Fantastic Four is a film that has received a lot of negative press as of late. Be it stories of the tumultuous and troubled production or even just general negative reviews, it is fun to hate on the new film. The question though, is it fair? Is really deserving a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes? There is no point in trying to hide the fact that the movie is flawed. Yes, shock and horror the film is bad. My question is, “Is it really that bad?” My answer to that is no, it’s not. The film is fundamentally flawed and is undoubtedly one of the structurally worst stories I have ever witnessed on film – but I feel as if people are rallying for this film to be hung and quartered for other reasons.
Fantastic Four is more than just bad film, it has transcended being just a film. It is the vindication of an entire fanbase that have foretold the film’s failure for the last year. Finally, a film that the fanbase believed would be a disaster turned into a disaster. Not only just a disaster but a universal flop. Millions of fans feeling vindicated have sung up and jumped on saying “see we are right! We know what we are talking about!” The problem is, they don’t – or at least not for the right reasons.
The film has turned into a symbol for the fanbase as proof that they know better than Hollywood. I am here to tell you that no – the truth is you really don’t. The problem is that most of the vocal fanbase can’t tell you why the film is bad, they will just smugly respond with – ofcourse it failed, they bastardised and shat on the source material. This is the same audience that probably has never read a comic book outside of early childhood and only exposure to Fantastic Four is external media and Wikipedia articles. As a fan of Fantastic Four and having read it I can tell you – Fantastic Four is stupid. In fact something everyone should know is that comic books are stupid. But that is why they are awesome, because they are stupid and make no sense and don’t have to. The problem is a film can’t just be stupid and still work (well it can, but rarely are those films a financial success). So for a comic book to be translated to film there already has to be an element of adaptation to make story points cleaner. As much shit as I give Fantastic Four: Rise of Silver Surfer for its usage of Galactus, a giant man in a pink suit eating planets would’ve been laughed off the screens. So I can tell the fanbase right now that being closer to the comics does not make a successful film. So why did Fantastic Four fail? I think I have the answer.
You see, the problem with Fantastic Four has got to do with the structure of the film. Through watching the film I found myself actually enjoying the origin of all the characters. It falls apart at the end after the gang are given their powers. The issue is that the film does not have a second act. For those that aren’t film buffs let me explain the three act structure.
Films usually work best when they are applied to a three act structure; beginning, middle and end. Act 1 is the set-up of the film, it is here we establish characters, their needs and wants – we also establish what our protagonist(s) goal is and why we want them to achieve it. Act 2 is the action of the film – it is the journey our protagonist(s) go through to achieve their goal. Act 3 is the climax and resolution, all the plot points converge and our protagonist(s) must overcome evil and by the end have a character arc having changed by their journey. Fantastic Four doesn’t have the journey. The film gives us the set up then the climax and resolution. The film even has character’s go through a change, but the problem is we don’t see them dealing with their flaws that lead the characters to the change.
The fallout from this film hasn’t been very pretty and although I don’t like to throw blame around, I think I do blame Fox the most. That is not to say that the blame isn’t shared among all parties – everyone in charge of this production should be held accountable. Let’s keep in mind that no one wanted to make a bad film, everyone came in with the best intentions. The reason I blame Fox slightly more than Trank or Kinberg is that Fox gave the script and visions a green light and then asking for changes when it didn’t fit what they thought a summer blockbuster should be. Fox, if you wanted a summer blockbuster then you should’ve Okayed a summer blockbuster. That being said – you also need to see it through Fox’s perspective, they were running close on losing the rights and they needed to quickly get it done. Josh Trank on the other hand (behind the scenes stories aside) has been acting unprofessionally playing the blame game. Where Fox has bent over backwards to sweep these stories under the rug – Trank is just stoking the fire. My personal two cents on what happened? Josh Trank had an interesting idea that Fox wanted to go with - it deviated from the original concept but it was fresh and different. After the plot leaked online and seeing the negative fan reaction, Fox tried to 'fix' it by making it as Marvel as they could - only they managed the exact opposite.
So here’s a little perspective to think when you laugh or hate on this movie. This movie will cost Fox – there won’t be much profit. Josh Trank has pretty much destroyed his career, the man will never ever work for Hollywood again. All we got was a bad movie that we can ignore. I think we got off pretty easily all things considered.
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