Dan - With my local multiplex offering the chance to watch a preview screening of Marvel's new Fantastic Four, a
reboot of the widely panned Chris Evans/Jessica Alba films released ten
and eight years ago respectively, it was one of the rare occasions in
which I went into a high-profile release without a sense of whether it
was set to be a masterpiece or a complete turkey due to the miracle that
is social media, something of which I believe results in a much more
reliable and fresh opinion in one's opinion of that film. One thing that
has always impressed me about the abundance of Marvel movie releases
and the subsequent Cinematic Universe, harking back to the release of Iron Man in
2008, is that throughout its long list of releases, all the films
within such a universe have always tended to be in the positive spectrum
when it comes to a critical stance, where although some are much better
than others (The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy), nearly all
have also been rather solid, if rather formulaic, without one seemingly
sticking out and declaring itself as the black sheep of the bunch. With
the release of Fantastic Four however, although not being a
part of the MCU in terms of the bigger picture, it seems that this
particular run of good Marvel fortune has seemingly come to an end, with
Josh Trank's reboot being a complete mess from beginning to end,
resulting in a movie on par with the widely panned original releases ten
years previous.
When boy genius Reed Richards (Miles Teller, Whiplash)
is given the opportunity to further his studies into the boundaries
between parallel dimensions by Professor Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey, House of Cards), he and his team of like-minded scientists including Sue Storm (Kate Mara, House of Cards), Johnny Storm (Micheal B. Jordan, Chronicle) and the reluctant Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell, Dead Man's Shoes) successfully
gain access to the parallel world known simply as "Planet Zero". One
drunken night, Reed, Johnny, Victor and close friend Ben Grimm (Jamie
Bell, Jumper), decide to be the first to venture into the unknown
plant and inadvertently witness Victor seemingly fall to his death,
whilst bringing back with them a range of powers that have not only
changed their own genetic structure, but that of Sue who was attempting
to help them return from Planet Zero. With their new-found powers and
abilities, the team not only must adjust to their radical changes, but
the threat of impending doom from something they thought they had once
lost but has now returned with a vengeance. So, in terms of the premise
of Fantastic Four, it is pretty much what we all expected, with a
redesign of the origin of our four main heroes and an influence of
their biggest enemy, Doctor Doom, in an attempt to give them their first
taste of heroism, all of which was given away in the rather overplayed
trailers. So with a solid, if rather unsurprising, story to helm it, Fantastic Four was
never set to be anything as good as previous superhero entries but the
completed picture can only be classed as something of a complete
disaster with a wide range of faults and issues that succeed only in
making it one of the biggest disappointments of the year so far.
With
recent superhero movies attempting to redesign the notion of what such a
film entails, helped by the success, both critically and financially of
The Dark Knight trilogy, Fantastic Four seemingly has
decided to completely disregard such ideas, with the added depth that
has been highly prevalent in recent comic-related movies missing
entirely, resulting in characters that I don't overly care for and a
story that is completely off the chains to say the least in terms of
its' narrative structure and discipline, evidenced by a final act that
not only is rushed completely off its' feet, but has no dramatic or
logical impact whatsoever aside from the fact that a big-budget
Hollywood movie like this has to have at least some sort of scene
whereby destruction and only destruction is the key concept. I mean come
on guys, did your editing or production team simply bypass watching the
film as a whole before releasing it, or were they just not bothered
about the critical appeal of such a film and instead took the Micheal
Bay approach in that big explosions and fire results in making big
money? Well if that is the case, unfortunately for you, Fantastic Four will not take Avengers-like
levels of cash and instead will only be seen for what it is; a
fantastic disaster from start to finish which not only will anger cinema
viewers who will no doubt pay to witness such drivel, but the Marvel
fans who were waiting for at last a solid take on one of their most
beloved comic creations, something of which they definitely did not get
this time around.
