You know whats good in superhero movies? Superheroes, doing superhero stuff. There is barely any of that in FF4, apart from a dull fight on a rocky knoll at the end. There aren't even any 'lets find out how to use our power' montages. Montages of boring people building inter-dimensional doo-hickeys there are plenty of, but no super heroics. Oh,and when Reed Richards turns all stretchified, HE RUNS AWAY TO SULK IN THE JUNGLE. Ohhh, feel the heroism
Also, whats good in superhero films are interesting bad guys. In FF4, the bad guy is at first a sulky hacker (you can tell he's bad cos he plays FPS games in a darkened room whilst using his Google Glasses) but then he turns into a clean cut scientist for no reason who's only evil trait is using people's full names (and maybe he has a crush on Susan, sorry, Sue, Storm but hey, lets never mention that after one line of dialogue)
Then he gets killed after travelling in the inter-dimensional doo-hickey, and despite the 'maybe crush on Susan' thing as well as inventing a super awesome machine, NO ONE laments his death, or even mentions it. (Seriously, no one even says 'A shame that jerk Vicktor died huh?)
And then, right at the end, he turns up again, sulks a bit and makes a few people's heads 'splode and then goes to his rocky nest to get killed by the FF4. Oh, did I mention his mask? It looks like he's wearing a fishbowl full of tinsel on his head. And as for the lame Ghostbusters gag ("There is no Vicktor, only Doom") It's the 2nd worst joke in the entire world. The worst joke being the last 2 lines of this film...
So we have no super-heroics, no bad guy, what about the characters? Maybe the film could work as a character study? Well, no. There is literally no chemistry between the four leads. Rather than write any dialogue to show them bonding, the film cuts to montages of them laughing so you get the idea they are like, a super team. And the film's Yoda - Sue's dad and ersatz Morgan Freeman - keeps saying things like "You're a family" and "Together you can beat them". In fact everything he says is a cliche.
There are a million other things wrong with this film. Why does Reed Richards have scars all over his face? Where did they come from? Why is the Human Torch so boring? (They needed a much more charismatic actor to play him, like, oooh Chris Evans. Oh, wait...) Why is The Thing all morose and not a wisecracking irascible Brooklynite with a heart of (maybe actual) gold?
Why is the film so damn miserable? It should have been a mix of Spiderman and Guardians of the Galaxy, tonally, not The Dark Knight. Hell, even The Phantom (SLAM EVIL!) is more fun than this.
And finally, where are all the female characters? I'm not suggesting that the film makers should have gender swapped the FF4, but poor Kate Mara is literally the only female with a speaking part in the film. Couldn't someone even have a love interest? A female best friend? Sexy scientist? Judy Greer as Ben Grimm's mother?
As if you haven't suffered enough through the film, it wants to keep kicking you when you're down. The climax is a mediocre fight where NO ONE uses their powers in an interesting way apart from PUNCHING THINGS (Seriously, you have a film where one character is invisible, yet you never have her using that in any even vaguely clever way - compare the Boss fight of FF4 with the Boss fight in Ant-man, (a film that knows how to get the most from a superhero with a wacky power) or even the dimension hopping madness of Thor 2's Boss Fight and you'll see what a missed opportunity this was.
Finally, the worst joke in THE ENTIRE OF CINEMATIC HISTORY punches you in the gut and then the credits roll. And you realize that despite a truncated running time of 1 hour 30, you have aged 130 years.
(Whilst writing this review, I kept typing FFS instead of FF4. That sums this film up perfectly)
