fantastic 4
It is one thing to produce a mediocre superhero movie, but it is wholly another to use the word “fantastic” in its title. In fact, in the case of Fantastic Four, it’s practically false advertising.
This is 20th Century Fox’s third big-screen attempt at selling the comic book story of four young people – Reed Richards (Miles Teller, Insurgent), Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell, Snowpiercer), Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan, That Awkward Moment) and Susan Storm (Kate Mara, House of Cards) – who gain special superpowers after traveling to space (or, in this version, an alternate universe).
If the plot sounds familiar, that’s because it was the basis of the 2005 film of the same name. If the plot sounds threadbare, well, that’s because it is.
The film’s lack of direction is embarrassingly apparent. For the majority of the about 100-minute runtime, it’s unclear just where the story is going and furthermore why anyone should even bother to care. While typical origin stories don’t usually involve very much drama to drive the plot forward, the fact that Fantastic Four essentially rehashes a movie only 10 years old with little alteration makes it feel especially bland and recycled.
While there are obvious attempts at humor, the film never truly commits to being funny – an aspect of other superhero movies past that has worked notoriously well (see Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy). It’s a shame, as the story could use comedy far more than the shallow grit it gets instead.
Luckily, the characters are likeable enough that Fantastic Four isn’t entirely impossible to sit through. Still, while each of the four lead actors give individually strong performances, their chemistry is nothing special and certainly not worth classifying as “fantastic.” The group lacks cohesion (it’s worth noting that Bell gets hardly any screen time despite being one of the eponymous four) and the few interactions they do have all together are banal and predictable, much like the other aspects of the film.
The scriptwriting, though, serves as the fundamental source of the film’s disgrace. No amount of acting can make up for the clunky and often cliche dialogue (and that’s saying something considering Teller and Jordan made the 2014 cringeworthy bromantic comedy That Awkward Moment work). Infamous lines, like the Thing’s “it’s clobberin’ time” catchphrase, lack either the impact or self-awareness that they need.
Overall, the bulk of the movie moves too slowly and the plot pans out too boringly to warrant a film at all, let alone a reboot. Perhaps if the Fantastic Four comics hadn’t been made into a separate movie franchise only a few years ago, this version would feel worth watching. Instead of the stellar big-budget blockbusters audiences expect, Fantastic Four is nothing more than a half-assed money grab barely concealed beneath the watery color-by-number superhero story.
Correction: Due to a reporting error, a previous version of this story named Fantastic Four a Marvel Entertainment film. While the characters are from Marvel comics, Fantastic Four is distributed by 20th Century Fox. The story has been updated to reflect these changes.
