A Day at the Movies: Fantastic Four (Spoiler Filled Review)

Ah the Fantastic Four. For those of you who don't know, these guys are by far one of the most well known comic book teams of all time. Known by many fans as "The First family of comics" the Fantastic Four first appeared "Fantastic Four vol. 1" in November of 1961. Their book was a major success and thanks to them, Marvel Comics became a force to be reckoned with and soon after characters such as Spider-Man and the X-Men were introduced. Not only that, but it’s notable that they were the first superheroes without secret identities, the first superhero team where the members fought each other as much as the villains and the first place where the iconic “Kirby Dots” (a way of showing a crackle of energy drawn by legendary artist Jack Kirby) appeared. 

Sadly, despite being such an influential team to the comic book industry, Marvel’s first family have never really translated to the medium of film all that well. The first attempt at a Fantastic Four film came in 1994, directed by Roger Corman. As you can tell, the movie was ridiculously low budget and it was so horrible that it was never intended to be released. 

But 11 years later, 20th Century Fox brought in director Tim Story to give the Fantastic Four a second chance in the world of cinema. The films cast included Ioan Gruffurd as Mr. Fantastic, Jessica Alba as Invisible Woman, Michael Chiklis as The Thing, and most notably Chris Evans as the Human Torch who would later go on to play Captain America in the MCU. The movie had a mostly negative reception with the biggest criticism being that there's little to no action until the films climax. Despite this, a sequel was released in 2007 titled "Rise of the Silver Surfer”. But unfortunately for Fox, the reception to this movie was even worse, and plans for a third film were scrapped.

Which brings us to 2015 where a reboot of the series was made that is loosely based on the Ultimate universe version on the team starring Miles Teller as Mr. Fantastic, Kata Mara as Invisible Woman, Michael B. Jordan as Human Torch and Jamie Bell as The Thing. And most notably it has a much darker and serious tone than the previous films or any of the comics for that matter. So with such a talented cast and a talented director of "Chronicle" Josh Trank behind it, is this new cinematic outing for Marvel's first family truly Fantastic or...or....

I'm sorry folks but this movie is just garbage. Complete and utter garbage, and I'll show you why. I would put a spoiler warning for what lies ahead but this film is such an abomination that it doesn't even deserve a spoiler warning from me. But first, let's talk about what I did like about the film.

The Good

I'll be honest, I felt that some of the cast honestly gave it their all despite the shortcomings with the script. I especially liked Micheal B. Jordan and Reg E. Cathy's performances as Johnny and Franklin Storm respectively. But unfortunately that's all the positive things I have to say about this movie.

The Bad

Oh my goodness, where do I even begin? First of all, let's get to the biggest problem I have with this movie, the pacing. Good lord, if there's anything I've learned from screenwriting class it's that all movies must have a 3 act structure: a beginning, middle, and end. With the Fantastic Four however, the whole film feels like one gigantic first act. Oh you want a good example of this, how about the fact that the characters don't even get their damn powers until halfway through the movie? The movie also spends way too much time throwing exposition at its audience that there is barely any action in it. And seeing that this is a superhero flick, little action is a HUGE sin.

And then we have the effects. I've seen a lot of bad blockbusters over the years (Transformers immediately comes to mind), but if there's one redeeming quality those said blockbusters had its that their visual effects were incredible. And guess what? Not even this movies special effects impressed me! The dimension where the characters get their powers has to be the most unconvincing green screen I have ever seen and the effects used for the heroes powers don't fare any better. And the CGI on the thing is just laughable, I mean the structure on his face alone just changes from shot to shot and while I would comment on the fact that he's naked 24/7 after he gets his powers but there are plenty of memes floating around that do that for me. But the biggest part where they fumbled with the CGI is a scene where Reed uses his powers for a disguise. Come on, CGI has come a long way and this shit looks like something from the 90's. Yes it's that bad!

And lastly we have the characters. The characters honestly have little to no chemistry between them and some of their interactions come off as kind of awkward. The most glaring example is with the Fantastic Four themselves. This movie is supposed to be about their origin as a superhero team but the problem is, they barely even freaking interact with one another so it really makes it unbelievable that they’re supposed to be a team! Not to mention that the characters are horribly underdeveloped not thanks to the movie being hellbent on shoving the aforementioned exposition down your throat. 

And that's not all because the movie also manages to botch the very reason the characters got their powers in the first place! Now I know what you're all probably about to say, "but John the fantastic four got their powers in a freak accident how hard can it be to screw that up?", oh I'll tell you. In the comic book the Fantastic Four head up into space for purpose of scientific research before they are inevitable hit by a wave of energy that gives them their powers. Thus, they then decide to use their powers to help the people around them. But you wanna know they get their powers in the movie? Before Reed, Johnny, and Victor (aka Doctor Doom) go to dimension X, they get drunk and then decide to fire up the inter dimensional portal to go there. Yeah, they become superheroes all because they got freaking tipsy! 

And it gets better, the only reason Ben comes along for the ride is because Reed literally calls him in the middle of the night and invites him over. And Sue? She doesn't even go on the freaking trip to the other dimension! She literally gets her powers because she got hit by an energy wave as she tries to get the boys back home. And soon after that they get captured by the government, which causes Reed to break out in fear and become MIA for a full year while the rest of the team still experiments with their powers with the assistance of the government. What the hell? If there's anything I know about these characters is that even before they became Superheroes, what ever shit they faced, they faced together. Like I said before, how does Fox expect us to believe these guys are a team, or a family no less, if they barely even interact with one another?!

 But by far the worst character in this entire movie is Doctor Doom. Dear god, if you thought the Tim Story F4 films fucked this character to high hell then you're in for a rude awakening because what they did to doom in this movie should be a crime.

Because you know the Doctor Doom from the comics that was always five steps ahead of the heroes, a master of magic and science, and a badass dictator who rules his own country with an iron fist? Yeah, they turned him into a fucking hermit who stays in a room all day and plays video games. And in case you're wondering how he becomes the villain, he ends up going into the alternate dimension with the heroes, and the film just fucking forgets he even exists up until the last 20 minutes of the movie! Because you know, it's a superhero movie! The heroes gotta have somebody to fight am I right? Ugh. Just how do you screw up characters this badly? How?!

Conclusion 

Guys, there's no denying that we're living in the golden age of comic book movies right now. With so many amazing films coming out I was naive enough to believe that we have truly put the days of atrocious comic book films like Batman and Robin or X-Men Origins: Wolverine behind us. But this movie showed me just how wrong I was to believe that.

It's clear to me that Fox clearly didn't have a plan when making this movie and that it was clearly made to keep the rights from Marvel. And now since the film is flopping both critically and financially, to say that it blew up in their faces would be the understatement of the century.

If you ask me, it's high time Fox admits defeat, sell the rights back to Marvel, and stick to Mutants. The first family of comics deserves a lot better than this.

Until then folks, take care and avoid this atrocity by any means necessary. I suffered through it so that you don't have to.

In the mean time I'm gonna go watch the Incredibles, because as it stands, it's the closest thing we've got to a good F4 movie.