Fantastic Four (2005)

Maybe I was too hard on Batman the Fifth. As much as I disliked the flying mouse, it looks like goddamn Shakespeare next to this misbegotten mutation. Checklist: it has some of the worst dialogue ever written as enunciated by some of the least interesting actors in the world on the cheapest sets money can buy, and it also features some of the least convincing CGI effects since Van Helsing and exposition hurled out in endless gobs... and that's just in the opening fifteen minutes. Once the superpowers start manifesting, things get even worse. The action is listless and depressing in its lack of inventiveness. The stabs at drama are embarrassing (stop it with the Jessica Alba already!). The fanboy pandering is transparent. And as for the dialogue... for God's sake, the climax rips off the most infamously dreadful line of dialogue from X-Men not once, not twice, but three fucking times. This project was in turnaround for so long that the studio must have gotten to the point where they were ready to let anyone with a camera make it, but isn't that how Marvel shipwrecked their brand name in the '80s? This is easily the worst big-budget disasterpiece since The Stepford Wives. I have a hard time believing that the notorious Roger Corman production could be any worse.

Grade: D-