Michael Chiklis Says His ‘Fantastic Four’ Films Were “Very Underrated” and Critics “Got It Wrong”

Michael Chiklis Says His ‘Fantastic Four’ Films Were “Very Underrated” and Critics “Got It Wrong”

Is the 2005 Fantastic Four film underrated? Michael Chiklis certainly thinks so.

Chiklis played Ben Grimm/the Thing in the first live-action adaptation of the iconic superhero quartet. When looking back on the project, a conversation sparked by the recent release of Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the actor told Collider he believes critics at the time “got it wrong.” 

“There were a lot of people, I think, critically who got it wrong,” he said of the 2005 film and its 2007 follow-up Rise of the Silver Surfer. “They really maligned our films, and they were very underrated considering… They were very loved by the audience. It was one of those cases where critics weren’t great to those films, but the audience was, and that still remains.” 

The Emmy winner acknowledged the appreciation shown by the audience as opposed to critics, adding, “And now all these years later, people are sort of acknowledging like, hey, these films are family-friendly, fun movies… They got a lot right. They may be imperfect, but they’re really good movies.” 

The Hollywood Reporter’s 2005 review of Fantastic Four referred to the film as “a colossal snore.” Michael Rechtshaffen wrote, “After all the fussing and fidgeting exerted in trying to nail just the right mix of comic book action, comedy and pathos, the movie emerges as a tone-deaf mishmash of underdeveloped characters, half-baked humor and unhatched plotting drenched in CGI overkill.”

Alongside Chiklis, Fantastic Four starred Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Jessica Alba as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman and Chris Evans as Johnny Storm/Human Torch. Marvel revamped the characters for the 2025 film, which saw Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn star as the team. 

Of the new movie and Moss-Bachrach, who plays Ben/the Thing in the modern adaptation, Chiklis said, “I had a great experience doing them, and I just… I hope that it kills. And it seems like it’s doing really well. And by the way, I really like Ebon Moss-Bachrach. He’s a terrific actor, so I’m really looking forward to see what he does with… the Thing.”