Tim Story has quietly directed some rather interesting films over the course of the past twenty years. His list of accolades include Barbershop (2002), Ride Along (2014) and Think Like A Man (2012). Each of these films contain similar themes and ideals, making it clear the types of films he gravitates toward. Fantastic Four, however, was his first attempt at a superhero film (and film outside of his wheelhouse) when that particular genre was not as big as it is today. It was not entirely clear what audiences were looking for in superhero films or how fans of comic books would have reacted to changes in content between book and film, making this project a risk on the part of Story and his crew. Based on the many reviews of the film (most of which are negative) and its lack of significant financial success, it seems that the world was not entirely ready for a live-action Fantastic Four film. Not only were people not ready, the casting, as well as many other aspects of the film, made it difficult for viewers to appreciate what Story was attempting to do. One major aspect of the film was exploring how the human mind reacts to drastic and life-altering change. Five people with very different aspirations and ideas about the world are each given a unique set of powers, isolating them from the world. Each character--Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon)-- has different ideas about how change and adversity will affect them and how they will choose to react to these changes. This aspect of the film is powerful and it played an integral role in the development of the characters and the film as a whole. It was smart of Story and the slew of writers to use this as a way to make the characters more appealing and relatable but it began to take up too much of the film and bled into other flaws that the film had. Each character held their own with the exception of McMahon who often fell flat and appeared to lack the ability to be the narcissistic, power hungry villain of the Fantastic Four. The way in which the film was paced was frustrating. In the earliest parts of the film things flew by; by the time Richards was done explaining what was going to take place once they reached a space station they were already in space. Story left little time for character development in the early going and relied heavily on it after each of their DNA had been altered. Too much time was spent focusing on the characters’ issues with one another and their transformations causing the film to become repetitive. Each of the members of the Fantastic Four has great chemistry with one another but it was the drastic change of speeding through the initial scenes and then dragging out the internal and external controversy that did not work well and made these relationships a bit cumbersome and frustrating at times. All in all, due to a great amount of flaws in the story, the film falls short of expectations that audiences would have for superhero films. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120667/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3
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