If you weren’t a fan of Tim Story’s campy-bad 2005 Fantastic Four film and its somehow even more inferior 2007 sequel, then there’s a lot to like in the newly rebooted Fantastic Four. Unfortunately, that’s swiftly followed by a whole lot more to dislike intensely, as this second attempt by Fox (third, if you count the shelved 90’s Roger Corman version) to bring the great Jacky Kirby and Stan Lee’s trailblazing comic to the screen just completely implodes under the weight of an unforgivable identity crisis.

fantasticfour0007

Before that epic soiling of its own bed though, director Josh Trank (Chronicle) and writer/producer Simon Kinberg (X-Men franchise, Sherlock Holmes) offer up a solid superhero sci-fi drama where the “superhero” bit is practically as washed out as the intentionally grim colour palette. Gone is the charming cosmic cartoonishness and colourful unfiltered creativity of the classic Kirby/Lee comics – you don’t even get the cheesy codenames and costumes –  as Trank and Kinberg look to the more modernized and relatively realistic “Ultimate Fantastic Four” incarnation as the main source of inspiration here.

Rather than the family of explorers coming into contact with mysteriously undefined “cosmic rays” of the original texts, the titular foursome of boy genius Reed Richards (Miles Teller), his loyal best friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), hothead Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) and his more responsible half-sister Sue Storm (Kate Mara), as well as brooding rival genius Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), here develop superpowers after being exposed to exotic energies while traveling to another dimension through a teleporter built by Reed and Victor for a military think-tank run by Dr Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey).

fantasticfour0001

But the creators take it even further than just borrowed origin story details in their reimagining though, with this Fantastic Four tonally doing for “Ultimate Fantastic Four” what it did for the classic comic. It takes a solid 40 minutes before the first action beat kicks in, as this time around we get a very deliberately paced sci-fi tale. And when the four first exhibit their powers, instead of hopping straight into superheroics, the film takes on a Cronenberg-ian body horror texture that’s very effectively realized: Reed is capable of stretching his body in countless ways, but cannot contain/control his limbs; Ben becomes a tragic creature trapped in a body of unfeeling rock and stone; Sue has the ability to become invisible, but her lack of control leaves her stuck in a mercurial state; Johnny is constantly engulfed in flames, turning to cinder everything around him. These types of growing pains are normally found in superhero origin stories and usually played up for laughs, but here Trank turns them into the stuff of nightmares.

fantastic-four-trailer-johnnystorm

And even when our leads finally manage some restraint over their abilities – and in the case of Johnny, some actual enjoyment of them, while Reed learns to use his abilities in an incredibly unexpected martial sense – it’s still admittedly dour, dramatic stuff, totally devoid of the “Gee whizz!” sense of zany adventure that popularized Kirby and Lee’s comic. Fantastic Four also takes the “Ultimate” angle of casting young for its four leads, which means that there’s no romantic subplot between Reed and Sue, no established family dynamic in play yet. Because of these factors, a part of me actually wishes that this movie was called anything other than Fantastic Four, as anybody coming into this expecting that sense of poppy family friendly ebullience that the classic title conjures up is going to be disappointed.

What Trank and Kinberg have delivered instead is their brave vision of a disassembled comic book movie. It’s not perfect by a long shot though – it totally fumbles the relationship between Reed and Ben, writing the latter out of the script for long unnecessary stretches; Johnny’s endearing brashy cockiness gets replaced by angsty daddy issues, losing a lot of his infectious charm; and the way Sue gets her powers is handled in an odd manner that almost excludes her from the rest of the dude-bros. But even with those problems, I was still engaged and enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.

And then it all transforms into a mountain of fly-buzzing excrement.

fantastic_four-thing

In a creative about-face so drastic that it’s sure to leave audiences with whiplash, every single comic book movie genre trope that Trank and Kinberg had held at bay and actively avoided for the first half of the movie, unceremoniously comes crashing down in the worst way imaginable. No, even worse than that. Established character beats are tossed aside, plot threads are jettisoned, and just about everything takes a terminal nose dive in quality as it all turns into a hamfisted CG-driven cartoon filled with sloppy, uninspired action and very little else, as there’s zero payoff to any setups that had occurred previously. And the character that suffers the most is Toby Kebbell’s Victor Von Doom.

