Review of Fantastic Four (2015) by Mrmoviebuff — 06 Aug 2015

Well, well, well...after months and months of controversy surrounding principal photography, this is the result of a movie that was doomed from start to finish (no pun intended).

'Fantastic Four' or "FANT4STIC" is a half-assed, lazily made, dull and rushed cinematic defecation. Not many people were fussed on seeing this movie due to the controversy, and it seems that they were right that this would be a disaster.

The movie starts off where we see a young Reed Richards (Owen Judge) as he attempts to create a dimensional transporting device that will lead to another planet. He becomes friends with a young Ben Grimm (Evan Hannemann) who helps him with this experiment. First problem with this scene is that it is incredibly rushed and their friendship is built, but we do not see it growing, they just agree to help each other for some reason.

Then, 7 years later, a much older Reed (Miles Teller) and Ben (Jamie Bell) are taking this project to the next level, presenting it at a science presentation and the teachers and staff have their doubts. That is, until they are approached by Franklin Storm (Reg E Cathey) with his adopted daughter, Sue Storm (Kate Mara). Franklin is intrigued with Reed's experiment and wants him to join his lab where they can further this technology.

Michael B Jordan plays Johnny Storm, the biological son of Franklin, he is a bit of a hot-head (no pun intended, again), always getting himself in danger with racing and being rebellious. Franklin wants him to join to build the experiment, he refuses at first, but tags along anyway.

Franklin then calls in the last person, Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbel), who is jealous that someone seems to be more successful at stealing his idea. He reluctantly joins only because he "trusts Sue Storm", apparently, they had some kind of history, but this is not further developed properly, only through small, awkward talk do we see them looking as if they had any sort of history.

The actors in this movie do fine in their roles, playing them with as much charisma as the screenplay allows them, but there is no chemistry between any of the actors. It just feels like four talented actors from really good movies forced by some devil-may-care director to get along with each other.

This is a huge problem, as when it comes to superhero ensemble films, chemistry is the most important thing. Joss Whedon did this very well with the different kinds of heroes in 'The Avengers' (2012), bringing in different heroes with different backgrounds, but their chemistry felt real, you can tell the actors got along.

Bryan Singer also achieved this in the "X-Men" movies, bringing in different mutants with different abilities and how they team up seamlessly to fight their enemies.

The "Fantastic Four" are supposed to be close friends from the get-go, but the fact that these actors could only make small talk with each other is problematic, you don't believe in their "friendship" because they don't seem to care, and neither should you.

Dr Doom's design is also laughable, Kebbel is a gifted actor and proved it with 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' (2014), but here, he is weighed down by cliches. The cliche that the villain has had something done to him, he is tied to a hospital bed, an agent tries to talk calm to him, but the villain looks and says "You can't stop this!", kills the doctors and agents around him, blows the massive door open, unties himself from the bed and walks down a corridor with the lights flashing constantly in the dark...it's 2015! We don't see this in comic book movies anymore.

The final battle scene is also cliche and very quick, it involves Doom sucking the earth in a black hole...why does every villain want earth to be sucked in a black hole??? He stands before the four heroes looking at the destruction, the lead says "Victor! Don't do this!", he then answers "It's already too late", I'm paraphrasing, but that's what you get.

The lead hero then looks at his "friends" and says "He's stronger than us, but he's not stronger than all of us!", and then Doom is taken down in one punch and the final battle only lasted five minutes leaving you with a big "Is that it???".

Josh Trank clearly didn't care for this project, the troubled production and his unusual behavior caused Fox to just throw this film in release and just pretend it never happened. They were selling 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' (2014) like it was "The Avengers", but you can tell they were ashamed of this movie.

The only good thing is that it looks less animated than the 2005 film, but I'd prefer to watch that movie...