Not all superhero movies are created equal. Fox's Fantastic Four feels more like a time when Batman & Robin was on the screen compared to the golden age of superhero movies that audiences have entered into today with X-Men, The Avengers and The Dark Knight.
Josh Trank, Chronicle, is at the helm of this Fantastic Four reboot, which features Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell and Miles Teller in the lead roles.
This superhero reboot, arriving eight years after the original, had a lot going in its favor. It features an incredibly talented cast, unique characters and a large extended comic book lore to examine. Rather, Four feels like a made for TV sci-fi movie with inadequately rendered special effects, average acting, limited character development and increasingly bad pacing.
Four has interdimensional travel, a human torch, an invisible woman, a man with limbs that can extend well beyond the laws of human anatomy and a one man wrecking crew and yet this movie is utterly boring, unoriginal and has almost no action. Four can never find its identity during the 100 minute runtime and its conclusion cannot come fast enough.
In the opening half of this film, audiences are introduced to Reed Richards (Teller) and Ben Grimm (Bell) and their science project that turns out to be the key to unlocking interdimensional travel. The team is completed with Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan but the chemistry between the four actors never connects. The human element and interaction is what grounds this comic book story in reality. This is a family that has come together under extreme circumstances. Instead these characters feel out of place, disconnected and completely lacking passion.
With this movie missing any emotion anchor, one would hope that the special effects at least make it worth the price of admission, much like that of Transformers: Age of Extinction but even that is unacceptable in Four. Yet, that is still not the most disappointing aspect of this film. That honor goes to Toby Kebbell as Victor Von Doom/ Dr. Doom.
Image courtesy of INFevents.com
Kebbell was a revelation in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes as Koba. In that role he showed off his natural talent for motion capture and character development. If Kebbell would have been able to bring any of that into Four, it could have saved the movie. Instead, Kebbell is severely underutilized and Dr. Doom receives almost no development. This version of Dr. Doom is one of the worst comic book villains ever put to screen.
With all of that being said, one question remains. Was this the movie that Trank wanted to make? Trank has already taken to Twitter and explained that a year ago he had a different version of this film. He goes on to say, “And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.”
Hopefully audiences will never have to sit through anything like this again….but unfortunately a sequel has already been scheduled for 2017.
The only hope left for this property is to call the Avengers.