Much of Fantastic Four, like Spider-Man (2002) and Superman (1978) is devoted to developing how the superhero(es) became such. Because of that, Fantastic drags a bit and due to lots of other disappointing factors, it does not live up to the aforementioned movies. Not even close.

Dr. Reed Richards (Ioan) convinces his old college pal Victor Von Doom (Julian) to back an exploratory space mission. Victor is immediately foreshadowed as the bad guy and only supports the mission to gain control of Reed’s project. Additionally Reed’s former love, Susan Storm (Jessica), is now Victor’s right-hand scientific girl and possibly future wife. Something goes wrong on board which exposes Reed, Victor, Susan, Reed’s sidekick Ben Grimm (Michael), and Sue’s brother Johnny (Chris) to rays that alter their DNA. Now, they all have superpowers.

As Reed/Mr. Fantastic (now capable of stretching himself) tries to build a machine that can reverse the symptoms, Victor/Dr. Doom “embraces” his destiny and sets out to take over everything. Also, ready to embrace his new identity is thrill seeker Johnny/The Human Torch who unfortunately draws a lot of attention to the group of reluctant heroes. Ben/The Thing is most altered in that he cannot turn his power off and on, leaving him stuck in the form of a very strong, walking rock. He loses his fiancée and is pretty much feared by everyone on the street, unless of course they need him to pick up a truck or something along those lines. Adding insult to injury is Ben’s antithesis, Johnny, who does everything within his new powers to be an annoyance. Ben’s story is the only one that has a little bit of depth, but not enough to overshadow the rest of this shallow tale. Then there’s Sue/The Invisible Girl who tries to keep everybody calm, while she flirts unabashedly with the very distracted Reed and tries to sound intelligent.

Not surprisingly, there is a showdown between Dr. Doom and the new heroes which did very little to save this movie. Perhaps Director Tim Story (Taxi, Barbershop) was just a bit in over his head with what should have been an action movie, but turned out to be about as exciting as a wet dishrag.

It could have been so much better. Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis are the only entertaining components of the film, unfortunately, much more focus is put on Jessica Alba’s breasts. It was laughable. She has a great body, but Jessica is definitely one of the weaker actresses on the Hollywood rotation and her performance in Fantastic made me wonder if she can even spell "fantastic".