Nearly a year of groans, complaints and venom spewing have passed since the world was made privy to the existence of director Josh Trank’s film reboot of the “Fantastic Four” simply titled “The Fantastic Four.”... or "Fant4stic" ?
Now, after questioning the sanity of every Fox executive and associate in existence for numerous changes in “Fantastic Four” iconography, ranging from character ages, backstory and the race of one of the titular members, people have been greeted with the debut teaser trailer of the upcoming superhero reboot. Reception ranged from excited to apathetic but a consistent reaction across the board appears to be “huh, it looks more coherent than I thought it’d be.”
I don’t share this notion because the trailer proved itself to be everything that I anticipated in the best way possible.
While the vocal majority fired away their opinions on what Marvel’s First Family is or isn't, I happily awaited the first look at what could possibly be the first good “Fantastic Four” movie ever made and every announcement of the “changes” along the way only excited me further.
If Fox has dropped the ball anywhere, it’s in failing to provide the proper context for an audience that may not actually know the property deeply but is too proud or apathetic to actually do some research.
Ultimate Basis
In 2000, seeking to offer newcomers an entrance into comic books without alienating long time readers, Marvel launched the Ultimate Universe.
Serving as a running alternate continuity within Marvel cosmology, the Ultimate Universe took properties and concepts of the mainstream Marvel Universe (aka 616) and gave a contemporary reimagining to their concepts. Examples of these can be seen even in adaptations of Marvel work today, such as S.H.I.E.L.D playing a hand in founding the Avengers or Peter Parker being bitten by a genetically engineered spider rather than a radioactive one.
The Ultimate Universe wasn’t bogged down by continuity that was the result of decades of creative teams shuffling in and out of experimenting with characters for better or ill, allowing the new properties to adapt their best stories and concepts while being free to try new things.
“Ultimate Fantastic Four” tells the story of young adult prodigy Reed Richards, working for a federally funded think tank for people of gifted intelligence located in the Baxter Building in Manhattan. After years of enduring the bullying of high school peers, defended only by his childhood friend Ben Grimm, he eventually befriends the children his mentor Franklin Storm, fellow prodigy Susan and her younger brother Johnny.
He and Victor Van Damme, Latverian immigrant and colleague, have worked on the technological achievement of instant transportation via shifting through pocket dimensions. Their work was ready to be tested but goes horribly wrong when Victor readjusts coordinates without Reed’s input, resulting in them, Susan, Johnny and Ben Grimm, now serving as a military officer assigned to the project’s testing ground, being transported across the world and through a pocket dimension while having their molecular structure altered, giving birth to who would eventually become, Doctor Doom and The Fantastic Four.
What follows is something of a “coming of age” story about the 4 bonding with their new capabilities and heroic status among the public. Suddenly, casting such young actors makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it?
Casting millennials may seem strange when narrowly compared to the mainstream continuity but the “Ultimate” universe is not an obscure piece of lore. By all means, do yourselves a favor and look into it I you haven’t read it already because not only are the “changes” of this film not bafflingly unfaithful to the property as a whole but “Ultimate Fantastic Four” is easily one of the best “Fantastic Four” stories ever written.
The circumstances of the origin may differ from typical depictions but the characters are nevertheless faithfully represented and their concepts are modernized in a perfect blend of trope deconstruction and genre reconstruction that make it palatable for newcomers yet recognizable for veterans, not unlike the “Marvel Cinematic Universe”
And it does it all without sacrificing the “family” dynamic that makes the Fantastic Four who they are.
Updating classics
Although the “departures” from tradition may come as a surprise to non-comic readers unaware of their basis, there’s no denying that even if this isn’t the route that the filmmakers decided to take, a traditional approach for a film adaptation of “Fantastic Four” is out of the question.
Ignoring the nature of the material itself, watching the cinematic history of “Fantastic Four” has been like watching a skilled calligrapher work with their left hand out of sheer apathy for their craft; you know they can do a good job but your aggravation of their laziness exceeds your admiration of their capabilities.
Whatever potential exists in the straightforward approach to the story has been drained by 2 bad adaptations and a terrible sequel to one of them. Retreading the same origin barely worked for “Spider-Man” and that franchise’s theatrical debut was actually good. “The Fantastic Four” will probably be a make-or-break feature in terms of getting the team a franchise and regardless of why the mainstream cosmic radiation based origin has failed in the past, that doesn’t change that in the public eye, it’s ultimately responsible for producing 3 bad movies with little to no longevity.
Tackling the issue of the origin itself however, the Fantastic Four origin is in desperate need of update.
While the story of an ambitious and patriotic Reed Richards stubbornly leading his science team to the stars in a space race against the Soviet Union has shifted across adaptations to reflect on the social norms of the time, like the spider struck with radiation that has bitten Peter Parker or the Vietnam War setting of Tony Stark’s life changing accident, there’s something clunky about the space based origin in the modern setting.
Maybe it’s the knowledge that extreme cosmic radiation is more likely to explode the human body than cause mutation or that the modern process of getting into space is a movie in and of itself but the specific events leading to the powering of the 4 is one of the most dated aspects of the origin story.
Molecular transportation and pocket dimensions may become outdated science in 50 years but until then, it’s a fresh territory needed for a new approach to separate itself from weaker predecessors.
Cinematic Pedigree
“The Fantastic Four” is being directed by Josh Trank, director of 2012s “Chronicle,” a critically acclaimed film about 3 young people that gain super powers after an encounter with an unnatural construct.
“Chronicle” studied and played with a number of very traditional superhero tropes and concepts that were presented very unabashedly while keeping its focus on being a cinematic science fiction.
Assuming Fox has learned their lesson from the downward spiral that the “X-Men” movies were in until recently, I couldn’t have possibly chosen a better director for such a project.
The story has been conceived of by him and additionally was written by “X-Men: Days of Future Past” screenwriter Simon Kinberg and produced by “X-Men: First Class” director Matthew Vaughn.
Every great artist has the capacity to make a disaster but the film is so steeped in a pedigree of good sci-fi and superhero filmmaking that it has to have earned some benefit of the doubt.
Evolving Properties
Above all else, the standards of superhero movies have risen substantially within the last few years. While most films strive for some sort of faithfulness to the spirit of the source material, very few are necessarily accurate to a tee.
Tony Stark is not as chattery as Robert Downey Jr. plays him. Bucky was a teenager during World War II. Thor had a civilian identity. The Guardians of the Galaxy practically had half of their origins and personalities rewritten. Batman wasn’t always averse to killing. Even the Perry White and Jimmy Olsen were introduced to the Superman mythos in radio serials rather than “Action Comics” itself.
Almost no incarnation of popular superhero franchise exist in their purest form anymore. It can be a jarring thing to see at first but every once in a while, changes end up being made for the better.
20 years ago the notion of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was a joke. 10 years ago the same could be said of Heath Ledger as the Joker. Time has a way of making fun of us all.
I’m not saying that this film is a done deal. As with any ambitious experiment, “The Fantastic Four” has the capacity to flop hard. Doctor Doom has always been a difficult character to nail down, Michael B. Jordan wouldn’t have quite been my first pick as the Human Torch and I’m still nervous about Jamie Bell playing a big tough guy archetype with enough vocal charisma to bring humanity out of a sentient rock creature.
This is not exactly what I would have wanted as the first good Fantastic Four movie but the potential for a good film period is there nevertheless. If nothing else, could it really be any worse than what’s preceded it.
No comments:
Post a Comment