Fantastic Four Review

Directed by: Josh Trank

Written by: Simon Kinberg, Jeremy Slater, Josh Trank

Staring: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B Jordan, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell

Released: August 6th 2015

*This review contains mild spoilers* 

Fantastic Four has had one of the most interesting journeys to screen I’ve seen in recent years. Coming off the success of Chronicle, there was actually quite a bit of excitement about director Josh Trank rebooting the franchise, especially given how Marvel’s first family have struggled to find footing in previous cinematic outings he seemed like just the man to reinvent them for the silver screen. The controversial news that the film would be following the Ultimate line of comics was actually also something that excited me, given that growing up reading that series could in a way make them “my” Fantastic Four, or at least allow me to have a soft spot for them. After this however things went haywire. Controversial casting, an apparently dark and gritty tone and poor reports from the set levelled an amount of hatred towards this movie more extreme than any superhero movie in recent years. I admit to initially being deadest against the movie, but the more I heard the more excited I became, to the point I could consider myself cautiously optimistic. When the movie started and I wasn’t struck blind, I had a feeling negative reports of this movie had been greatly over exaggerated. When I found myself surprisingly enjoying the first act, this was definitely confirmed. It’s a shame then that the movie throws a lot of its own potential out the window in order to be a more fan-pleasing “traditional” superhero movie in the third act, and completely ignores any semblance of a second.

The Baxter Building as a “think tank” is very much in line with the Ultimate version.

As the movie began I admit I started to feel my hopes drop; opening with Reed as the “nerdy outsider” cliché wasn’t the best way to start, especially because the acting felt rather bland due to the child actors, and everything had this grey filter than felt really off-putting. My friend and I started to joke as we panned over a shot of an auto-repair yard with “Grimm” on the sign that this wasn’t set up for Ben but instead a warning to the audience of the movie ahead. Things continued like this with the opening seemingly wanting to use every cliché they could (nerdy outsider, tough kid who for some reason befriends him and pushes him to achieve, nerdy kid isn’t understood by peers but is picked up by people who can elevate his situation) and so the riffing continued. However as things started to get going though, I began to realise I was actually genuinely quite enjoying what was on screen rather that just making fun of it

What really began to sell me on the movie was the cast. For all the complaining that was done about the leads being too young or not at all like the cast they sell the hell out of their roles. The parallels with Ultimate FF were clear, and once you understand that (if you’ve read those books) the cast actually feel quite familiar, albeit with distinct personalities for the movies. Particular stand outs among the cast are Miles Teller and Jamie Bell as Reed Richards and Ben Grimm respectively. The really sold me on the idea of these two as friends, despite the only reason they are is that the script demands it, giving the movie a nice little emotional weight (nothing too heavy but it pays off during the transformation scenes) and I really enjoyed their personalities. They might go a little heavy handed with Reed’s awkward nerd routine but it still made me laugh and I found him rather charming and playful, Jamie Bell too completely shrugs off any lasting impressions of him as Billy Elliot as he plays a tough but lovable Ben Grimm that really looks out for Reed and with whom he shares great on screen chemistry. Michael B Jordan also turns in a spot on performance as Johnny Storm, who gets some interesting depth concerning his relationship with his father Franklin (Reg E. Cathey, who has the greatest voice in the movie), it’s a shame though that much of his character development seems to hit the cutting room floor so we get no real pay off for this. Really the only weak link is unfortunately Kate Mara, there’s nothing wrong with her performance, she’s easily miles better than Jessica Alba, it’s just that she gets frustratingly little to do in the movie. She gets maybe two scenes of bonding with Reed and for no other reason than we know they’re married in the comics we’re supposed to feel some sort of chemistry from them which is unfortunately just not there. Like Johnny, her character seems to be an unfortunate victim of heavy editing.

The cast really bond and sell the movie during the first act.

Of course, what may be one of the most hotly debated roles is Toby Kebbell as Victor Von Doom (yes they changed it back from Dormachev). When he first appeared on screen sitting in a dark room surrounded by computer screens and playing videogames it felt like all my fears had came true, they’d turned the glorious Doom into some unrecognisable fool. After the initial shock however, I found myself quite liking him. He nails the arrogance and stubbornness of Doom and works well alongside the rest of the cast, particularly Michael B Jordon who delivers the best joke of the movie when he meets Victor. While a few annoying script quibbles still surround the character (Sue referring to him as “our resident Doctor Doom” received an audible groan for example) the character still works well, albiet in a way no fan could probably have predicted. It’s unfortunate then that after his transformation into fully powered super villain he turns out looking more like a crash test dummy (despite a horrifying description of why he looks that way) and from there the movie staggers towards a rushed conclusion. When examining what exactly happened that the movie falls about in the second half, some major problems became clear to me which only became more frustrating when I realised how much I liked what had proceeded before it. The biggest problem seems to be the fact that the movie really doesn’t have a second act.