Adding to the mediocrity of Fantastic Four is its' fundamental contradictory in what it wants to see itself as. Is it a dark, adult, comic film in similar vein to Watchmen, or instead a light-hearted, comedic take on the superhero movie like Guardians of the Galaxy? Too
many times the film seemingly flipped in and out of its' true
intentions with cheesy one liners being offset with scenes of shocking
violence whilst the calm and collective beginning being transposed with a
shoddy collapse at the films' conclusion all resulting in a film, which
although must have had good intentions, seemingly being made without a
care in the world, something of which angers me deeply as lover of film.
The one saving grace of the film? The cast, with Miles Teller leading
the way in doing the best he can with the script he was handed, whilst
it is good to see Reg E. Cathey getting more of a shot in Hollywood
after his heart-braking performances in House of Cards. But in
terms of the good, that's just about it. Ironically, director Josh Trank
has come out this week stating that the reason for Fantastic Four sucking so much is due to the input and influence of 20th Century Fox, and
that his version would be receiving much better reviews if not for
their desire to edit and change. Well Mr, Trank, if that is the case
then you have my sympathies, but for now we are left with a shoddy,
out-of-place, disaster-ridden raspberry that not only will be quickly
forgotten, but will hopefully be lost in the vaults of cinema completely
and left to die along with its' equally as bad predecessors ten years
previous. Want my advice? Watch Ant-Man again. Overall Score: 3/10
Pete - Lets put it this way, Fantastic 4 is as fantastic as an empty bottle of Fanta filled with lukewarm piss. Its as if Josh Trank wanted to make the worst Marvel movie in history. How someone can actually enjoy this, I will never know. We can't even class it as a child's entrance film into the MCU because there is so little substance, you may as well let your kid watch paint dry.
Let me make one thing clear, these actors suck. They suck more than Kim Kardashian. The casting was just awful. Pretty much every incarnation I've seen of FF source material has involved adults. The group were of a serious age to be taking part in space age opportunities, not borderline psychopathic children that where clichés from High School Musical. The teen angst drips from this and it has to be one of the most painful experiences I've ever had the displeasure of watching. Oh, big spoiler here, Doom dies. Deader than a doornail. Sucked into some power hunger hole that tore him into pieces and it was probably for the best. Hopefully he will never come back to grace the screen with his awful costume that looked more like a morph suit than it did the real Doom. Don't insult the source material with such an awful depiction. Although, this is honestly the only action that happens in the film. The last 10 minutes of the film is occupied with it while the rest of the experience is tortuous attempts at storytelling.
Dan speaks of the indecisiveness of the plot from gritty and dark to 'comedy' and I couldn't agree more. Every attempt at character development was removed, deaths were played off as something not relevant and these "incredibly smart children" are fucking morons. I've watched many movies in my time and more so with the creation of this blog but I don't think I've ever felt like throwing faeces at the screen and swinging out like fucking Tarzan 10 minutes into a film. Sure, The Counsellor was bad, like real bad; but Christ, at least they tried.
You know what made it worse? The acting. Even the extras were awful. Often you would catch one staring at the camera lens like its some sort of mythical creature with a creepy grin slapped across their face. Obviously they're just extras who somehow landed a quick role in the flick but when the main cast can't type on a keyboard in a convincing manner, is almost an indefinite sign that they have no idea what they're doing. At least put a little effort into what you are 'doing'. Perhaps write an essay on how you're such a terrible actor and that you really don't want to be on a film that everyone will see because you don't want your reputation to sink any further into the precipice of Josh Trank's vacant mind than it already has.
I'm not going to argue against Dan. I'm in fact, going to congratulate him on such restraint. The awful composition, shots, music, story, acting, character development, design and visuals were trash for a Marvel film. Perhaps if 20th Century Fox actually worked with Marvel on this, we could have finally got the FF we deserve but noooooo. I'm almost tempted not to give this a score. Giving it score would acknowledge is actually exists and I don't feel like it even deserves that. Dan's score says it all and heed these words, we do not want another. I saw you had it scheduled, stop it. Now. For the love of god, kill it off now and please don't fuck up X-men...
OVERALL SCORE - 3/10 - DO NOT WATCH
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