Already forced to battle through a godawful character redesign, Fantastic Four’s version of Doctor Doom – considered by many, myself included, to be Marvel’s greatest villain – shows off approximately 20 seconds of the badassery you would normally associate him with, before turning into a green-glowing farce that would be horrifically insulting if it wasn’t so sad. The talented Kebbell is utterly wasted onscreen as he becomes more woeful cliché than character. At least the rest of the equally skilled cast get to turn in solid if not particularly challenging performances.

Fantastic-Four-Doom-2015

Compounded with the long list of other affronts committed in Fantastic Four‘s final 40 minutes, nearly every shred of good will built up by its promising opening is completely ejected, only to be replaced by angry frustration and bitter disappointment. The bar for a Fantastic Four feature film had been set so low by the previous entries in the franchise, and yet this latest reboot – while it had a good run-up – still ends up faceplanting in the most ridiculous manner possible. Just about the only positive point that can be made about Fantastic Four‘s absolutely travesty of a second half, is that it’s over fairly quickly as everything is rushed through at a ludicrous pace. The downside of course being that everything is rushed through at a ludicrous pace!

Last week Trank tweeted out an insinuation that the cut of the movie we’re seeing is not his own, as Fox allegedly took the film from him to do their own thing instead of allowing him to produce his “fantastic version”. And while I can’t guarantee his hyperbolic assessment of his own work, I am inclined to believe that some meddling definitely happened here as what you get in Fantastic Four is very clearly two movies – one different to the source but solid and filled with promise, the other a messy, unfunny cancerous abomination that retroactively infects the first bit with its poorness.

fantasticfourpromoimage-136799

Last Updated: August 11, 2015

4

27 Comments

  1. Eina tog! Not going to bother with this then.

    Reply

  2. RinceThis

    August 11, 2015 at 09:51

    Generous 🙂 Sad, but oh so true. Nice start to a movie then BOOM! It’s Dr KAK DOOM!

    Reply

    • Guild

      August 11, 2015 at 09:55

      I’ll wait till they release a Director’s Cut and watch that. Maybe it will give a proper vision of the movie meant to be. Otherwise I’ll watch it when it hits DSTV

      Reply

      • RinceThis

        August 11, 2015 at 09:56

        I’m hoping for something like that too. That being said, there would have to be A LOT that has been cut out to fix the issues. Doom was Dom…

        Reply

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          August 11, 2015 at 10:20

          Hello! I heard you were looking for hope – there isn’t any.

          Reply

  3. The Sten

    August 11, 2015 at 11:18

    But…..but…..i was so hyped

    Reply

    • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

      August 11, 2015 at 12:03

      The Second they added a black guy to play Johnny Storm cause they were “progressive” I lost all hope for the film.

      This is what you get when you stick in between completely veering from the story (Iron Man) and following it so closely that no one could fault you (Captain America)

      Reply

      • Kervyn Cloete

        August 11, 2015 at 14:21

        Did you notice how I never mentioned the whole “Johnny Storm is black” thing in my review? That’s because it really isn’t worth mentioning. Michael B. Jordan plays the role well, and the fact that Kate Mara’s Sue is his adopted sister is handled very well. It NEVER becomes a sticking point in the movie. It’s actually one of the best handled pieces of characterizations on display.

        Reply

        • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

          August 11, 2015 at 14:27

          The issue is not the actors ability but the fact that it deviates from the base origin story and is not done well from a comic book fan perspective. I don’t care if Green lantern is black or white as long as both races are not represented by the exact same person. Luckily they are not as Hal Jordan was the white Green lantern and John Steward was the black Green lantern. You can make the Human torch black no problem. Just don’t do it to Johnny Storm.

          And THAT is what completely turned me off.

          Reply

          • Kervyn Cloete

            August 11, 2015 at 14:38

            But explain to me how the colour of his skin affects the character? Does being black change his personality at all?

            For example, a character like Black Panther cannot be white, because him being an African prince is essential to who he is. Similarly, Captain America can’t be black, because African American soldiers in WWII had a completely different experience to white ones, which would change his story.

