Overall Grade: (F)
Who would have thought that in 2015 you could go into a comic-book film and walk out saying the result made movies like “Catwoman” or “Steel” starring Shaquille O’Neal come across as a groundbreaking cinematic experience.
Synopsis
A group of young scientist’s use a teleport machine they created to travel to another universe and the result leaves them each with their own unique ability of altering their physical form.
My Thoughts
Well lets start with what little good was in this reboot from Twentieh Century Fox (just before their contractual deadline). The film started out decent enough and for a good period of time told what I thought was a decent retelling of the Fantastic 4 with a nice science-fiction energy.
But there was some indications along the way this good vibe would not last long. Soon I realized the first-act of this film was stretching into the third-act as time began to run limited. This ended up being an entire film dedicated to a first-act of a film where the story is built. How disappointing this was to finally see these heroes get their power 85% of the way through the film.
A comic-book movie being released today with like ten-minutes of action is unacceptable in the market unless the story is strong enough to carry the intrigue which this one was clearly not. The acting was not bad at all and to the casts credit the performances were not a major hindrance on this film but there was no doubt the actors were only shells of the greatness the have delivered in other works with all of them coming out flat in the emotion and intrigue department.
The material they were given to work with was minimal, filled with cheesy and forced dialogue that at times made me with they would have said nothing at all. There was no real chemistry among the group and literally zero feelings of camaraderie delivered in the story-line something the Fantastic Four was known for.
The development of Dr. Doom was laughable and felt simply slapped in to say there actually was a villain. The character was given nothing for a proper antagonist dynamic and his presence in the film could easily be called a cameo. Not to forget his entire look coming across as simply lame and uninspired. Watching this film there was no doubt the studios meddling was all over this throughout. Whether it was due to issues with the director or not, them coming in certainly did not help the end result. The editing is sloppy to the point of showing a clear lack of concern for a quality product and the flaws were glaring and wreaked of lazy film-making.
Sue Storm’s hair changing colors from one scene to the next due to a lack of effort put into finding a close enough wig or hair color during re-shoots. There was no doubt this film was nothing but an attempt to sell more movies with so much comic innuendo alluding to future films all the while they forget to make an even remotely decent first film. The special-effects were not good by today’s standards as well, and there were times the low quality of the the effects around the characters pulled my attention from the drab dialogue and not for good reasons.
Also, when does a trailer drift into the realm of false advertising when it boasts some solid action-sequences that make us all think of a summer blockbuster, only to find the segments missing from the film when we go to see it. What is that? How can that even be done without nary a mention of it as being miss-advertising. “Fantastic Four” turned out to be a decent build up to a story, that was in the end never even told, only to find this build-up consumed all but ten-minutes of the entire run-time, and leaves you completely unfulfilled.
I feel for the cast, they all did their best and easily made the most of what they had. But when a project is clearly as rushed, horribly edited, dealing with a director possibly in over his head, and jinxed with such a massive amount of studio interference in the creating process and financial meddling then you cannot expect and good film. Something I think 20th Century Fox could have cared less about. In the end this reboot will be remembered for years to come, unfortunately for how much of a scrambled mess it was.
One last thing, can we put some shorts on The Thing please, no one needs to see awkward rock bulge in comic-book movies just like people never wanted to see a Batman suit with nipples like George Clooney rocked in “Batman & Robin”.