Fantastic Four

Too violent for kiddies, too unhip for teens and too puerile for everyone else, Fantastic Four flirts with every demographic and commits to none. With neither the emotional depth of Spider-Man 2 nor the silly-seriousness of Ang Lee's Hulk, this hanger-on to The Incredibles (or inspiration for, depending on who's talking) lumbers along with so little wit, intelligence or acting ability you'll swear Renny Harlin is responsible.

The actual perpetrators, though, are Tim Story (whose direction of 2004's Taxi should have ended his career right there), and writers Michael France and Mark Frost - both of whom should be sued for impersonating people who can actually put a sentence together.

Being unacquainted with the Marvel characters in advance (I had a particularly deprived, and foreign, childhood), I was relieved of the burden of making comparisons with the movie's much-admired source material. But, on the other hand, I have no way of knowing if dim-witted Susan Storm, a.k.a. The Invisible Woman (a perfectly cast Jessica Alba) is given the title "Director of Genetic Research" as a joke; or if her brother, Johnny, a.k.a. The Human Torch (Chris Evans), is supposed to be an over-compensating, closeted gay man. But when your most nuanced character is a walking brick outhouse with worse skin than Edward James Olmos and less control than Tom Cruise on Oprah, this is not good.

Since the plot is negligible - featuring cosmic rays, genetic rearrangement and a heavily Botoxed Julian McMahon as the evil Victor Von Doom - the only pleasure is derived from the terrific Michael Chiklis (F/X's The Shield) as the tormented Ben Grimm, a.k.a. The Thing. Swathed in more rubber than a Lifestyles Convention, Chiklis works feverishly to give his character some life. The single best scene in the movie is when The Thing stumbles into a bar and a gorgeous blind girl (the wonderful Kerry Washington) sidles up and buys him a drink. As she runs her hands over his monstrous, fissured face, Chiklis manages to project serious arousal, even summoning a leer. For her sake, let's hope she checks farther south before taking him home.