Fantastic Four is a return to a time before comic books — and their big-screen adaptations — went all arty and deep. There is nothing visually extravagant here. This is the EasyJet of blockbusters; a lean, no-frills flight into fantasy. It offers nothing more than the basics: four heroes, one bad guy, two big action sequences and that’s your lot. You won’t find any characters with a dark side, or moments of knowing camp. There is no subtext, pretext or context — just a lot of latex.

But then Fantastic Four isn’t aimed at the sophisticated Sin City crowd who know all about the grammar of film noir. No, this is a film aimed at skateboarding 14-year-old boys who know all about the Fantastic Four. The kind of boys who say “coool” and think Jessica Alba (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman) is “awesome”. So all you arty-farty types can take a hike and go and discuss the semiotics of Ang Lee’s Hulk.

For a film called Fantastic Four, there is something modest about this project, even though it cost about $100m. It has an undistinguished director (Tim Story, who did the film Taxi) and actors largely known from television (Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis) — and, despite its special effects, it looks cheap’n’cheesy. It should have been called Sort of Good Four.

If it had had a few laughs and lots of action, it might have worked. But it is badly let down by poor storytelling and weak characterisation. Most of the film centres on how the Fantastic Four became the Fantastic Four, then how the Fantastic Four struggled to stop being the Fantastic Four because of the problems of being the Fantastic Four — all of which isn’t that fantastic to watch. And it wastes time on one of those romantic subplots — between Dr Reed Richards (Gruffudd) and Sue Storm — that nobody is interested in. Consequently, there is not much time left for our heroes to do battle with Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon). Fantastic Four fans hungry for action are going to be sorely disappointed by a film that looks like a setup for a superhero franchise in the making.

BACKGROUND

• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - Sunday Times review

• Game Review - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

BACKGROUND

• Fantastic Four

• Film: A blast from the past

• The comic strip presents... Jessica Alba profile

The new superheroes

From Wonder Woman to Tintin, what feeds Hollywood’s love affair with comic-book heroes?

Related Internet Links

• 2007 London Film Festival coverage

• Times Online Film Trailers

The story line is simple. After an encounter with a cosmic storm in outer space, Richards and his crew return to earth and discover they all have new and strange powers. Compared with other superheroes, it strikes me that the Fantastic Four have drawn the short straws. I mean, who wants to stretch like rubber (Mr Fantastic), burn like napalm (the Torch, played by Chris Evans) or look like the Thing (Chiklis)? And what is the point of being the Invisible Woman (Alba) if you don’t want to watch boys getting undressed? The other letdown is the underdeveloped characterisation of Von Doom. He should be one of those vain, suave madmen we have a sneaking admiration for. But there is nothing likable about his loathsomeness. He is a villain without a master plan or motivation. He doesn’t want to rule New York or the world. As far as I can tell, he is just peeved that the nerdy Richards has stolen his girl, Sue.

The best thing about Fantastic Four is the performance of Chiklis — the bad cop from the television series The Shield — as the Thing. From somewhere buried beneath 60lb+ of latex costume and prosthetic make-up, Chiklis creates a note of real pathos. And I like the way the Thing doesn’t accept his new freakish state, but spends most of the film in a state of self-pity and self-loathing. In a bar, he meets a blind black woman who feels his face. It would have been funny and more truthful if, on touching his brick-like face, she had run out of the bar screaming. Instead, she gives him the old lecture about how being different can be a good thing. “Believe me, lady,” he says, “this ain’t one of those times.”

Fantastic Four could have been a fun, unpretentious comic-book romp that leaves you pleasantly surprised. Instead, it disappoints precisely because it doesn’t do anything pleasantly or awfully. It is beyond good and bad; it is just so-so, ho-hum hokum.

Fantastic Four, PG, 105 mins, Two stars

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010