When I first watched the Fantastic Four film from 2005 along with the sequel, Fantastic 4: The Rise of the Silver Surfer, in 2007, I did not think they could get any worse. Then 20th Century Fox decided to reboot the franchise just because in order to keep the rights to it they must produce a movie every couple of years. When the first trailer came out, I cannot lie I got a little excited for his film since it looked like they gave the Fantastic Four a modern makeover and darker story to build the characters through. Then I went to the theater to watch this film and everything I expected to see was thrown out of the window.
I have never been so outrageously disappointed after watching a movie than I did when the credits started rolling for the Fantastic Four. Since this is a reboot, we get another origin story explaining how the four main characters including, Victor Von Doom, gain their powers. What this movie does differently is, instead of having the team go out in space and get caught in the middle of a magical cosmic event, they use a machine, which they developed to travel to another dimension to this unknown world with this green matter that gives them their powers. This was an okay direction to go with the film if it was executed correctly, but of course, it was not.
When we start the film we get introduced to the childhood relationship between Reed Richards and Ben Grimm which shows that even though they are complete opposites they still have a close bond. The second group of characters we get to see is the Storm family. Now, let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way, Sue and Johnny are the brother and sister duo of the group and they decided to cast Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan for these roles – a white actress and a black actor. Seeing that, one would expect them to give us an in-depth back story into their family and explain how Sue came to be Dr. Franklin Storm’s daughter but that’s not what we get. The only reference we get to this dynamic is when one of the other characters just asked Sue, “Are you adopted?” and she simply replies, “Yes.” That’s the whole back story of the family, even though it could have been one of the most interesting plot points they could have explored but they just brushed it off.
Throughout the film, Sue, Johnny, and Reed begin developing a machine to reach other dimensions and enlist the help of Victor Von Doom to help complete it. Once the machine is complete, their invention is assigned to another company that will use it to transport real astronauts to other dimensions. Reed, Johnny, and Victor decide to just use the machine themselves in the middle of the night to be the first explorers. Reed then, inexplicably, calls Ben to come join them, even though Ben has no science background or had anything to do with the construction of the machine. The four men go to another dimension and end up on a strange planet with a green substance all over it. The green element starts to go crazy and the four men scurry back to the machine, meanwhile back in the lab Sue ends up there on the computer trying to get them out. We then get scenes hinting at the group gaining their powers. We see Johnny being set on fire. Ben being trapped by rocks. I understand how these instances refer to their power gain but not for Reed. He just starts to become elastic after being stuck under some rubble and Sue gains her invisibility and force field powers from sitting in front of a computer. On the way out, they leave Victor behind after his descent into a pit of the green element. This is what sets up this version of The Fantastic Four.
The movie skips forward a year, preventing us from seeing scenes with the characters adjusting to their new powers or growing into their superhero roles. We do find out that the three of them are now working for the military and the movie tries to imply that this is against their will even though it seems as though they could leave whenever they felt like it. Reed Richards, however, is on the run and is eventually found. So at this point, we are about an hour into this movie and there has been absolutely no action whatsoever. It seems like they just made this movie to build the characters and their relationships with each other only. The movie does a bad job of this as well. We are teased at a romantic relationship between Reed and Sue but it does not go anywhere. The relationship between Reed and Ben seems to be stronger than the one they were trying to force between Reed and Sue. Sue and Johnny, however, even though they are siblings, do not seem to interact like they are. It seems to me, like Johnny is not even interested in being a part of the Storm family and just wants to be a rebellious teen. Another relationship that was not explored in this film but is prominent in the comics is the love/hate partnership between Ben and Johnny. Instead of getting on each others nerves but still showing they have each other’s back, they barely interact and keep a serious tone with each other throughout the entire movie. Sue and Ben do not interact at all, so yeah.
With no action and very little story to keep us interested for two-thirds of the movie, one would expect that there will be an epic climax where our four heroes fight an unestablished villain to set up a sequel for this franchise but what we get is one of the most rushed endings in a superhero movie I have ever seen. They send another group to try and rescue Victor from the other dimension. When they get there, he is now transformed into Dr. Doom and claims that this other dimension is now his home and he plans to destroy Earth. The dimension he was stuck in has to be somehow intertwined with the Star Wars universe because he comes back with the abilities of the force. He just walks down hallways and people are dying left and right. Basically, he is unstoppable. Then he just states that he wants to go back to the other dimension now, I guess because he got as bored just as we were in the audience watching this movie. The Fantastic Four follow him into the other world. After a quick battle, this seemingly unstoppable villain, does not use any of the powers he just showed off when he went on a rampage and proceeds to get defeated by a punch.
The Fantastic Four had potential. It had an interesting take on the origin story, a cast of great young actors to brings these characters to life and a director fresh off of a critically acclaimed movie, Chronicle. What we get however is a film that is a clusterfuck. This movie was so obviously rushed that it barely registered as a movie in my mind. When even the director of the film tweets that this was not the version of the movie he made, this tells me there was way too much studio involvement going on and that almost always spells disaster.
The CGI was even bad with the high budget this film had. The two CGI characters that we got with The Thing and Dr. Doom and both looked terrible. The odd decision to not give The Thing any pants and Dr. Doom looking like a green lightbulb covered in clay and metal took away from the memorable characters we know. With an estimated budget of $120 million dollars, this movie barely managed to make $56 million back. With no action or story to speak of, Fantastic Four is not worth the hour and a half you spend utterly bored and lost. I don’t know if this is the worst superhero movie I have ever seen, there are still many Ode to Bad Reels dedicated to bad superhero movies to come, but this is real close.
Keep checking back every Thursday for more bad movies that may be worth watching but Fantastic Four is not worth watching at all.
