Review of Fantastic Four (2015) by Dcedmonds — 07 Aug 2015

"Fantastic Four" 10 Scale Rating: 2.5 (Terrible) ...

The Good: The first 10-15 minutes of the film are great. Showing child genius Reed Richards and his friendship with Ben Grimm (pre-Miles Teller and Jamie Bell) when they are 5th graders was entertaining and somewhat endearing. The cast itself was not the problem. These are talented young actors who did what was asked of them. Jamie Bell before his transformation into the rocky Thing was especially solid. Reg E. Cathey was great as the father of Sue Storm (Kate Mara) and Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) and gave the film it's few emotional moments. Toby Kebbell was the best of the bunch as Victor von Doom. They make it obvious to non-comic fans that he's destined to be a villain, but he did an amazing job pre-transformation. While the effects mostly missed their mark (more on that later), a couple of scenes looked good.

The Bad: There is a long list of things that went wrong with this film, but the most glaring is the story. Completely basic and straight-forward, the film offers nothing new or interesting and even calling it a run-of-the-mill sci-fi story would be an exaggeration. The film instantly starts breaking down the moment the foursome get their powers and gets steadily worse from there. Kate Mara's Sue Storm (Invisible Woman) did little aside from looking concerned and MIcheal B. Jordan's Johnny Storm (Human Torch) was forced into the film and never felt like he belonged. Much was made about the casting of Jordan as Mara's brother in the film due to their skin color, but that ultimately didn't matter as you wouldn't know they were related if they didn't tell you multiple times. There was no heart to the film and zero sense of family, which is what makes the source material great. Tim Blake Nelson played government bad guy Harvey Elder and I cringed every time he appeared. I don't know if he chose not to take the role seriously, but he was so hammy and over-the-top that he was difficult to watch. The film's main villain, Doctor Doom, was terrible. His origin is silly and made little sense. Unlike the Fantastic Four themselves, Doom had a vague and ever-changing set of powers ranging from telekinesis to geokinesis to the odd ability to make people's head explode with a mere thought ... which he decided not to do to the film's heroes, for whatever reason. While Jamie Bell does an admirable job as Ben Grimm, once he becomes the Thing, his voice is a horrible fit and stuck out like a sore thumb every time he spoke. The film's effects, which should have been a plus for a film like this, were sloppy and laughably bad. At times Human Torch and Thing looked like cartoons and every action scene looked better in the trailer than in the finished product. In fact, the majority of the exciting scenes from the trailer were inexplicably removed from the film. Lastly, the film's final act is rushed and you're not even sure what exactly happens. Doom returns from Earth X for all of five minutes, the Fantastic Four follow him back and defeat him five minutes later. Roll credits. While it is not one of the worst movies of all time, it is hands down among the worst super hero films of all time. It is better than Batman and Robin as well as Catwoman, landing it in squarely in the range of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Spider-Man 3.