So ... we're still waiting for a decent "Fantastic Four" movie after our fourth official attempt.
Seriously, how strange is it that it's the famed bootleg FF movie that, after three major studio releases, is still the best version of Marvel's first family?
I get it. They're not the most cinematic of comic book heroes. There's a stretchy guy, a rock man, a fire dude and an invisible girl. In a time where every other movie features a guy or girl wearing tights and swinging, crawling or flying around, it's saying a lot that they can't take the FF seriously enough to give them a good movie.
But let's get into specifics. Namely, that in a time when fans look upon origin stories as favorably as, say, getting a drink spilled on you, that Josh Trank's "Fantastic Four" has nothing BUT origin story. Seriously, we get Ben Grimm and Reed Richards as children. That's how much of an origin story this is.
And I kind of get the feeling that all of the rumored studio grumblings that Fox was so unhappy with Trank's direction that they canned him were true because it seems like they shut down production two-thirds of the way through and just said "Eh, that's enough of a movie. Let's wrap up, everyone." Because really this is only 60 percent of a pretty decent movie, which makes this all the more disappointing.
So here's the (revamped) story: Reed Richards (Miles Teller of last year's best movie, "Whiplash") is a genius scientist guy. From the time he was a child he dreamed of teleporting people, and built a machine that allowed him to do so ... so he displays it at his school science fair. No joke.
He catches the eye of Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey), whose (adopted) daughter Sue (Kate Mara) and son Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) are both brilliant. They help Reed build a full version of his machine, along with the help of Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), who had coincidentally started a virtually identical experiment, only to grow frustrated with the Baxter Foundation's continual interference in the project.
And it works, but the machine opens a door to another dimension. When Reed, Ben, Johnny and Victor decide to take the first official trip in the machine, they find themselves in this dimension, only to be transformed by a strange energy in this new world. Victor suffers an accident that leaves him presumed dead, and the other three travel back, forever altered, and their trip home brings a similar wave of energy over Sue.
The main problem with this film is the laziness with which it is handled. Whether the blame for that falls on Trank or the studio is anyone's guess, but there is little effort put into this film at all, at least beyond the technical. We get little to no idea what the motivations are for any of the characters. Sue speculates that Reed is looking to become famous, but there is no indication of that throughout the movie, Johnny is impulsive and a thrill-seeker (who then puzzlingly chafes at the idea of adventure at a key moment), and Ben ... well, he has no character at all save he is poor and Reed's friend.
At one point Johnny says something really mean to Ben, for seemingly no good reason. At another point, a character abandons the others in a move that seems grossly out of character.
There are other odd choices, from Dr. Doom, still Marvel's ultimate villain, reduced to a mere afterthought here — seriously we get maybe four scenes with him in the movie, and hardly one as the actual masked Dr. Doom. And what is up with the way he was realized, with the energy veins running through him? He still hasn't been portrayed with the right amount of menace in the movies.
There are two action sequences in the film, one of which is so dull you may fall asleep. The color palette is drab, the suits are boring and the film as a whole takes itself far too seriously. It's especially disappointing after spending month after month defending this film from fanboys who lamented a black Human Torch (he is just fine, everyone, so suck it) to the choice of making Dr. Doom a hacker (which is false, though in one scene he is sitting at a desk doing hackerish-looking things).
With a listless finale and a feckless conflict, "Fantastic Four" is all setup and no payoff. Fox seems to have no idea how to properly adapt this property, and it's a shame for those looking for that X-Men/FF crossover movie to challenge the Avengers. It's kind of looking like this one may bomb after all, opening the door for Fox to pull a Spider-Man-type deal with Marvel, letting Reed and the gang go home where maybe we can finally get a movie worth getting excited over.