            But how is black Johnny Storm different from white Johnny Storm? They’re both still the same brash, cocky, fun-loving, irresponsible character you know, with the exact same relationships with the characters around them, and the same power-set. The only difference is pigmentation.

            (And yes, I know that there was a black Captain America, but Isaiah Bradley’s story was very different to Steve Rogers’ one, which kind of proves my point)

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            August 11, 2015 at 14:54

            “But how is black Johnny Storm different from white Johnny Storm? They’re
            both still the same brash, cocky, fun-loving, irresponsible character
            you know, with the exact same relationships with the characters around
            them, and the same power-set. The only difference is pigmentation.”

            And that right there is the problem. You pretty much just summed it up. “Let us make him black just because” This is the single worst thing you can do. It is actually degrading to both races and the character itself. The only single time a change in race made the character better (because the actual change made the character way more awesome even before the movies) was Nick Fury. And no the old Nick Fury was nothing like the new Nick Fury.

            Once again I don’t care if you make a super hero different just as long as the character behind the mask also changes.

            Incidentally I am also against female Thor.

          • Kervyn Cloete

            August 11, 2015 at 14:58

            This has been well publicized. Jordan really got the gig because he and Trank became friends on Chronicle, and Trank thought he would be a perfect fit for the character’s personality.

          • RinceThis

            August 11, 2015 at 17:04

            Watched Chronicle with OvG on Saturday again and I can see exactly why he was chosen.

  4. Kromas,powered by windows 10.

    August 11, 2015 at 11:57

    So let us tally the points for good superhero Marvel movies.

    Sony:
    X-Men: Days of Future Past
    X-Men: First Class
    And the first spiderman cause I feel sorry for them.

    Disney:
    Iron Man 1 and 3 (Well I thought 3 was damn good but it is up for debate)
    Thor 1 and 2
    Captain America: Winter Soldier
    Avengers 1 and 2
    Space Avengers … Ugh I mean Guardians of the Galaxy
    Big Hero 6 (Technically it is Marvel)

    Disney wins. Almost Flawless victory!

    Reply

    • Hargrim

      August 11, 2015 at 12:33

      You forgot about Captain America: The First Avenger
      Also Disney may be winning in most good movies, but Iron Man 2 is damn near the top for worst Superhero movie

      Reply

      • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

        August 11, 2015 at 12:35

        If you truly believe that then you have never seen a single Hulk Movie and I envy you.

        Reply

        • Hargrim

          August 11, 2015 at 12:39

          And then you had to remind me those exist. Just when I thought I was over it

          Reply

        • The Sten

          August 11, 2015 at 13:28

          I have a confession to make…..

          I really liked Ang Lee’s Hulk

          Reply

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            August 11, 2015 at 13:42

            The only hulk I enjoyed was the old TV series.

            Edit: And Mark Ruffalos Hulk in Avengers.

          • Kervyn Cloete

            August 11, 2015 at 14:23

            I did too. It’s completely ridiculous in places (HULK POODLES?!? WHY IS HE FIGHTING AN ANGRY CLOUD WHO IS ALSO HIS FATHER?!!) but there are some moments that I really loved in it.

          • The Sten

            August 11, 2015 at 14:40

            I thought at the time the poodles were supposed to give you an indication of how something innocent can be corrupted by the gamma powers so i didnt think of it as stupid at the time but i can see why some people would consider it silly. I also liked that they gave the hulk a pretty deep and fleshed out origin without turning him into another angsty emo.

    • Kervyn Cloete

      August 11, 2015 at 14:21

      Er…. X-Men movies are Fox not Sony. Also, X-Men 1 and 2 were great at the time.

      Reply

  5. Reid

    August 11, 2015 at 14:25

    Disney/Marvel manages to turn a movie about a superhero like Ant-Man into a very good and fun movie, yet Fox manages to mess up a movie about The Fantastic Four. Just give up already and let Marvel have the movie rights back.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Twelve Minutes Review – Stuck in a Mystery Time Loop

We’ve all experienced deja vu a few times in our lives, but what happens when you ha…