Fantastic 4 (2015) a review

Fantastic 4 (2015) a review

Well, it’s finally here. The reboot Fox has been hoping for in hopes to keeping the movie rights to the Fantastic Four that many have been anticipating (or dreading depending on your perspective) dreading.

With the critical and financial surprise of Chronicle, director Josh Trank was contacted as Fox believed he would have the golden touch in resurrecting the critically panned franchise. What followed must have been the scariest production stories to date.

screenrant.com/fantastic-four-…

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The following are rumors only. They have not been confirmed.

If the production of Ant-Man was a happy accident, the new Fantastic 4 movie is considered a nightmare. After a long period of delayed trailers, rumors began to leak out that Fox executives were very unhappy with the final product Josh Trank and ordered re-shoots (causing the lead actors of Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan and Kate Mara difficulty in their already busy work schedules). Apparently, Trank mistreated many of the reshooting staff and producers Simon Kinberg and Hutch Parker to step back while Trank’s dogs destroyed the set and caused $100,000 in damage. Rumors that the movie would be bad speculated even further when Trank, given the job of filming the new Star Wars spin-off movie, did not make an appearance at the Star Wars Comic-con panel. When the first teaser was released, many fans cried foul at taking what was considered a ‘Nolanizing’ (that is making the movie thematically dark for the sake of being dark and grounding it in reality) of the franchise. Add to that many geek critics’ (such as Bob “Moviebob” Chipman and Devin Faraci) dismissal at the idea of a reboot starring a younger cast with a darker tone, and many were skeptical at the new movie’s success.

Much worse than the production stories was the idea that Marvel comics was attempting to write out or otherwise cancel the Fantastic Four series as to not advertise it for Fox, doing a reboot of the universe (Through the new Secret Wars event) as to promote the Inhumans while downplaying the Mutants and FF. They even went so far as to ‘kill’ comic book versions of Miles Teller, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell.

www.slashfilm.com/fantastic-fo…

Will the troubled production plague the new Fantastic Four movie or will they surprise both critics and audiences? Let’s find out in this new reboot of the Fantastic Four.

Childhood friends Reed Richards (Miles Teller) and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) have worked together on a prototype teleporter since their childhood, eventually attracting the attention of Professor Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey), director of the Baxter Foundation, a government-sponsored research institute for young prodigies. Reed is recruited to join them and aid Storm's children, scientist Sue Storm (Kate Mara) and technician Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), into completing a "Quantum Gate" designed by Storm's wayward protege, Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), who begrudgingly agrees to help due to his unrequited feelings for Sue.

The only way I can describe the new Fantastic Four movie is… weird. (Keep in mind, I’ve watched movies in which a man shrinks down to a size of an ant and where a talking raccoon becomes friends with a talking tree and not bat an eye). Not in the concept mind you, but in the way it’s edited, progressed and displayed. It might be the finest example of a hot mess reaching wide audiences.

The film starts strong (albeit, feels nothing like a superhero movie and more like a sci-fi film starring young actors) but then proceeds to become a mess when the main characters gain their powers. After a brief stint, the movie jumps forward 1 year later (the hell?) and tries to cobble together, what I assume is a plot, out of seemingly interchangeable scenes. Even Green Lantern wasn’t this stitched together this hastily.

The thing is, I’m not sure who to blame for this. Was Josh Trank’s vision so mad, so weird, so insane that 20^th Century Fox was forced to reign in his mad project or is there a brilliant piece of auteurism in the works that is unfortunately censored by executive meddling?  

The acting is fairly serviceable (of what could be given the mess the plotting the film is). Kate Mara does her best with a nerdy girl role but is unfortunately given nothing to do. Jamie Bell does what he can before he is eventually replaced by a CGI rock monster. Miles Teller, who I think is a very talented actor, gets the greatest portion of the development but even he cannot lift this abysmal script and his inconsistent behavior. Michael B. Jordan might be the best actor in the film and does the best he can but is unfortunately undercut by having very little screentime. Tim Blake Nelson (who you might recognize as Mr. Blue from the Incredible Hulk film) does his best, but the script forces him to be super serious. Oddly enough, Reg E. Cathey is the best actor in the film by far, but is sadly saddled with the task of giving the characters proper motivation and making speeches of how science should progress.

But way worse than the abrupt editing is the contrived 3^rd act the movie consists on having. Somehow, Doom’s motivation makes even ‘less’ sense than in the 2005 version (how is that even possible) and gains even vaguer and gains powers that makes even less sense than in the other movies. (Dr. Doom is telekinetic now and can make people die on the spot? What?)

I honestly don’t know what to make of this film. It’s certainly not good, but you can see moments of brilliance in this. If Josh Trank was given free reign and not forced to make this movie part of the Fantastic Four franchise, could it have been better?

Whatever the case, all we have here is a brilliant yet fascinating mess. It’s too bad that there’s no feasible way I can give this a recommendation.

Verdict: rent it for cheap or wait for cable.