Movie Review: Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four
Directed by Josh Trank
In Theatres

Think of that feeling you get whenever you think of your favourite film. Or maybe, instead, think of that feeling you get when you walk out of theatre after seeing a real exciting film, full of all the stuff you love. Take those feelings and give them a hug, say something nice to them, ‘cause it’s about to get a little ugly here. The way your favourite film makes you feel? The way you feel when you’re done watching a great movie? Seeing Fantastic Four is the complete opposite of that.

This is the fourth Fantastic Four movie. And I would really love to tell you that the new one is the best of the bunch. I really would. That might get my name on the poster. But that would be a lie. And we’ve come too far together to start lying to each other now. The new Fantastic Four sets a new standard for bad movie making, which is kind of amazing considering the train wreck this franchise has been since the beginning.

How bad is it? It is Catwoman bad, it is Elektra bad. It’s Batman & Robin bad. It’s Green Lantern bad. Actually, no. Fantastic Four is worse. Far worse. At least those movies are glorious mistakes, so bad they’re almost fun to watch. Fantastic Four is not fun. There is no fun in its DNA. There is no fun to be had watching this level of incompetence. There will be no “Oh, my god. Can you believe this actually happened?” There will be no Fantastic Four drinking games.

It can’t be the fault of the source material. If that was the case, then Ant-Man never should have been as much fun as it was.

I had some hope for this movie. The comics were an important part of my childhood. Hell, the first words I remember reading are: “It’s clobberin’ time”. And Josh Trank, the director, is responsible for Chronicle, one of the better found footage films, a movie that is a full of fun and angst. I really like Chronicle. And when I heard he was directing a comic book movie, I was excited. Now, now I’m thinking Chronicle was a fluke.

So, let’s talk about the actual movie for a moment. The movie begins with 5th Graders Ben Grimm and Reed Richards making an inter-dimensional thing-a-ma-bob. We get to see Ben Grimm beaten by his older adult brother, who yells “It’s clobberin’ time” before he abuses his younger brother. I think that, maybe, the brain that thought up that scene saw Man of Steel and really enjoyed it when Pa Kent tells young Clark he should have let the children on the school bus drown.

Anyway, we jump forward seven years and Reed Richards and Ben Grimm have grown up to be Miles Teller and Jamie Bell and are in a high school science fair. They use their inter-dimensional whatsit to send a model airplane away and back again. They get disqualified because… reasons. Inter-dimensional whatsits scientist Dr. Franklin Storm, played by Reg E. Cathey, and his daughter Sue, played by Kate Mara, introduce themselves to our heroes. And why is an inter-dimensional whatsits scientist and his daughter hanging around an Oyster Bay high school science fair? Because… reasons.

Reed Richards joins the Storms and helps them build an inter-dimensional whocares. Pa Storm goes off to recruit Victor Von Doom, played by Tobey Kebbell. Johnny Storm, played by Michael B. Jordan, is introduced street racing. And they talk and they talk and they talk and nothing happens in this movie for about five hours. And then there is 15 minutes of action and then it’s over and oh, my god this thing is so very, very, very boring.

I thought I had seen every kind of botch job that could be done to a comic book movie. But never before have I seen a movie with what seems like three hours of origin story and then present the discovery of the powers in a conference room on a TV set. Seriously. The audience sits and watches the superheroes use their superpowers on a TV during a meeting in a conference room. And not one of your big conference rooms, oh, no. Nope. This is the small one with the small table with stale sandwiches on a plate in the middle.

A lesson for any budding filmmakers reading this thing: if you’re going to make your audience sit through yet another origin story, remember that the only joy they will get from this is when the heroes discover their powers. Making your audience watch other people watch TV is dull and lazy.

The cast isn’t the problem. The cast does the best it can with characters that are nothing but elevator pitches. The script is atrocious, the direction is a mess, the special effects are mediocre at best, the cinematography is just a mess. The trailer for this thing looks so, so much better than the finished product. Hell, most of the stuff that was in the trailers never makes it to the film. Tempted to pay money to see this movie? Watch the trailers and then go for a walk. There, I just saved you ten bucks.

I am trying to find something positive but I’ve got nothing. Fantastic Four fails so badly. It isn’t even a spectacular fail. It just sits there and fails. It’s almost like the filmmakers didn’t even try and when they did it was too late and we’re just left with something that would have been better left on a shelf in some warehouse somewhere in the California desert. This is a fail on the level of E.T. the video game. When this thing is released on dvd it will replace coal in bad children’s Christmas stockings.

I find this film so bad that I just may judge you if you like it. Really.

Things I thought about while watching Fantastic Four:
    •    I hope Jamie Bell’s accent coach never gets paid.
    •    Why is Kate Mara in this thing? She doesn’t need the money. She is the great-granddaughter of both Tim Mara, who founded the New York Giants, and Art Rooney, who founded the Pittsburgh Steelers. Her family still owns both teams. So, really. Why is she here?
    •    What is up with Kate Mara’s wig? It changes between shots. I know that there were reshoots, but, man. Where did they find that wig? The Wigspere in Knoxville, TN?
    •    There are two cast members of The Wire in this movie. I’m going to try to name worse projects that have cast more than one person from The Wire.
    •    I can’t. This is the worst.
    •    Why is so little of this movie outside? Why does most of it take place inside? I miss the sun.
    •    The reason for the kids taking the inter-dimensional whoreallygivesadamn for a spin is because NASA sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon and not the engineers who built Apollo 11? Huh?
    •    How did Sue Storm get her powers? She wasn’t in the inter-dimensional ijustgiveup.
    •    Was this movie made by people playing Madlibs?
    •    I miss the sun.

Anyway.

Look, you wanna take your honey out for a movie or you just wanna sit in some air conditioned comfort while things go boom. Go see Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation instead. It is so much more fun, so much better made, so much more entertaining. Just miles and miles ahead the better film.

Fantastic Four is not worth your money or your time, Kellie. I read a movie review years and years ago where the writer advised: “If this movie comes to your local theatre, avoid the theatre. If this movie comes to TV, sell your TV.” I think they could have been writing about Fantastic Four.