FANTASTIC FOUR REVIEW - JUST HOW FANTASTIC IS IT?

FANTASTIC FOUR REVIEW - JUST HOW FANTASTIC IS IT?

Josh Trank's Fantastic Four is finally upon us, but is it any good? The film has been receiving a lot of hate leading up to its release, so hit the jump to find out if the film is deserving of such judgement or not!

Review Opinion
By Gutspinner - Aug 05, 2015 07:08 PM EST
Filed Under: Fantastic Four
Well, here it is folks - Josh Trank's Fantastic Four reboot is upon us, but is it worth checking out? Before getting into this spoiler-free review, it is important to note: DO NOT GO INTO THIS FILM EXPECTING AN ACCURATE ADAPTATION OF THE SOURCE MATERIAL, OR YOU ARE SETTING YOURSELF UP TO BE DISAPPOINTED. THIS FILM IS, FOR MOST ACCOUNTS, A NEW TAKE ON THESE HEROES. 

THE STORY

First things first, how did the story of the film measure up? For the most part, its not really anything we haven't seen before. Johnny, Ben, Sue and Reed get their powers in a tragic accident where Victor von Doom is also affected in a more drastic way. Everyone on the team but Johnny sees their newfound abilities as a burden, we see some inner conflict in the team, the typical Reed telling Ben he can fix him, Doom enacting some kind of evil plan, and the titular team coming together to defeat him. The main problem with the film's narrative, however, is there is too much build up and not enough payoff. For a film called "Fantastic Four", you don't really see much of the team at all. The movie spends A LOT of time focusing on introducing you to the characters (there are really only about seven characters that have any relevance, just about every actor in the movie are just background characters), building the Quantum Gate, and talking about the team's abilities. In fact, there isn't too much of the action in the movie you haven't already seen in the clips and trailers for the movies thus far. Another issue with the story is how it handled the defining moment that causes the characters to come together; it feels rather lacklustre. There is a death that didn't really make too much sense (the cause of death causes other characters to die instantly, where as this particular character gets time to utter some "important" words before biting the dust). What really was disappointing about this particular scene was it should have been more emotional than it was. The final issue with the narrative is its rather vague with just what the deal with Doom is. The film doesn't really allow you to get a grasp on what exactly this incarnation of Doom's powers are, nor how he becomes so knowledgeable on certain things (I can't say much more than that without throwing some major spoilers as to what his role is in the finale of the film, but you'll understand when you see the movie). One of the strongest points of the story is its rather humourous approach to just how the team end up causing the tragedy that changes their lives, but this isn't really something that accounts for much at all. Unfortunately, the story for the film was not quite as strong as you might hope it would be, and that really shows in some parts.

THE ACTING AND THE CHARACTERS

So, now that we've gotten story out of the way, its time to talk about the cast's performance. All in all, the cast members all played their parts well. Miles Teller does make a rather phenomenal young Reed Richards. Teller really plays the part of the awkward genius well, and he really shines in the role. Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan both play the Storm siblings just fine individually, but unfortunately, they seemed to be rather lacking when it comes to the sibling chemistry between their two characters in the film, though this is most likely due to the disappointingly small number of scenes the two characters actually share together - if it weren't for the few times their relationship is mentioned, the casual moviegoer could actually be forgiven for going most of the movie unaware that they were in fact family. Jamie Bell played the role of Reed's best friend Ben Grimm well, but he doesn't really get much opportunity to shine as The Thing. Upon being manipulated by Harvey Elder (yes thats right, Harvey Elder. But don't be expecting Mole Man to pop up in a sequel any time soon), Ben is too easily convinced that Reed has abandoned him, and becomes something of a military lackey. This writer is all for director's putting their own spin on the characters, but given the circumstances, I felt like Ben's departure from who he is meant to be was too much. And unfortunately, the one time he uses the classic "IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!", its rather underwhelming. It's really more of a "it's clobberin' time", which is rather disappointing. Tony Kebell doesn't really get much of a chance to shine as Victor von Doom in the movie, as beyond being set up by the other characters as being a bit of a d-bag, you don't see him for a good chunk of the movie (he is absent for the entire second act, only to underwhelmingly re-appear in the third). Unfortunately, his powers were very incomprehensible; one minute he's using what could possibly be telekinesis, the next he's making matter converters out of rock and being totally fireproof. The only real upside is his powers do seem somewhat more like the sorcery Dr Doom is known for in the comics, but only barely. A massive downfall in the development of a lot of the character relationships is there is no real telling of their backstories, just constant teases. A former troubled relationship between Susan Storm and Victor von Doom is teased, but never expanded upon. It is teased that Johnny has had trouble accepting Sue as family, but that too is abandoned. Johnny also seems to have parental issues, but you never really find out what exactly the falling out was (though it is implied it has to do with Franklin Storm favouring his work and/or Sue over Johnny, though it is hard to know for sure, as it is never visited in any great depth). So in summary, while the acting was solid, the characters really needed more development, and the absence of such development is very much noticeable.

