Review of Fantastic Four (2015) by Brandon C — 21 Apr 2018

Fantastic Four Dir: Josh Trank.

I know in a lot of people's reviews they always ask the question, "what happened?" It's a generic question that I can honestly say sums up the newest rendition of Fantastic Four. I followed this movie last year from inception to cast and crew choices all the way up to release and...I really wanted this to succeed and prove the naysayers wrong. I wanted to point my finger into the collective chest of everyone who said this wouldn't work and would fail. Well, I sit a broken man feeling like I've been a part of some great rebuke by FOX studios. Fantastic Four is just a cash grab. A last ditch effort to keep competitor Marvel studios away from the first family of comics. With this I hope they relent and let Marvel have at least this bit of their toys back.

The story of Fantastic Four is a drawn out, science based look at the origins of the teams story. Reed Richards (Miles Teller) and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) master interdimentional travel by their senior year of high school and are recruited by Dr. Storm and his daughter Sue Storm (Kate Mara) and they bring Reed and Ben to the Baxter building so Reed can get his further education and bring this design and dream to fruition. Reed also meets the antisocial personality disorder rebel Victor von Doom (Tobey Kebbel) as well as Sue's brother and master craftsman JaltetaStorm ( Michael B. Jordon).

Upon finishing the project and finding out the asshole government is taking it away Reed, Ben, Johnny, and Victor get trashed and decide to go to earth zero as its been labeled. Things obviously go horribly wrong over there and everyone except Victor makes it back to earth with some slight genetic alterations. What follows is the team learning their powers to be possibly used by the government, Reed runs away leaving everyone behind for awhile. Until they return to the other planet and bring back Doom who looks a little rough but instantly (in the last 25 mins that he needs to destroy the earth so "his world" can prevail.

The story is has a schizophrenic pace to say the least. It starts out slow introducing everyone and the time travel mcguffin, immediately picks up to get us to the other planet and give everyone their powers and set up the team is in turmoil arc (that's 50 mins into a 99 min movie. Then trot along to show powers, find Doom and instantly nose dive into the third act like a falling plane.

My positives are that the Thing Ben Grimm himself looks phenomenal, that's ho CG should work and Dooms look and power of exploding people's heads through thought is just awesome. I just wish Kate Mara's obvious wig didn't stick out like a red head at a blonde convention, it's lazy and I haven't seen a wig job that bad since Samurai Cop.

I am deeply let down by this film but from all the backstage antics, politics, and hearsay it seemed like a project doomed to fail before release and I can see why.

Is Fantastic Four the worst superhero movie ever..!? No, not by a long shot unless we forget Elektra, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Captain America (1990) Superman 3 and 4 among others. This movie is nowhere near the top tier of movies and falls short of the middle tier, but it's just above the bottom tier to offer a slight "you need to at least watch it" recommendation. I won't buy it or watch it again that's for sure but I'm glad I saw the movie dubbed."Trank-gate" and made it out in one piece.

Josh Thanks Fantastic Four gets a somber 2.3 out of 5.