Fantastic Four

Finally, a movie that explores what happens when a group of people who can’t get along find themselves freakishly mutated by cosmic radiation! But even for a comic-book superhero flick, Fantastic Four has a deal-breaking credibility problem. When, in a burst of typically prosaic dialogue, Jessica Alba’s character intones, “The new readouts look very promising,” you don’t believe her; don’t care; and wonder, come to think of it, whether she can read at all. The movie’s best instinct is to point out just how goofy its characters’ superpowers are, but that doesn’t need 105 minutes. It’s not awful, but it’s an origin myth without mythic resonance, and nobody on the creative team really seems to care.