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Fantastic Four. Yes, it’s only been ten years since we last saw these four characters get their special powers, and then come together to sort out big baddie Dr Doom, followed by a lame sequel in 2007. And now, ten years on, we’ve got to sit through another near-two-hours watching the four characters get their special powers, and then come together to sort out big baddie Doctor Doom. Deja Vu, anyone?
The trouble with this is that I’m trying to understand the point of the reboot. It’s only ten years since 20th Century Fox last did this, so, with the dark tone and the Marvel labelling, it seemed like just another set of characters to throw into an already-oversubscribed movie-franchise universe, but despite the Marvel comic-flipping logo at the start, there was no mid-credits scene, nor an end credits scene. There WERE a lot of unhappy audience members, however, feeling cheated that we had nothing at all. There’s also no Stan Lee cameo.
In fact, I assumed one of Ant-Man‘s credits scenes would be for Fantastic Four, but it was not (you can see what was there in that review, and behind spoiler tags). Last time round, the dull Chris Evans, who plays the current Captain America, played Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, able to fly and shoot fire, as you do. That could’ve made for an interesting crossover moment if they’d made up a daft post-credits scene for those of us who bothered to stay, having both Evans and the new guy, played by Michael B Jordan, meet up, but no.
In fact, where Fantastic Four also fails is that there’s a lot of potential for comedy in this movie, yet 99.9% of these moments get left funny-free and leaving you thinking about missed opportunites rather than remembering what actually happened.
I’ll spend a very short time explaining what little of the plot there is, as it centres around Reed Richards (Whiplash‘s Miles Teller, and in younger form, Owen Judge) developing a teleporter over the years, which goes to some place they’ve never heard of and know nothing about, and which goes completely unexplained – leaving a potential discovery unpotentialised (if that’s a word), and just shows even more holes in the script where they could’ve been filled with some care and attention.
Along the way, all four of the good guys, including Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman (Kate Mara, not a patch on last decade’s Jessica Alba) and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Jamie Bell) end up in their transformed state, and The Veteran‘s Toby Kebbell is reclusive scientist Victor Von Doom who will, eventually, become Dr Doom. The main cast is rounded out by Reg E Cathey (The Wire‘s Norman Wilson) as overseer of the project Dr Franklin Storm and Tim Blake Nelson as annoying government official Dr Allen, but looking more like the still funny, but disgraced British comedian Chris Langham.
One problem with this film is that it takes so long getting to the point where Dr Doom becomes a threat to the world, that there then isn’t a great deal of time to resolve that issue. As such, it feels like we’re merely watching the opening act of a three-act story, so if this takes off then we’ll get the inevitable two sequels, both of which will at least get a move on as there’s no setup to get through.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the film and conclusions.
The only bit which amused me particularly, is that the Young Reed powers his first teleporter with an array of Nintendo 64 consoles. That scene is set in 2007, so you’d think he’d be working with Playstation 3s, but then again, nothing beats that old retro charm. Perhaps the second film will go back further and show his Dad working on something similar, but with a bank of Atari VCS 2600 machines?
Oh, there was one other amusing thing. In the credits, there’s a crew member with the surname “TV”. And their first name is not Mike.
Okay, one more amusing thing…. Dan Castellaneta, aka Homer Simpson, gets a brief cameo early on as Young Reed’s teacher, Mr Kenny.
It’s watchable, which is more than can be said for Ant-Man and the other terrible summer ‘blockbuster’, Terminator Genisys, but it’s also a lazy film. Fantastically lazy.
However, if you want to do lame reboots, Fox, why not go a bit further back and reanimate the corspe of Paul Walker in CGI form and have him running barefoot around Nakatomi Plaza in a new Die Hard movie? (No, Dom, don’t give them ideas)
On the plus side, however, this is the only recent superhero film which, while shot in 2D like every single one in the last few years (only 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man was recently shot in 3D *and* with some IMAX scenes), has NOT been given a faked 3D and/or IMAX print. Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and even Insurgent take note.
Fantastic Four barely even manages ‘Mediocre Four’, and it says a lot that one of the best bits of sitting in that room was watching a trailer for Bad Education: The Movie!
And after director and co-writer Josh Trank gave us an engaging movie in 2012 with Chronicle, what a shame this was his follow-up.
Now… what score to give a film where ‘four’ is the not-so-magic number…?
Fantastic Four is out now in the cinema, and will eventually be out on Blu-ray and DVD. Wait till it comes on TV. And then go out.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 100 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Year: 2015
Format: 2.35:1 (ARRIRAW (2.8K))
Released: August 6th 2015
Rating: 4/10
Director: Josh Trank
Producers: Gregory Goodman, Simon Kinberg, Robert Kulzer, Hutch Parker and Matthew Vaughn
Screenplay: Simon Kinberg, Jeremy Slater and Josh Trank (based on characters by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)
Music: Marco Beltrami and Philip Glass
Cast:
Reed Richards: Miles Teller
Johnny Storm/The Human Torch: Michael B Jordan
Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman: Kate Mara
Ben Grimm/The Thing: Jamie Bell
Victor Von Doom/Dr Doom: Toby Kebbell
Dr Franklin Storm: Reg E Cathey
Dr Allen: Tim Blake Nelson
Quarterback Speech School Kid: Joshua Montes
Mr Kenny: Dan Castellaneta
Young Reed: Owen Judge
Young Ben: Evan Hannemann
Jimmy Grimm: Chet Hanks
Mrs Grimm: Mary-Pat Green
Mr Richards: Tim Heidecker
Mrs Richards: Mary Rachel Dudley
Trash Talk Car Driver: Gabe Begneaud
Girl Classmate: Anna R Parsons
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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