After the opening credits that go by so fast that you think they're trying to rush to get this over with, we open to a grade school classroom where students are describing what they want to be when they grow up. We meet young Reed Richards, who says he wants to be the first person to teleport between dimensions and that he's already built a teleporter. His teacher scoffs at him and tells him to pick something more realistic, because you know, teachers aren't supposed to nurture students dreams, he said sarcastically. But Reed's classmate, Ben Grimm takes and interest in Reed's teleporter and helps him finish it and test it on a toy car. This is a pretty nice scene, with some humor added in with Reed saying "Don't blow up. Don't blow up." The two kids even find out they have harsh family lives in common. Ben comes from an abusive home, where he gets beat up by his brother, who in turn is beat up by their mother. His brother even announces "it's clobberin' time". Keep that in mind because I'll come back to that later. Reed's a little better off with his parents just not caring or understanding Reed's interests or his intellect. I feel this is an example of the grittiness they wanted to bring to the franchise. But the thing is, you don't need to have characters come from harsh backgrounds to be more interesting. The characters never needed that for years, and even here, it's a small aspect of the movie that hardly gets mentioned later.
We cut to seven years later where we have teenage Reed and Ben, now played by Miles Teller and Jamie Bell. I need to talk about Jamie Bell's casting for a bit now. Ben Grimm is supposed to be in some ways, Reed's bodyguard. In the Ultimate comics, which was a big influence on this movie, Ben protects Reed from bullies. I look at Jamie Bell and I don't see Ben Grimm at all. He's not even intimidating. Hell, Miles Teller is even taller than him. I read that they wanted to cast someone small like Jamie Bell because they wanted to emphasize how much of a change it is when he becomes the Thing. I'm sorry, but this is a guy who is irreversibly turned into a rock monster. That's a massive change it its own right that he didn't need to be small to start off with. We already had Hulk for that, and even then there's a big difference in character when Bruce Banner transforms.
Anyway, teenage Reed and Ben present a perfected teleporter at the school science fair and successfully transport and bring back a model plane he borrows from a nearby kid, but the same douchey teacher from before disqualifies them thinking it was just a magic trick. But they are able to get the attention of Franklin Storm, played by Reg E. Cathey, who represents the Baxter Foundation and recruits Reed to help build an inter-dimensional teleporter. Cathey is actually one of the few good actors in this movie and acts as a great father figure to the group and even delivers a good inspirational speech later.
Reed also meets Storm's daughter, Sue, played by Kate Mara. Now, in the comics, Reed and Sue are pretty much the premiere couple of the Marvel universe. In this movie, there is absolutely NO chemistry between Mara and Teller, and honestly, I blame this mostly on Mara, who is probably the worst actor in this whole film. She is just so wooden and I hardly hear any emotion in her voice. She even makes the basic idea of music BORING. Though I guess I can't totally blame her. Apparently, Trank didn't want to cast Mara but was forced to by Fox, so he treated her very poorly on set, which I think showed in performance.
In addition to Reed, Franklin Storm also brings in Victor Von Doom, played by Toby Kebbel who was involved in the teleporter project before but got kicked out for reasons that I didn't quite understand. Now, initial descriptions of this interpretation of the character had him named Victor Domashev and that he was a hacker that blogged under the username Doom. Fans like myself were fucking pissed. Dr. Doom is one of the greatest supervillains of all time, who is able to stand up to multiples heroes at one time, and even in the current Secret Wars even, he is basically GOD, and they made him a damn blogger?!
But of course, when Fox did reshoots, they changed his name back to Von Doom and downplayed the hacker aspect. Now, before watching this, I thought "Okay, maybe that salvages the character a bit", but when he's introduced in the film, he's in a darkly lit room and sitting at multiple computer screens, pretty much what you'd expect from a hacker. Seriously, remember that nerdy guy from the World of Warcraft episode of South Park?
Victor pretty much looks like that, only thinner and with more hair.
