10 Terrific Scenes From Otherwise Terrible Comic Book Movies

7. The Thing Gets Rejected (Fantastic Four)

Say what you will about Fox's 2005 Fantastic Four feature, but one thing the film must be praised for is its casting.

While Jessica Alba fell flat as Sue Storm, Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans all did a commendable job of bringing Marvel's first family to life. While Evans went on to comic pastures new in both the Losers and Captain America, Gruffudd and Chiklis are still largely known for their role in those films, with the latter in particular having conveyed a truly convincing portrayal of Ben Grimm in that original feature.

In fact, one of the few redeeming scenes from the 2005 film comes from Chiklis himself. Having returned to earth with a new rocky exterior, Ben goes out in search of his fiancée, hopeful that she'll still run to him with open arms.

What follows is a truly heartbreaking moment where Ben is left in the rain, alone, rejected by his wife-to-be. While he still gets his happy ending eventually, it's important to remember that the first Four film did a splendid job of placing the Thing's tragic elements front and centre to its narrative.

Ewan Paterson

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.

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