THE EFFECTS


Now it's time to talk about the special effects in the film. The CGI is solid. Planet Zero, the alternate dimension location that gives the Fantastic Four and their 5-minute long nemesis (I wasn't joking when I said there was very little action), does look quite cool, and deserved to have more of the movie showing off its unique environment. The film had some serious potential to show of some really cool and abstract aspects off here, but unfortunately, much of the time spent in the alternate dimension is spent on a rather bland rocky plane. The visual representation of Marvel's First Family's powers were impressive. Lack of pants and The Thing's, er, "thing", aside, Ben Grimm's rocky/monstrous form does look good. Reed Richard's elasticity was also an improvement from the previous attempt at showcasing his power on screen, as his powers don't have such a cartoony look to them. Both Sue's invisibilty and Johnny's powers look great too, though honestly, I can't imagine it would be too hard to not screw up the visual representation of their abilities. Doom's powers were mostly either shown as his eyes glowing green, or rocks being telikinetically thrown around the place, and his character design (post-accident) was something of a step in the wrong direction from his comic book suit - I'm not saying they necesarrily need to perfectly adapt his costume, but I don't believe they changed it in the best way possible. So, aside from Doom's disappointing display and Planet Zero's disappointigly limited exposure, the effects did indeed hold up throughout the film.

CONCLUSION

You can tell that in Fantastic Four, Josh Trank has tried to make something different to your typical superhero movie. Unfortunately, he hasn't really succeeded in that. It is ultimately still your typical superhero origin movie - it just doesn't want to be. The biggest flaw with the film, however, was it built up for too long, and it simply didn't have a climactic enough pay off. And, while its main problem was too much build up in terms of the general story and action, there actually wasn't ENOUGH build up for the characters and their relationships for certain events to carry the emotional weight that they should. Luckily for the film, the acting and the effects do lift the quality somewhat, and the story is good enough to be a somewhat entertaining waste of an hour and forty five minutes. The film certainly isn't the worst superhero film made, but its definitely not the best either. It does have the potential for a sequel, and the cast do deserve another shot at playing the characters in a better film. However, a sequel film has a lot to improve upon to get it right. 
At the end of the film, The Thing says "Its Fantastic", but I'd say that'd be much too generous for the film. I'd say its alright.

