By Marvel Studios has landed on a winning formula in their own films with its vast catalog of films over the past decade. They seamlessly blend lovable characters, engaging stories, amazing effects, enthralling action, charming actors, and even with a little humor thrown into the mix for good measure.
Unfortunately, Fantastic Four isn’t a Marvel Studios production. It’s in the hand of the same distributor that botched this franchise up the last two times. And unfortunately, 20th Century Fox hasn’t learned much, and its latest effort has none of the things that make those recent Marvel movies so great.
Fantastic Four
Director: Josh Trank
Release Date: August 7, 2015
Rating: PG-13
The Fantastic Four is one of Marvel’s oldest comic book series, telling the tale of a group of scientists turned into mutants after a freak experiment goes awry. There’s Reed Richards (Miles Teller), who can stretch his body like elastic, Sue Storm (Kate Mara), who can turn invisible and produce energetic shields, Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), who becomes a living fireball, and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), whose entire exterior is turned into cragged rock. The team decide to use these powers to fight crime and protect the world—it’s one of Marvel’s most colorful send-up series, and this recent movie just decides not to take advantage of its classic appeal.
Fantastic Four is much more concerned with focusing on their origins. That’s right, the entire two hours of this film is one big origin story. In this interpretation, Reed and Ben are childhood friends who grow up together to work on and eventually travel through an interdimensional teleporter which causes of the horrific accident. By the time the accident actually creates the Fantastic Four and villain Doctor Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbel) the rest of the running time is spent watching the characters explore their powers and keep themselves out of the hands of the government. You know, because government is bad?
Folks, I’m gonna be upfront with you– this movie is an absolute mess. By focusing so much on where the Fantastic Four comes from, we never get a good idea of who they are. Ben Grimm aka “The Thing” is arguably one of Marvel’s most tragic heroes next to the Hulk and that’s never really touched on over the course of the film. Just about every character is a one-dimensional caricature that gets across basic personalities fast. The scientists are curt and over-analytical, Sue and Johnny’s father is the overprotective parent, Victor von Doom is the aloof hacker kid—there’s just not much the movie has to work with in terms of character here and it hurts for it.
There are some great opportunities for character development, be it how Reed and Ben grow distant after being childhood best friends, how Ben has his humanity stripped away when he becomes a living mountain, or Sue and Doom’s past romance that is briefly teased a few times… but instead the movie is constantly jumping ahead in time, just skipping over what would make for an interesting film. Instead, the focus goes entirely on lightly exploring their powers.
To their credit, this does lead up to the only worthwhile sequence in the film, with everyone realizing just how their bodies have mutated. The tension and horror of this moment is ripped straight out of a horror film, but ultimately lacks any lasting punch as they never even revisit this trauma any further.
Recent Marvel productions have proven that they have a good sense of how to manage the emotional budget of characters, story, and action. Without this balance, Fantastic Four feels more like a superhero movie from the mid-2000’s—all origin, no character, and those really awkward looking “contemporary” costume designs.
Even the action of the movie is lackluster—in fact, there’s only one fight scene and its at the very end of the movie. By the time the movie got there, I had no investment, no interest, and minimal context. Honestly, if I didn’t have to watch it to write this review, I would’ve walked out in the final 20 minutes of the film.
Perhaps this film may see a second life on home media where internet critics and drunken friends alike will laugh at the Asylum quality special effects (you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a man get pelted with styrofoam rocks, thusly transforming him into The Thing), the stilted writing, the painful acting, and awkward pacing. I can think of no good reason why anyone should watch this movie. It feels outdated, boring, and about half an hour way too long.
In favor of going on for a few more paragraphs as to why Fantastic Four is a mess of a movie that should be avoided at all costs, I instead choose to leave you with a short list of notes I made on the movie while watching it, as they are far more entertaining than this movie itself will ever be.
- For the entirety of the movie, The Thing does not wear pants. An entire year passes in movie time and he still does not wear pants. This is made more distressing by the fact that he has a rock ass and also possibly a rock dick.
- This movie was so bad, Stan Lee didn’t even make a cameo. Is this the first time he just hasn’t shown up during a Marvel movie? (Note: It is not. He has a history of not appearing in some of the worst Marvel features.)
- At one point, Doctor Doom blows up a government man with his mind like in Scanners. It is never explained what his powers are or why he becomes evil.
- The highlight of the entire film was a five second cameo by Tim Heidecker as Reed’s father. He actually gets a full screen credit at the end.
- I remind you once more that The Thing doesn’t wear pants and has a visible ass-crack throughout the span of the movie.
Do not see this movie.