Fantastic Four

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's done with an agreeable confidence and flair, the actors all fit comfortably in their roles and the effects are fun.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Blessedly unimportant, Fantastic Four cruises along on modest yet genuine comic-book pleasures.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

A funky, fun film version of the famous Marvel superhero concoction, one of the earliest of the revisionist wave of supes and in some ways the most lovable or at least the most knowable.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

In a summer of low movie expectations and worse results, Fantastic Four is a not-so-bad mindless bit of camp escapism that doesn't try to eclipse its dime-store comic book roots.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Frustrating because it doesn't seem far removed from a wholly enjoyable motion picture, but the tempo's off, beats are missed, and the production ends up sounding out-of-tune.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

I don't think it will seriously disappoint longtime fans, but it made me itchy as I watched it unfold in ways that the comics never did when I read them in the '60s.

Chicago Reader Staff (Not credited)

Michael Chiklis (of the cop show "The Shield") steals the movie as the agonized Thing.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

Fails to be anything more than a mild summertime diversion. Based on the Marvel comic book, it's a prototypical air conditioner movie.

USA Today Claudia Puig

There's nothing terribly fantastic about this ho-hum futuristic foray.

Variety Joe Leydon

A wildly uneven, sporadically slapdash action-adventure that amuses in fits and starts.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

This "Four" ain't so "Fantastic."

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

This clumsy, cheesy, chintzy adaptation, with its F/X that look dated the moment you see them, is like something left over from the '60s.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Even if you can get past the acting -- and in the case of the beautiful, blank Alba, that's asking a lot -- the film just sits there, not exactly torturous, but never very exciting, either.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

It's fun to watch superheroes who aren't quite at ease with their abilities, but "The Incredibles" - last year's similarly themed animated film - is livelier and funnier.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

A garish mediocrity.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

It's a waste of classic material. Rent "The Incredibles" and see what should have been.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Fantastic Four doesn't expand on, or even illuminate, anything much beyond the most basic theme of what it feels like to be an adolescent misfit. This is a comic-book movie that actually makes an effort not to go over kids' heads.

Empire Olly Richards

Fleetingly enjoyable in very short bursts, this is the most cynically constructed event movie in recent memory, its heart purely in its wallet. A fantastic bore.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Compared with the psychological probing and spiritual brooding of "Batman Begins," Fantastic Four is proudly dumb, loud and inconsequential.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

A comic-book movie unashamed of its roots, meaning it's unabashed about being silly, overwrought nonsense, which works to its benefit--so much so that you're almost rooting for it by the end.

TV Guide Angel Cohn

Favors light action over character dynamics.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

A colossal snore.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

The release of Fantastic Four marks the beginning of the end for movies based on Marvel Comics' upper tier of characters.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

After this mediocrity, no one's even going to remember Roger Corman's godawful bargain-basement 1994 version. Which, on second thought, had a lot more heart that this one.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

It needed a star like Clooney at its center, and a character actor like Alan Rickman as Dr. Doom. You don't expect realism from a comic-book movie, but you do want the characters to seem larger than life.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

There's nothing remotely fantastic about this Fantastic Four.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Directing seems an unduly elegant term for what Hollywood hack du jour Tim Story (Barbershop, Taxi) does here -- the action scenes are so choppily constructed that their excitement disappears faster than the Invisible Woman.

Village Voice Matt Singer

The action sequences reek of drudgery rather than adventure, and with the exception of Chiklis's remarkably soulful performance beneath 60 pounds of orange Thing makeup, all of the characters are flatter than their two-dimensional counterparts.

Slate David Edelstein

An overinflated B-movie with no grace, no subtext, no wit, and featuring beefcake/cheesecake actors who look like they've been plucked from the soaps.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The result is a movie groping for a comic tone while its FX machinery spews vast clouds of visual gibberish.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

What the movie lacks most is a real sense of adventure.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

They take on special powers that the filmmakers are incapable of making interesting, partly because the characters are ciphers, and partly because the story is listless and uninventive.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

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.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A perfect storm of wooden acting, hackneyed direction, inane scripting and laughably cartoonish special effects produces a shapeless mess more wearyingly stupid than arch-villian Dr. Doom is evil.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The really good superhero movies, like "Superman," "SpiderMan 2" and "Batman Begins," leave Fantastic Four so far behind that the movie should almost be ashamed to show itself in the same theaters.