3/5 stars
*****
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ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/5/2015, 9:10 PM
El Mayimbe said the first 2 acts are a 9/10 and the third act is a 7/10. That guy just likes shit, doesn't he? But seriously, I'm fed up with that dude, what a whiny, hypocritical swag fag douche that thinks he impacts the geek community in a huge way when he is basically the scourge of it all. I know this is off topic but I had to get it off my chest, was completely blown away at how incapable he is at assessing a film.
ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/5/2015, 9:37 PM
@KurtWagner1225
Yeah, Peyton basically confirmed the work environment at Fox is terrible and there is absolutely no passion when there is money to be made, which is most of the time with hollywood movies. As for Mayimbe, easily one of the worst human beings that is involved with anything comic book movie, shitty human being, and a complete moron all around. He made fun of a source that suggested Kraven might be the villain in the spiderman reboot because they reached out to their sources at Sony, yet he did the exact same thing with the same sort of source and info, soooooo.....make fun of something and its source then proceed to do the exact same thing you just made fun of. Sooo, yeah, in no way do I believe his opinion in any capacity whatsoever, he even suggested that the Batman V Superman trailer was better than the entirety of Avengers 2, not only a dumb statement but one of the rudest possible things to say about Whedon's work who had revolutionized the superhero genres with the first Avengers film. Oh, and he he claims to be humble constantly, yet he brags about his weight loss and his "swag" and being "fly", far from humble if you ask me. This is why I don't have anything socially internet-related other than this site, because of morons like that. Once again, veering off track a little, I just despise the dude, and he is trying to get people to go see a movie, which at this point lets be honest here, it will suck. The negative reception is pretty much unanimous with anyone who has half a brain, I know that sounds harsh but 14% on rotten tomatoes has to stand for friggin something, doesn't it? Oh, and thanks for the link, man, they're great reads.
ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/5/2015, 9:40 PM
@DrDoom
Oh, yeah, I mean, I try to be as nice as possible, but those two idiots make it very difficult, especially when they try to sweep everyone else's opinions under the rug and suggest that 99% of the people that hate the film(or WILL hate) are wrong. At some point they have to look around and think, "Is everyone else right and I'm wrong?"
ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/5/2015, 9:51 PM
@KurtWagner1225
Yeah, I think Peyton was subtly throwing them under the bus, he clearly didn't like their suggestions and moved because he was smart enough to do so, and the quote about the strength property, the movie could easily be another Guardians of the Galaxy, but instead it looks to be a dud for the third time now. I've seen everything I've needed to see form Fox, and now I'm even less interested in Apocalypse than I was before. As for the script, if it was written by Doug Petrie, I wouldn't expect anything less than solid, his work on Buffy brings out some of the best episodes in the series along with Whedon and Drew(and multiple others but those are my personal favorite writers attached to Angel and Buffy). And once again with Alexis Denisof, he would have been incredible, he is a mainstay on Angel and he plays the intelligent, yet gentle, kind spirited soul of the group and he is just such an awesome character, he has all the qualities that one needs to bring to Mr. Fantastic.
ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/5/2015, 10:00 PM
@KurtWagner1225
Oh, I already did when you sent me the link a while back, a great read, though, if ff4 ever comes back to Marvel I would like the script to be different, mainly because Doom has been done to death and he should be a slow burn to inevitably show up in the sequel or something. Also, I would love to see the super skrull or possibly Annihilus as the villain in the first or second movie, doesn't matter in what order.
ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/5/2015, 10:10 PM
@KurtWagner1225
Hannibal is very unrecognized, holy crap, I watched the first 2 seasons on netflix in two weeks, Mads was incredible as was the show, sad that it was cancelled. I honestly can't think of a fancast for Dr. Doom as of yet but Mikkelsen is great place to start for sure. And an honest question, I know you and me both haven't seen the film, but given everything we've heard from pre production to the trailer to the comments to now, do you think the movie has a strong possibility of returning to Marvel or just wishful thinking? Oh, and are you skipping out on the film, I forgot, I know I am.
Reasonnnn
Reasonnnn - 8/5/2015, 10:22 PM
@KurtWagner1225 Oh man, Stuckmann destroyed this film, hahaha.

ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/5/2015, 10:22 PM
@KurtWagner1225
People can say what they want about Marvel but they care about the quality of their property for the sake of quality and not money and it allows them to get shit done rather than go into panic mode and churn out a crappy, non-faithful, soulless cashgrab of a film. And I know cashgrab is a term used often but I think it has never been more true in this situation.
digymastr
digymastr - 8/5/2015, 10:35 PM
With Marvel, they understand that if they make an effort to make a good movie there will be profit from it. And hey! It's work out so far!
Gutspinner
Gutspinner - 8/5/2015, 10:41 PM
Hey all,

Firstly, @Scarletwarlock and @KurtWagner1225 I agree with everything you guys said about Marvel/Fox, El Mayimbe, the whole lot.

I was just wondering if you guys could give me any feedback on my review by any chance? It's my first one, so criticism helps :)
I'd also like to clarify something: I do want FF back with Marvel. With my closing comment about sequels, what I meant was that it sets it up for Future stories, and as far as the castis concerned, they deserve another shot at the roles because the faults in the film were hardly their's.
3/5 might’ve been a bit generous, it really only managed to acquire that score thanks to the effects and acting being solid, the story really dragged it down.

But yeah, any criticism would be great, thanks guys :)
Gutspinner
Gutspinner - 8/5/2015, 10:43 PM
@digymastr yeah exactly. Marvel has really benefited from understanding that passion and respect for the source = success and high quality films
Gutspinner
Gutspinner - 8/5/2015, 10:51 PM
@KurtWagner1225 your last comment about Marvel - spot on. Especially with the changes - while they deviate from the source, you can tell they're still respecting what they're adapting