The thing’s transformation is brutal and tragic.

As I said, the cast really click during the first act of the movie, I was really enjoying most of their chemistry and felt they did really well in the roles, managing to alter the characters in unexpected ways while still being visible as the original characters. It was also a pretty well done contemporary origin for the Fantastic Four, borrowing from Ultimate FF worked very well in making everything feel quite modern and new, with technology like inter-dimensional travel making more sense in a modern setting than space travel. After the origin however, things begin to fall apart, and the slow burn sci-fi thriller we’ve been watching rushes to become a superhero movie. A lot of chatter had gone on about this movie feeling like a “Cronenberg horror film” and being a fan of films such as The Fly and being drawn to the tragic body horror potential present in these characters, something traditionally explored with The Thing, I felt this would be a fantastic angle to explore, and from what little of it is left in the movie it really is. The origin scene is incredibly tense and more graphic than I would’ve expected, it was quite shocking and only got stronger from there. A particularly harrowing scene involved the newly transformed thing trapped in a cocoon and calling out to Reed for help. It was a terrifying scene, Bell sells the fear and hurt in Ben’s voice as Reed abandons him, with Teller managing to portray similar feelings of shock at his friend’s transformation and the guilt he feels both having caused this and from running away from it. After this powerful scene however, the movie jumps forward in time by a year and everything collapses. We see no more of the four coming to terms with their powers outside of clichéd arguments like “we should use our powers for good” and “no we need to find a cure!” It felt like everything the movie had spent so much time setting up had been thrown out the window and we’d skipped over all the important character development. Instead we get a few shots of poorly done CGI that establish their powers for the big fight at the end, rather than attempt to show any of the struggle they’ve had with these powers as was suggested both by the crew and the story itself.

Unneeded and terribly designed, Doom has no purpose in this movie.

This abrupt change becomes more obvious when only a few minutes later after getting the cast back together (which should have great emotional pay-off but instead feels flat) Doom suddenly shows up and we find ourselves at the conclusion. It’s bizarre and feels completely disjointed from the film we’ve been watching so far. We’ve been building up the government as an insidious villain that gets under the casts skin, even going as far as to name the lead agent after the Moleman for a little comic book link, but they’re suddenly quite literally brushed aside by Doom so that instead of seeing a smart confrontation between the kids and the government or the cast coming to terms with Reed’s betrayal, we get a soulless “beat up the bad guy” climax like every other superhero movie ever, except without any heart. The final fight looks and feels cheap and provides no sense of satisfaction or payoff for the previous hour and a half of the movie. It feels like the studio got cold feet with Trank’s slow paced sci-fi/horror approach and instead decided they wanted a blockbuster action movie like Avengers and shoved it in regardless or whether or not it thematically fit. I definitely felt there was some studio interference while watching the movie, and recent reports by Trank and other sources seem to point towards this. I’m not saying that Trank’s version would’ve been perfect by any means, as stated there were still some quite cringe worthy elements of the script which seemed to make it feel more like a noughties era superhero movie rather than a fresh new approach, but there’s enough about what we see of his original version that I liked, and to see this edited version defang a lot of what makes the good stuff great makes it all the more disappointing. The movie feels strangely short at only 100 minutes, and I left feeling that another half hour of character work would’ve made the movie a lot better. The more I think about this, the more I think that’s exactly what was cut out, and the movie is a lot worse for it.

A sci-fi thriller really could’ve worked if trusted.

Really, when it comes down to it, there’s a much better movie hiding in Fantastic Four than the one we got. The first half of the movie, while a little clichéd and rough around the edges, is sold on the strength of the cast and the ambition to try something new in the superhero genre. It seems somewhere along the line though the studio decided this isn’t what it wanted and went for a much safer, more disappointing option. The movie has already been crucified by fans for deviating from the comics, but that’s really not the issue here. There was an attempt at doing something new, but a mix of audience hostility and studio mishandling has dampened that version and left us instead with a hollow husk. It’s an experiment that was pulled at the last minute, and while I can’t recommend the movie due to these problems, I’d wouldn’t discourage you from seeing it if you’re curious. When looking at Fantastic Four, I see the movie we could’ve got, which leaves me feeling both more generous than most about my feelings for the movie but also more critical as I wanted the movie to achieve its full potential.