How good could it have been? I mean, really?

I've never really understood the longlasting appeal of the Fantastic Four. Aside from the Thing, the First Family of the Marvel Universe is noteworthy for being just that, the first. They have a place in history for introducing the Marvel-brand of high adventure, insterstellar and interdimensional action, and over-the-top melodrama and inter-personal angst that resulted in the team splitting up every 15 issues or so.

As classic Marvel heroes go, the FF have the flimsiest backstory (cosmic rays manage to give four people four completely different powers). Nonetheless, their comics are a fun breezy read. Granted, I've only read the first 30 or so issues of the original '60s run, but they did have a high camp appeal, what with Reed Richards reinventing physics every month, and Dr. Doom obsessively launching the Baxter Building into space.

But they've never had the juicy storytelling depths of Spider-Man, X-men or Hulk. What pathos there was was contained in the Thing, and the rest was razzle dazzle spread thin across a relatively bland cast. The most interesting dialogue and characteriziation always came down to Johnny and Ben, great foils for one another. But Reed and Sue were pretty forgettable. Even when it comes to superhero names, they're pretty uninspired compared to the fiery and rocky members of the quartet.

So, it's no surprise that this dynamic carries through to the film. Johnny can be annoying, but that's his character. And his relationship with Ben is spot-on. Reed and Sue are also accurate -- they're as dull on screen as they are on the page. But they're likable enough.

That doesn't leave much to pad out an entire movie. The movie works best during the sitcom-like moments of the Four interacting. Or, when Ben goes on a solo self-pitying stint. The rest just kind of flounders there. Fantastic Four actually has the makings of a great weekly series, played for laughs as much as for adventure. But it doesn't wholly work as a movie.

You have a sense that the filmmakers know they're going into bad territory, as they seem to kind of relish it. I mean, you figure they're thinking, "no one's expecting us to make Ben Grimm's fiancee that believable, so let's just make this as ridiculous as possible and have fun with it..." Or how about that scene where Sue pulls out the clearly labelled photo album of "Memories." If they really wanted to have fun, the leatherette cover should have had gold-leaf writing that said: Painful Memories.

But there's no contempt for the audience here. Nor do these cheeseball moments look like they're executed because of lack of skill. Instead, they seem to be done with a wry wink to the audience, suggesting that, "yeah, we're going for this. We actually are going to cut to a close up of a Dalmation covering his eyes with his paw. And we know you're going to laugh at it."

The film's biggest failing is the mangling of Dr. Doom. While his effectiveness as a villain is arguable in the comic book (Doom pretty much gets pantsed in 20 pages everytime he appeared in the old school series), but at least he had a presence. His transformation into a CEO-as-Arch-Villain doesn't really work, and the idea that he turns metallic as a result of Reed's miscalculations is silly. Doom is supposed to hate Richards! Why would a megalomaniac who is granted incredible powers hate the person responsible for giving him those powers? But wait, you say, Reed caused Von Doom enterprises to go under and snatched away his hottest employee. Yeah, like he really cares about that when he's a robot-skinned lightning shooting dynamo!

It would have worked better if Doom was crippled by Reed's experiment, and relied on his engineering genius and resources to build the Doombot 3000 X-21 armor (or whatever).

And, also strange plot holes abound (the most overused complaint among message board movie-haters). Something must have been edited out, because I can't figure out how Sue getting naked helped the team get closer to the crashed fire engine. One second, she's dropping trou, and the next, she's putting her clothes back on and everyone is with her. Wait... what happened?

Also, the first time they get bombarded by cosmic rays, Grimm is out of it for three days and then Thing-a-fies. But when stripped of his powers and recognizing that he needs to get rocky again, he jumps into Richards' Fanastic-Four-o-Matic, and gets his powers right away. Did he know that was gonna happen?

Anyway, the weird thing, though, is that you don't leave the theater with that soul-draining Matrix Reloaded depression, thinking, "Oh, that could have been so much better." Because, really, it couldn't. The biggest misstep was the villain. The biggest success was the four main characters. And given how quintissentially goofy the original comic was, you can't fault the film too much for being goofy.

It's not that it should have been better. It probably should have embraced its camp a bit more and evened out the delivery of such things. And it should have been a Thursday-night sitcom on NBC

ph.