But when he comes back to the facility, he does clean up a bit. Here's the thing though. Kebbell as Victor just isn't intimidating. When the trailer came out, I didn't even realize that was Victor. Honestly, I found Julian McMahon more threatening in the 2005 and 2007 films. Even when he wasn't in a suit, he was such an intimidating character. I don't get that with Kebbell. But much like the older films, they retread the old plots of Victor having an unrequited love for Sue (though not as prevalent here) and jealousy towards Reed because he's apparently smarter than him. I got more to say about Doom as we go on.
We finally round out the cast with the introduction of Johnny Storm, who crashes his car in a drag race. Now I'm just going to address the elephant in the room. Michale B. Jordan's casting as Johnny caused a lot of uproar because he was African American where Johnny is white in the comics. Even before the official announcement of the castings, Jordan had been rumored to play Johnny for months, so when they finally did announce it, I was okay with the idea. Hell, I was more surprised about Bell's casting as Thing. Even after watching Jordan in the film "Chronicle" (also directed by Trank), I saw he had what it take to play Johnny. Now, I don't mind race changes when it comes to comic book movies. Some good examples I can think of are Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, Jamie Foxx as Electro, and the West family on the Flash. But the thing is, his casting is controversial because it felt like Fox was pushing for diversity for the sake of it, especially when they kept his sister Sue white. Hell, why didn't they go all out and cast Sue as black as well? And if they wanted diversity, why not do it for Ben Grimm? Terry Crews had some interest in playing the Thing before, and I could have seen it happen before they decided to cast young (oh well, maybe for the MCU). Food for thought.
Anyway, Johnny gets grounded by his father, which brings in some good father issues that don't really get more attention as they should, and is blackmailed into helping build the teleporter so he can get his car back in return. There is an emphasis on how much of a rebel Johnny is in comparison with his humor that stay true to the character, like saying he's "not wearing a lab coat" and saying stuff to annoy Victor.
It's at this point we get a montage of the teleporter being built and I discovered something. The music in this movie is boring, if not non-existent. You know how superhero movies have a main score to get you exicted? Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Avengers. They all had good music. Fant4stic doesn't. Even the scene of Johnny's drag race is kind of boring because of it. And honestly, there were times that I think they actually reused some of the music from the old Fantastic Four movies. Watch and listen for it. Tell me I'm not crazy.
So after the teleporter is built and tested, the teens are disappointed to find out that they wouldn't be the first humans to use it. So what happens then? Reed, Johnny, and Victor get drunk and decide to highjack the teleporter. Reed even calls Ben to come with them just for the story's sake. Maybe this is why you guys weren't qualified for interdimensional travel? Seriously, this is one of the dumbest parts of the film. I mean, do scientists and technicians who build rockets complain about not immediately going into space? No. It's left for TRAINED PROFESSIONALS (unless said scientists and technicians actually do get some training). What they do here makes them all look like IDIOTS. What's even worse is that Sue doesn't even come with them, only coming to the control panel when she finds out what they've done.
Reed, Johnny, Victor, and Ben successfully travel to Planet Zero, which looks like the planet from "Prometheus", and much like that movie, Franklin Storm even mentioned earlier how Planet Zero could potentially gives answers to the creation and meaning of life. And also like in "Prometheus", the intellect of the crew of that movie very much matches the four who teleported here, as when Victor touches the green goo that has no idea what it could be, that's when the ground around them starts to crumble. They rush back to the teleporter, but Victor gets slimed by the green goo and falls to his apparent death (the way I describe it may not seem like it, but I actually felt bad for Victor here). The other three have trouble trying to close their pods when they're brought back by Sue on Earth, which causes a huge explosion that destroys the teleporter and everything around it.
This leads to one of the few good moments of the film, where the four protagonists are discovering what's happened to them (even though I'm still confused as to how and why they got their powers). Reed is stretched out and screaming out for someone to tell him what happened to his friends, which is a pretty emotional moment. Sue keeps going in and out of visibility and lies as wooden as her performance. Johnny is unable to control his fire and you can kind of feel the pain he is. And Ben is breaking out of some kind of rock cocoon to reveal his new form, which actually does look better in action than it does in pictures. Much like the Ultimate comics that was inspiration, the discovery of their powers is downright horrific, which is a lot different from other superhero movies, where the shock doesn't seem as extreme.
