When a group of young scientists crack interdimensional travel and find themselves physically altered as a result, they band together in order to stop a threat to their world. That statement probably had more plot than the actual film.
There’s no easy way to do this. I’ve been championing director Josh Trank’s “Fantastic Four” for nearly a year now and to say that this is quite possible one of the most disappointing moments of my short life does no justice to the feeling of emptiness inside of me as I walked out of my theater auditorium with a slow seething rage that threw me into twitching fits upon passing a couple happily leaving a showing of “Ant-Man” with smiles on their faces.
My contempt for this film, despite leading me on to thinking that it would be everything I was hoping for and more in the first 25 minutes or so, is unquantifiable. $120+ million, the time and energy of some of Hollywood’s most talented upcomers and the possible career of a promising if somewhat green director are thrown completely out of the window because a bunch of executives are so concerned with their instant commercial gratification in the short term that they don’t care about the people they hurt, the brands that they damage, or the consumers that they insult along the way so long as they can “solve” their problems by firing somebody like children.
As a film tends to be a blend of several elements both good and bad, I prefer my reviews tackle the both draws and problems evenly as the would naturally occur but in the case of “Fantastic Four,” it would be more beneficial to just isolate what I actually did like rather than even put up the veneer that this mess of half-assed concepts might be above something that would be released straight to Redbox.
As previously stated, the film opens up strongly, with a lighthearted sense of wonder prevailing amongst a cynical world frothing at the mouth to put the young Reed Richards down. Miles Teller’s almost single minded mad scientist take on the character plays well off of Jamie Bell’s scrappy interpretation of Ben Grimm, silencing any worries that I had regarding his human presence almost instantly as the two almost come off as a down to earth absent minded professor with crazy ideas working with his physical and sarcastic but ultimately loyal lackey.
It’s clear that these early low key scenes took place before whatever breakdown Trank experienced as the direction, tone, and camaraderie amongst the five iconic characters of the property’s lore is strong, confident, and well conceived despite a need for a bit of streamlining.
After about 35 minutes or so, the film sets its origin story in play and that’s where things change.
A lot has been said about the unevenness of “Fantastic Four’s” filmmaking and how its narrative completely falls apart by the halfway point of the film, a notion that I have to respectfully disagree with. To find the film’s narrative to have collapsed would be to imply that it had any sort of narrative in the slightest.
This is the grand problem with “Fantastic Four.” It’s not a bad movie so much as it just isn’t a movie period. Forget about insight, distraction, or fun, all sense of plot, character, motivation, and momentum evaporate instantly the second the infamous interdimensional voyage is launched.
It’s like somebody broke into the editor’s office while he was working on the film, took what he actually worked on and tacked on a hodgepodge of raw footage moving towards a loose chronological direction that padded out the length just enough to qualify for theatrical release.
All elements of story surrounding the film’s superhero element are so hollow, stretched out and rushed that the film clocks in at around an hour and a half while featuring an inexplicable 1 year time skip and still feels too long to tightly encompass what actually happens in the film. Toby Kebbell’s strong presence as Dr. Doom amounts to nothing as his lack of guidance or consistent characterization leave his performance feeling scattershot, the implications of Reed’s fault in the accident are barely touched upon after the team assembles in time for the slapped together climax that is so paint by numbers its almost insulting, and for a team often called “Marvel’s First Family,” Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan turn in bafflingly flat performances as siblings Johnny and Susan that don’t even come off as their characters liking each other much less loving one another as brother and sister.
I could write a book about everything wrong with this film as a strong standing mausoleum to everything wrong with Hollywood and how it makes “Green Lantern” look like “Batman Begins” comparatively but the mere thought of putting that kind of effort into calling out something that even its own director was very clearly pissed off at is the only thing irritating me more than the film’s very existence.
In short “Fantastic Four” is the cinematic equivalent of animal slop from a human kitchen; If you look at it closely, you might find something appealing on a base level of recognition that nevertheless doesn’t change that it should never be consumed.
The nicest thing that I can say about is that I’m glad I saw it now so that it’s specter can no longer loom over my head when I’m seeking 2015’s worst films by year’s end as I desperately attempt to scrub its existence from my memory.
The cruelest thing that I can say about is that if somebody at 20th Century Fox looked at this and truly decided that it should see the light of day, they and all of their comic book film projects, “Deadpool” and future “X-Men” films included can go fuck themselves because what I paid $10 to see a mere hours ago would have been an embarrassment were I reviewing it even for my own direct to video B movie series.
2 Cosmic sized middle fingers out of 10
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