Fantastic Four: The Extended Edition (Fantastic 4)

A few enjoyable action scenes connected by wooden acting and a dull script. Managed a sequel though, so some people must like it.

Let's face it the original theatrical cut was certainly no Spiderman or X2, but seeing this new version was an impressive 20 minutes longer, i was intrieged to see whether the rather whimsical plot had been fleshed out and improved. The answer, sadly is no. Most of the additional content is merely alternative scenes to ones that already exist in the film, and ludicrously have been added usually straight after the original scene, making it feel like you are watching the same scene over again only in a different setting... a kind of deja-vu effect. And you have been warned, the Mr Fantastic as Logan/Wolverine is very poor. The director must have got Mr Fantastic's abilities mixed up with those of Mystique in X-Men. All in all, if you own the original movie, leave it that way. Apart from the more exciting opening titles of the extended cut, this version has nothing more to offer.

The Fantastic 4 is a fantastic film, this is one of the best marvel movies that they have made to date, great fun story with the epic villain Dr Doom who looks super cool, The casting was great too all the characters are fun and look just the way they do in the comic, great effects and overall a brilliant comic book treat, this is a must have, always will be a classic!!

i hated this film there have been some really good comic book films such as spiderman and x men but this one is cheesy and dull! not enough action and it can join the other comic book rejects like dare devil.

Average is the best word to describe the Fantastic Four movie, failing as it does to TRULY do justice to the comics. Far lighter in tone than 'Batman Begins' and the Spiderman and X-Men movies Tim Story (director of Barbershop and the horrendous 2004 remake of Taxi) seemed a terrible decision to direct this adaptation when compared to the likes of Chris Nolan, Sam Raimi and Bryan Singer. And Story is by far a weaker director than the aforementioned geniuses delivering a far more mainstream, child-friendly movie than previous Marvel outings. Having said that, however, there is still much to enjoy about the proceedings. The Thing and The Human Torch are portrayed perfectly with their on-going love/hate relationship and Chris Evans proves to be a suprisingly charismatic choice to play Johnny Storm. The action-packed bridge scene is well constructed and the whole affair is suprisingly well-humoured. On the other hand the special effects range from the good to the not-so-good, some of the 'comic' moments sit a little uneasily amongst the action, Jessica Alba seems to have been chosen for her looks rather than her acting and, worst of all, Dr. Doom isn't given the treatment he truly deserves. Changing his genesis from the original comic books is forgivable but Julian McMahon fails to infuse his portrayal with enough menace. But it's certainly not all bad, if you like the Marvel characters and want something a bit lighter than usual give it a spin, it's certainly a vast improvement on what I've seen of the unreleased original version (check out the hilariously bad ending over on YouTube). For this new 'extended' edition a further 20 minutes add some welcome character moments to the original with an amusing scene with Johnny Storm, an elevator and a number of attractive women, some further scenes with Alicia and Ben and a cameo from HERBIE (the robot from the comics and not the Lovebug!) Least successful is the extension of the Reed/Sue date scene with the added scenes dupicating existing dialogue and the awful Wolverine gag (quite terrible SFX) standing out like a sore thumb. So, certainly not as bad as critics will have you believe, and in this extended format a more rounded experience. Pity the UK got shafted with the extra features though, this is a single disc release unlike the R1 edition and only includes a brief featurette about the Silver Surfer to whet the appetite for the sequel. Still, at least it's cheap...