Reed breaks out of his room and finds Ben, who's begging Reed to help. So what does Reed do? He completely abandons his friends and escapes the facility they're being held at. Because, yeah, way to make the guy who is supposed to be the essentially main character of the movie and leader of the team they're supposed to be look bad. I mean, they try to excuse this action as him being scared and blames himself for what happened, but that's crap. Reed would never just up and leave.
We cut to a year later, and the government has been using Ben for military applications with plans to use Johnny and Sue as well, under the promise of a cure, while also rebuilding the teleporter to get back to Planet Zero so they can discover how to use its resources for their own uses, including making more superpowered soliders. I have two problems with this: 1. You have the whole "the government's trying to take control of something they don't understand" cliche; 2. One of the biggest issues of the film all together is that they're trying to militarize the Fantastic Four. They even get black "containment suits" that look nothing like the classic costumes. Hell, they don't even give Thing pants. Why did they not give Thing pants? I don't care if he's invulnerable or doesn't have junk, get him a pair of shorts, PLEASE! Now, I know there's an argument that they did the same thing with the X-Men with them wearing black leather suits, but they still looked like the X-Men.
Go on and try to tell me that you can't tell that's Wolverine, Storm, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, etc. Hell, they even still have "X"'s on their uniforms. I mean, you know how far Fant4stic wants to go to try and not be a comic book movie? Sue even describes their powers not as powers, but as "aggressively abnormal physical conditions". Noooo, THEY'RE FUCKING POWERS. You can call them gifts or abilities, but don't spew that long nerdy crap when you can call them something as simple as SUPERPOWERS.
Anyway, they're still having trouble getting the new teleporter to work and they need Reed to help them finish it, so they track him down and send Ben to bring him back. On the trip back, Ben blames Reed, which is understandable. Now I'm torn on this scene. On one hand, this is supposed to be an emotional moment where these best friends have had this tragedy happen to them and it seems it can't be fixed. But on the other hand, Ben is fully justified in being pissed at Reed. He abandoned all of them! He could have stayed with them, helped build a new teleporter and find a potential cure. But noooo, he had to leave, just for the sake of having more drama in the film.
So after Reed takes all of ten minutes to get the teleporter to work, a team of TRAINED PROFESSIONALS teleport to Planet Zero where they find Victor, still alive and his environment suit fused to his skin, and bring him back to Earth. Now, it's been talked about before about how much the Fantastic Four get a raw deal when trying to adapt them to film, but no character in this franchise seems to get it worse than Dr. Doom. I mean, you have this character who dedicates his life to mastering technology and sorcery and even rules his own country, and he just keeps getting screwed over and over in film. This go around, he doesn't even look like Dr. Doom, but more of a charred crash test dummy. Just look at this comparison.
But whereas the '05-07 Doom had more electric based powers (which I hated), this new Doom is extremely overpowered having telekinetic powers, moving things, blowing up people's heads, and creating force fields. Seriously, why can't they just get Doom right?
Victor, now calling himself just "Doom", begins killing everyone in the facility and plans to use the teleporter to get back to Planet Zero and suck Earth up into a black hole. He even kills Franklin Storm. I guess this is supposed to give the main four an "avenge me!" motivation to work together like Coulson's death in the Avengers, but we hardly spend any time on that because they immediately follow Doom through the portal. It's at this moment that you can tell that they're really rushing to finish this movie (especially by how Miles Teller's acting seem to get worse, and he was actually doing well until this point) as we move on to the climactic final battle of the film with Doom vs. the Four on Planet Zero with Earth hanging in the balance.
