a team. That had to be shown more than anything and it was
Their origin was altered slightly, which was not surprising. Such things get updated as needed. They added in a love triangle that was never in the comic books. There was never anything between Sue Storm and Victor Von Doom. Although not needed for the story, it did add a little extra conflict and no harm was done to the key elements of the story. Dr. Doom’s origin was greatly altered. In the comics he has no real super powers of his own, although eh does try for them time and time again. His weapons are his technology and a use of magic at times. He also had nothing to do with the events that created the FF. There was a link between him and Reed Richards being in collage together and that was the whole of the original connection between Doom and the team in the comics. Those changes did feel odd, but they were nothing serious enough to hurt the movie. I felt it was more out of place for Dr. Octopus to have been friends with Peter Parker in Spider-man 2, yet that worked. You have to accept changes being made when converting the ideas into movies. As long as they make them work, and so far they seem to be doing that.
The film ends with the Fantastic Four learning to be a team and sets itself up perfectly for a sequel. With the strong character build up at the end there, going into part two should be nice and easy and there are just so many stories out there to make into a movie. This is one series that has the potential to really take off and gain a following.
One great special little part of the movie that this was Stan Lee’s first cameo where he was a real character instead of just being in the background. He plays Willie Lumpkin, a postman, who was a real character in the comics. A very fitting cameo for him. He has made cameos in just about all the movie based off the heroes he has created for Marvel, but his is the first time he has been able to be an actual character of his.
The Fantastic Four The Movie really is a fun film that can be enjoyed by the family. I question the PG-13 rating the movie got. Nothing struck me as being that bad. I would be very much interested to learn just what it was that earned such a rating.
One thing that should be thought about, the FF are not dark heroes. They are not like Batman or Daredevil or Wolverine or Hellboy. They are a much lighter batch of heroes. So if you only want to see darkness in your heroes, you will not find it with the FF. I think that will be one thing that will make some dislike this movie. So many want all the heroes to be dark and are going to be very harsh on this movie because the heroes are not dark enough for them. Of course Spider-Man is not really a dark hero either, so there are exceptions to that.
My hope is that someone will figure out how to do crossover movies and get Spider-Man to team up with the FF or have the FF vs. the X-Men. Marvel has built up such a great group of movies now, it would just make sense to try and cross them over to give the feel of the Marvel universe that he comic book fans experience.