Fantastic! No, not the kitchen cleaner or the old NBA slogan. I'm talking about the truly fanastic ones - the Fantastic Four. The FF comic book was my favorite when I was a kid (I always identified with the nerdy Reed Richards), and I've finally got around to watching last year's feature film version, which I had purchased on DVD a couple months ago. Though they took a lot of liberties with the story, I really liked the movie. It was fun and captured the spirit of the characters. All of the FF was very well cast - even Sue Storm, though I was a bit worried that Jessica Alba wouldn't have the substance to play the Invisible Girl. But I must admit she (like everyone else) was excellent. Which is good, because I've been waiting a long time for an accurate FF movie. The cartoon series from 1978 lacked the Human Torch - and substituted Herbie the Robot (see photo) instead. I had always assumed that the Torch was replaced because they were too lazy to draw him. It turns out that it was a licensing issue, and Stan Lee decided that Herbie would appeal to kids. After all, this was the same year that R2-D2 took the world by storm. Hey, at least it wasn't as blatant a ripoff as that mechanical owl from Clash of Titans in 1981. Then there was the 1994 FF movie that was made on the (super) cheap just to keep the licence active. But that's all in the past - this time they got it right. Well, except for the bad guy. Dr. Doom is one of my favorite comic villains, and the movie turns him into another Joe Corporate evil guy with powers, instead of the brilliantly mad dictator of a small country wearing a self-designed suit of armor (with a bit of witchcraft to boot). Oh, and they cast Julian McMahon from Nip/Tuck as Doom - he has the right look but I kept waiting for him to say "so what don't you like about yourself?" But on the whole I was pleased with the movie and I'm sure I will watch it again someday (it's not just a "oner").