So what are Doom's tactics to defeat these four heroes? Throw rocks at them. Yeah, I'm serious. He blew up people's heads before, but with the actual superpowered beings that can potentially stop them? Just smash them under some rocks. As the film continues to rush to end, the four quickly forget about finding a cure for themselves, accept their powers, and devise a new plan to defeat Doom: just hit him really hard. Yep, their ingenious plan to defeat the almost god-like being is something Goku from the Dragon Ball Z Abridged series would come up with.
But of course, the four succeed with Ben even saying "It's clobberin' time", which makes me think that him quoting the line his brother used when he beat him up means he has some serious issues to work out, Doom is disintegrated in the portal, destroying it, and the Earth is saved.
Like I said, this is one of the most rushed climaxes I've ever seen in a comic book movie. It's really hard to get invested because it's almost totally computer generated. Between the characters, their powers, and the background, nothing feels real. I think what would have made it better is to show the stakes that are involved. Show the portal sucking up the Earth and that innocent lives are in danger. You think back to other comic book movies and you see there's risk involved if the hero doesn't act quickly. In both Avengers movies, you have the Chitauri attacking civilians in New York, and Ultron threatening to drop Sokovia and its citizens like a meteor. In the Amazing Spider-Man movies, you saw people trying to evacuate as the Lizard planned to spread his mutating serum, and there were the two planes on a collision course because of Electro taking over the power grid. If this climax had anything like that, it might have been slightly better.
So the day is saved, the four get some more freedom from the government to work as they please, and they try to come up with a name for themselves just before they cut to the title screen.
And that was Fant4stic. If ever there was an example of a movie being made just because it had to be, this is the result and it is boring. I mean, I could see where they were trying to go with this movie, and there was definitely potential. If this wasn't the Fantastic Four, it definitely could have worked as an original sci-fi idea, or even a sequel to Chronicle (because I sense a lot of ideas Trank had for one were used in this movie). But when you have an existing property, you have characters people know and love and expect to see them adapted faithfully. Say what you will about the 2005-07 films, but despite their faults, they still retained the spirit and fun of the comics, which can't be said for the new film since they tried to make it so different and gritty from before that you couldn't even recognize who these characters are. Apparently the reshoots made it a much different movie than it was before, but I honestly believe that this film was doomed from the beginning because of how much it was changed from the source.
It goes without saying the film is a failure on every level, and everyone who said it would be is vindicated. But from that failure, there is hope. A sequel scheduled for 2017 has been cancelled, which increases the chances of the film rights returning to Marvel, unless Fox waits until the last moment to try and reboot again. But why would they? For one, the first two movies actually made a profit for them. Also, people are smart and have caught on to things. They know about how Marvel's film rights are spread between studios, which films are set in the MCU and which aren't. If Fox does try again with the Fantastic Four, it can be guaranteed to be another failure. And I've seen some people say "Well what makes you think Marvel can do a better job?" Hell, if Marvel can make a hit out of a talking tree and a trigger happy raccoon, they sure as hell can do justice for their first family. Besides, you want a good comparison of how much better they are at Fox? Compare the 2003 Daredevil movie to the Netflix series. 'Nuff said.
And what of the people who worked on this movie? Well, for Josh Trank, his career is all but over. He was originally on board to direct a Star Wars spin-off film for Disney but was fired due to his behavior while filming this movie (though he'll say he quit). After Chronicle, this guy just obviously wasn't ready for a big time blockbuster with a studio breathing down his neck. If there's ever a documentary about the making this movie, it will probably be more entertaining than the actual film.
As for the actors, Michael B. Jordan has bounced back with "Creed" and Toby Kebbell is signed on for "Kong: Skull Island", so he should be fine. Everyone else, like Teller and Mara, I'm sure will be fine too. Because these people are talented in other things. They were just involved in a bad project. It happens with every actor. They all have hits and misses. If we based our opinions on actors solely on their bad films, then nobody would be considered a good actor.
The best thing anyone can do, between the actors of this film and the fans of the comics, is try to put this terrible thing behind them, and hope for better things to come in the future.
RATING: 1/10
