Every now and then, movies are released out of their natural sequence. In 1964, “Doctor Strangelove” preceded to the marketplace “Fail-Safe,” the doomsday thriller it seemed to satirize. So it is with “Fantastic Four,” a live-action comic book that arrives eight months after the satirical cartoon blockbuster “The Incredibles” that it seems to have inspired in part. The “Fantastic Four” screenplay by Michael France and Mark Frost is based on Marvel Comics characters created by Stan Lee, who makes a cameo appearance, and the late Jack Kirby. But the stories and events in such fantasy films are beginning to seem awfully interchangeable. How imaginative is sci-fi being when it develops characters who can fly and builds to the same round of explosions and fires that climax so many of its counterparts• The four primary characters are astronauts in the employ of Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon): the modest, brainy scientist Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd); the bald, burly Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis); the sensuous Susan Storm (Jessica Alba), who could have Victor but prefers Reed; and Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), Susan’s reckless, vain playboy-brother who seems to model his look and carriage on Tom Cruise. While engaged in genetic research in outer space, the four encounter an electromagnetic field that transforms them. Reed becomes the elastic-limbed Mr. Fantastic. Susan finds she’s Invisible Woman. Johnny grooves on being a flying fireball called Human Torch. Poor Ben, whom we’re told repeatedly has a super relationship with someone named Debbie, is dropped by her like a boiling hot potato when he’s transformed into a stone-skinned hulk who eventually will call himself Thing. Blind barroom denizen Alicia (Kerry Washington) perceives the soul beneath his rocky exterior. To the movie’s credit, it makes at least token attempts to humanize the characters, especially Ben, and turns an occasional phrase nicely (“fast-food, strip-mall science”). “Fantastic Four” is directed unobtrusively by Tim Story (“Barbershop,” “Taxi”). But some scenes seem to be more about product placement than plot advancement. And whatever the skills of the actors — Gruffudd in particular seems promising — Chiklis is the only one with sufficient gravitas to override the shallowness of the writing and the formulaic fleshing out of characters. Additional Information:

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‘Fantastic Four’ Director: Tim Story Stars: Michael Chiklis, Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba MPAA rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense action and some suggestive content

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