Is it possible to make a good Fantastic Four movie?
At first, I’d argue no. The source material is dumb. A rock monster and a rubber man, an invisible woman and a guy who can set himself on fire at will?
Well, then again every other comic book movie, in essence, is equally dumb.
The movies that came out in the 2000’s stunk. Then the most recent reboot last year was panned by critics. I didn’t think it was horrible but it didn’t blow me away either.
In all the movies, I feel there was a failure to capitalize on Dr. Doom. A scary character/dictator…really had potential to be super naughty.
What say you, 3.5 readers? Is is possible to make a good Fab Four movie?
So a rubberman, a rock monster, a burning man and an invisible girl walk into a bar…
Bookshelf Q. Battler here with a review at the latest attempt at a Fantastic Four movie.
To paraphrase Ben “The Thing” Grimm: IT’S SPOILIN’ TIME!
Fantastic Four – Movieclips Trailers
This movie is getting the crap panned out of it by the critics and even director Josh Trank reportedly tweeted (and later deleted), “You’ll probably never get to see my good version,” assumedly in response to a collective thumbs down from the movie review community.
Rotten Tomatoes, a movie review site that ranks films on a scale of 1-100% gave it 9%. It barely registered. Holy crap, that’s like, Gigli territory.
To put it in perspective, if Disney ever puts out a Jar Jar Binks origin story film, it’d probably get at least 15% just for being a completed film.
(I don’t know that to be case exactly. What do I look like, a Rotten Tomato expert or something?)
Personally? I don’t get it.
Call me crazy, tell me why I’m wrong, but I didn’t think it was that bad.
It was better than the two mid-2000’s attempts, though that’s not saying much. This franchise’s big villain/draw has always been the metallic Dr. Doom, and those movies, for some odd reason, were pretty light on the Doom.
A Fab Four movie that’s light on Dr. Doom is the equivalent of making a movie about Superman, except there’s no heroics and it’s just a rom-com about how he wants to tell Lois his secret but is too afraid.
This version makes up for it, with some pretty sweet Doom scenes in which he, in almost a Darth Vaderian level of bad-ass-itude, started popping heads left and right with his mind. Toby Kebell plays the baddie in this version.
The franchise went with a younger crew this time around, and I don’t think that hurt it. In fact, Miles Teller plays Reed Richards and in a summer where every hero is buffer and has more muscles than the next, it was good to see a nerd as the hero for once.
For once? TRY FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!
NERDS: Can a nerd be the hero for once?
SOCIETY: What?! You need glasses to see? Boo! No! No super heroics for you!
In this movie’s defense, this franchise isn’t Marvel’s easiest to put on film. You’ve got Reed aka Mr. Fantastic, who is a freaking rubber man. While being super stretchy is an interesting power, it does have the potential to backfire and look dumb. This film avoided that.
Then you’ve got a rock man, an invisible girl, and a man on fire, so all in all, they’re a haphazard collection of heroes with random powers.
(Oddly though, while this group usually gets goofed on by the critics, another comic book group featuring a Nordic god, a man in a robot suit, a green monster and a super patriot are box office gold so go figure.)
Kate Mara and Reg E. Cathey pull off a House of Cards mini-reunion. Frank Underwood fans know Kate as Zoe Barnes and Reg as Freddy aka the owner of Frank’s favorite barbecue joint. Here, Reg is the father of Sue (Kate) and Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan).
Sidenote: Jordan took a lot of heat (pun intended) for playing Johnny/the Human Torch. The character has usually been white in past films. But really, who cares? Spread the super hero roles throughout the races. If you’re worried about what color a character is in a super hero movie you probably have too much time on your hands.
Meanwhile, Jamie Bell plays Ben Grimm, the team member who has it the hardest (pun intended) because while the other characters can return to normal, he’s stuck being a rock monster.
And in this film, he’s a rock monster with no pants. He’s got nothing down there in case you were wondering. Maybe you weren’t. I don’t know.
This movie is all origin story with a face-off against Doom at the end. Perhaps it can be criticized on the fact that most of the first half is devoted to the experiment that leads to the team inadvertently catching their powers.
I’m not a fan of super hero origins stories, mostly because we know them front and back already. I don’t need to see Batman’s parents get shot for the hundredth time. I don’t need to see Superman’s escape pod land in the Kents’ corn field. I don’t need to see Peter Parker get bitten by a damn radioactive Spider again.
We all know what happened. There’s no need to re-tell the whole story again every time the cast changes. Just jump straight to the action.
However, I can’t begrudge the Fab Four an origin story because they’ve been denied a good one thus far.
I don’t know. Based on the reviews, I went into it thinking that it would be two hours of The Thing performing a poetry recital while Sue and Johnny use Reed as a jumprope, so I was pleasantly surprised.
If you hated it, I don’t want to start a nerd fight or anything, but what did I miss? Why is this movie considered so sucky?
It’s not like it was good enough to run out and watch again, but I didn’t feel like I didn’t get my money’s worth either.
Bookshelf Battle 