'Fantastic Four': A Long, Long, Long Way Down

You know how...well...never mind.

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'Fantastic Four', not to be confused with the lesser and more entertaining 'Fantastic Four', is a modern "re-imagining" reboot of the 2005 film that aims to bring a new approach to a series that so desperately needed new life. 'Fantastic Four' follows four, technically five, young...people I guess? Anyway it follows four/five (sorta) of the worst characters in movie history geniuses who all get wrapped up in a project to teleport to an alternate universe in an attempt to help Mr. Storm (and I guess the government?) help solves the world's problems through the discovery of alternate resources and really anything else they happen to stumble upon. When the movie feels like it's most convenient stuff starts to hit the fan and go sideways their normal lives are stripped away from them as the trip back to our reality hits a snag and causes everyone to receive special abilities...


Okay I can't do this. I can't think of a decent way to describe the plot of this film. But it's a 'Fantastic Four' reboot right? The premise is the same right? Well, not exactly. I could try but by the end I'll just sound like a babbling idiot who has lost all sense of reason. I'm just going to come out and say it, this film is really bad. I mean really, really bad. So much so that even going in with little to no expectations didn't prepare me for what I was about to see. But you know what? I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. It was just so frightening exciting to see the train wreck and then explode and then grow wings and try to fly and then explode mid-air again and watching it all rain down to the ground. So rather than me saying what's good about 'Fantastic Four', I'll spend most of my time saying why this train wreck shouldn't have even been allowed on the tracks in the first place.

Let's get started.

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The cast. 'Fantastic Four', again, not to be confused with 'Fantastic Four' boasts a powerful cast of recognizable faces that we've come to know and love over the last few years. We have Miles Tiller ('Whiplash', 'Divergent'), playing Reed Richards, Michael B. Jordan ('Creed', 'Fruitvale Station'), playing Johnny Storm, Kate Mara ('House of Cards', 'Iron Man 2') playing Sue Storm, Jamie Bell ('Jumper', 'King Kong') playing Ben Grimm, Tony Kebbell ('Dawn of the Planet of the Apes', 'Wrath of the Titans') playing Victor Von Doom and Reg. E. Cathy ('House of Cards, 'Se7en'). So all in all these are pretty good actors who have done pretty good work. 'Fantastic Four' seeks to destroy that in any way that it possibly can. I can honestly say that this film has to be the worst film of all of these actors' careers. It's amazing how bad writing just messes up a character no matter how good of an actor is playing it. These characters couldn't have gotten any more flat and any more bland. Not only was there a lack of emotion between these characters but they all just weren't important. Yes they were important to the story but to me as an audience member they had no importance whatsoever. I couldn't connect to them in any meaningful or even meaningless way. I just couldn't. I will say that their performances were dedicated though but I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good or bad thing. All in all, it just goes to show that poor movies can ruin the most promising of actors no matter how much they try to make it great.

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The second pull of the trigger is just how much this film didn't care. As a movie watcher often times you can tell when a director and the crew has poured their blood, sweat, tears, and even more blood into a film for the world to enjoy. This is not one of those films. There are way too many times 'Fantastic Four dropped the ball. It helps to know that even the director regretted the very existence of this film and even may have taken out his rage on set so at least I know that I can't take all 100 minutes of this film seriously. In fact, it made me hang my head out of respect for such a tragedy. Not only was this a testament to how movie studios can potentially destroy a film franchise and ruin a film director but it's also sad to know that through all of the pain and strife 'Fantastic Four' still managed to see the light of day. There were countless times where actors were obviously reading lines from a prompter or a script, characters would be literally, and I mean LITERALLY, gone and forgotten for large chunks of screen time, a naked Thing, dialogue was cheesy and flat (I never want to hear the use of "IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!!!") and there was just an overall sense of not caring from everybody involved with 'Fantastic Four'. As an member of the audience it honestly just felt insulting. Not only did I use a free movie ticket because there's no way I would ever pay for this movie pay for this film but I even though I (sort of) knew what I was getting into it was still a load of absolute mess that should have been taken care of a lot more. I'm not sure whose entirely to blame here but whoever it is deserves to get beat over the head with a stack of DVDs from Marvel's Phase One. Completely unacceptable.

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The third and final aspect of this movie that I want to talk about wasn't something that went wrong on screen but something that went wrong from the very inception of this reboot.

The overly used superhero-reboot-that's-dark-and-gritty-and-edgy-and-full-of-angst trope. It worked for Christopher Nolan's Batman series, it worked (sorta) for 'Man of Steel' and it even worked for Marvel's 'Captain America: Winter Soldier' but that doesn't mean that it has to now be integrated into every single movie reboot! In fact, I'll even say let DC have the whole gritty-broody-the-world-is-meaningless feel because it works for their characters. It didn't work for the Fantastic 4 team. Not in the slightest. I can understand wanting to go in that direction to help appeal to a new generation but just....no. It was already a bad thing to have all the members of the Fantastic 4 be underage and not yet finished high school. In fact, I don't think half of them even went to school. They just existed, used their smartness to build things, got powers, failed at said powers, "saved" the world and lived miserably ever after. That's it...well that and the brooding undertone of life is meaningless and as an outcast I now have to try and fit in with my new found powers to gain acceptance and make daddy and/or mommy like me that just put a damper on what could've been another entertaining-yet-not-so-good reboot. Excuse me while I go cry in a corner.

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You may be wondering why I have a picture of the 2005 version of 'Fantastic Four' posted right above this paragraph. That's because I refuse to recognize anything else as an actual Fantastic Four movie. I absolutely refuse. A lot of people rip in the 2005 version of the film but honestly seeing this years failed attempt at legal torture made me appreciate it so much more. It was entertaining, funny and the characters were semi-likable. The plot could've been better, the characters could've been a bit more solid and they could've actually cast a white woman to be Susan Storm but hey, it put this year's 'Fantastic Four' to shame. You know, it's a sad testament to the state of franchise films and the constant right for big name rights in today's cinematic landscape. As you all probably know this wasn't a Marvel movie that was part of the every-growing Marvel Cinematic Universe. I personally think that now is a better time than any to stop bullying directors into making something that's absolute trash. I'm not pinning the entire blame on FOX but they sure have a pretty big part in this to play and it's sure nothing to be proud of.

With all of that being said, there are almost no redeeming qualities in this year's 'Fantastic Four' and before you think that I'm being a bit overly critical just know that I went to see this with my roommate who isn't familiar with the comic book characters of the Fantastic Four. He laughed about as hard as I did. Very hard.

I originally loved the character of The Thing in this movie because he's a lot more sturdy (pun intended) and menacing but then he had no pants. For a whole hour you get to witness the pant-less The Thing running around and what not. It's weird, just plain weird. This is the sort of film one watches with a group of friends for pure fun/sport or to torture that guy who just committed an act of terrorism on your land. I don't know, you pick. I would rant on more about the different atrocious assets of this movie but there's a lot that can't be said without giving it away so I urge you to watch it for yourself when you can obtain it for a cost that is at or close to $0. Go spend your time doing something important like watching 'Southpaw' or 'Ant Man' or watching paint peel off a wall or even go and watch 'Green Lantern'. Yes, 'Green Lantern' was a better film than this. I'm sorry. I saw this so you don't have to now please go out into all the Earth and spread the news that this is something to stay away from.