And thank you for the feedback, I'll keep that in mind for future articles :) I'm gonna keep trying at it though, I really want to start contributing to CBM a lot more
ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/5/2015, 10:53 PM
@Gutspinner
I think your review was fair, man, you gave credit where credit was due, but I never felt as though you were being too generous because 2 stars MIGHT be too low, but 3 stars are also way too high(given that I haven't seen the film, but I always seem to know whether or not I like a film based on a trailer). The review was fine, the only critique is that you didn't destroy it enough, aha, but that is a very unfair assessment coming from someone who hasn't seen the film. I would just probably say there is no room for a sequel, to build a universe on a terrible foundation is never a very good idea, it would be like inserting Ryan Reynold's green lantern into the Zack Snyder DC world. In terms of structure, this is a personal preference I would have rather you just categorize the good and the bad, and possibly go more in-depth with what worked and didn't work, but that is mainly because I'm curious about the film, I'm not seeing it regardless, so it isn't as though I'm baffled as to what the quality of the film was like, I have a pretty good idea from this review(and from several others) And considering you took the effort to make an article as it is never easy as you can go under scrutiny for your opinion or quality of writing you did an exceptional job, like I said, the only real complaint anyone could apply here is that you don't think it sucks as much as others.
Gutspinner
Gutspinner - 8/5/2015, 11:16 PM
@ScarletWarlock thanks heaps man, maybe I could've settled for rating it 2.5, but a 3 isn't too far off from it. About the structure, that's rather similar to what @KurtWagner1225 was saying, so thats definitely something that I'll keep in mind for future reviews. So thank you very much for the feedback, stuff like that is very helpful. Hope you read and enjoy future reviews and articles that I post up here :)
ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/5/2015, 11:22 PM
@KurtWagner1225
remember when people were trying so hard to discredit age of ultron that they said fan4stic would be better? Yeah, maybe AoU was disappointing to some people, but its so stupid to discredit such a creative talent like Joss and a person who put literally EVERYTHING into the movie in favor of a guy who made an okay movie that could have been made by anyone for a studio that doesn't have any passion and has been notorious for being the worst studio to have comic book properties. Makes me so mad, but I will say I'm bias to Joss but I can confidently and definitively say that Joss is one of the best cult writers out there(at least on a good day) and is a better director than Trank, for sure.

@Gutspinner
I'll be sure to remember your username for future reviews!
ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/5/2015, 11:32 PM
@KurtWagner1225
Exactly, I will say this, though, I think Buffy is his best work and even though I'm impartial to superheroes in such a big way, I think Buffy might be my number one priority when it comes to entertainment. I don't know if you have watched Buffy or Angel(spinoff after season 3 and during season 4 of Buffy) but I strongly recommend you watch them one of these days, it is a difficult show to be accustomed to, but once the show hits its stride and you become comfortable with the low production value, you start to fall in love with the make up design for demons and the sets become iconic, so point being the small budget(and coming from a decade ago doesn't help) it becomes irrelevant because everything is so good and the low budget stuff that wouldn't be convincing in a big budget movie has an indie charm to it, and you as a viewer have this immense amount of appreciation for the effort that is put into the show.
ScarletWarlock
ScarletWarlock - 8/6/2015, 12:03 AM
@KurtWagner1225
Take your time, don't be in a rush to watch it, I have been watching buffy and angel all summer and I'm still not done( my third viewing of the entire series), and my summer ended early because I'm enrolled in university at the moment, but if you ever need inspiration to watch the show it does have some notable faces such as Alyson hannigan(red head from american pie and how i met your mother, she is a mainstay), david boreanaz from the show Bones, Seth green, the guy who plays deathlok, august richards, is a mainstay on Angel, but yeah, the cast is phenomenal. And just for future reference, the show is reaaally difficult to get into, I only started watching because I adored the Avengers and I heard Joss was very well known for his television, I actually gave up on the first season only to return to it months later, and maybe I'm being dramatic but the show has changed my life, your experience may vary but I think at the very least you'll really like the show. Hope you get to it one day, but like I said it is very lengthy, and hard to get into, meanwhile you also have shows you're currently watching and a personal life to sort out, so it may be a long time coming before you watch the show but I promise it is worth it to prioritize your viewing. Won't push the show on you, but if you ever feel like starting it up just let me know, man.
TheRationalNerd
TheRationalNerd - 8/6/2015, 12:04 AM
The ElMayimbe guy's opinion may not have been what people were used to seeing but I mean that IS the guy's opinion. A lot of people tore this film to shreds for very similar reasons however the reasons he enjoyed it were similar to others who did.
LEEE777
LEEE777 - 8/6/2015, 6:53 PM
How about 0.1 out of 5? Man, you shouldn't of gone to watch it. I'm not stupid, I knew not to go and watch this crap. Knew from the very start a year ago this movie would be dog poop!

This has to go to Marvel/Disney for a proper adaption. Fox needs to let go and make a deal with Marvel with their X TV-verse.

Anyway nice read.
Gutspinner
Gutspinner - 8/7/2015, 5:05 AM
@LEEE777 haha, I actually to see it to review it more than anything. I'm very serious about trying to contribute regular, high quality content for CBM.Com, so even if that means paying to go see a movie despite knowing it isn't going to be great, so be it.
Gutspinner
Gutspinner - 8/7/2015, 5:40 AM
@LEEE777 oh, and thank you for the nice words at the end :) much appreciated
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