What do you make of the beast that is the new Fantastic Four film? The movie which is currently getting savaged across these interwebs is certainly a film that’s not good. I mean, its not worst movie I’ve ever seen terrible, nor is it 9% on Rotten Tomatoes terrible. What this film is, my friends, is a jumbled mess that provides minimal entertainment and a whole lot of questions about its creation.
After watching this film, I found myself reflecting upon the news that has come out, after all I saw this film after all the reviews were out. Much has been made about the production issues and the situation with director Josh Trank, and its undeniable that this movie was the result of major issues between the studio and the director. The script already wasn’t there (the multiple time jumps within the film’s first 30 minutes are laughable) so it’s of no surprise that the end product would struggle. But what shocked me about this movie is just how much you can feel the collaborators at war here.
Fantastic Four actually, in all honesty, felt like a solid one hour and 25 minute television pilot, with a final 15 minutes that’s among the most baffling I’ve ever witnessed. How else do explain the main villain (a boring and wasted Toby Kebbell) who apparently has enough power to try and end the world (yes this is another I AM VILLAIN AND MUST DESTROY THE EARTH movie) showing up and being vanquished when we’ve yet to even see the four heroes together in the same space since their accident? Fox and Trank, in their infinite pool of “wisdom” decided that an origin film wasn’t strong enough and they had to have a cliche superhero climax. The way the movie gets its characters into a position of getting their powers is hilariously silly (a drunken trip to another dimension sure sounds like a good choice!) yet, these characters seem to come into their powers rather quickly. The movie which was originally thought of as a body horror film has now been saddled with also having to adhere to the superhero template. Fox and Trank’s disastrous storytelling and plotting can’t balance these elements, plus unfeeling government interference, a villain with the dumbest motivations, and bad wigs.
These issues also render the relationships and characters inert. I don’t think any of the actors were bad, in fact they succeeded where they probably shouldn’t have. Miles Teller shockingly doesn’t mangle playing Reed Richards despite his public persona and previous roles not giving us any hope and Kate Mara, somehow manages to rise above the fact that her hair color changes every scene (by virtue of some truly terrible reshoot wigs). But what this film really fails to realize is that this property succeeds by virtue of these characters feeling well defined and interacting together. Fantastic Four seems hellbent on trying to give us snapshots of each character after the major accident, but in doing this all the depth and emotional content has been taken away. By the end of the movie you don’t care about what happens to anyone other than Dr. Storm, because the only one who is allowed more than one emotion or circumstance. Never mind the fact that these actors were supposed to play high school age kids (LOL) and all be super smart.
This really hurts the film because its a reboot and the freshness of the tale has to land. Rather than go in depth with the psychology of these people dealing with their powers we get a year later time jump. Rather than explore what might be the defining superhero casting in years (Michael B. Jordan as Johnny, Mara as Sue, and Reg E. Cathey as Dr. Storm) we get simple lines and no real exploration of their family dynamic. And rather than a flesh out villain with clear motivations, we get glimpses of jealousy about Reed and Sue (who don’t even get into a relationship in this film, so this was particularly dumb), little to no backstory and a suddenly all powerful being who wants to destroy the world.
I say all of the above to say that somewhere there’s a decent version of this film. It’s just not being projected on the screens in cinemas around the world.