[yasr_overall_rating]
Four young outsiders teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe which alters their physical form in shocking ways. The four must learn to harness their new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.
In a summer filled with enjoyable and entertaining superhero movies from Marvel like “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Ant-Man,” “Fantastic Four” sadly, fails to deliver, on so many different levels. Granted, while Marvel Studios did not actually produce this, that would fall on 20th Century Fox, the Marvel logo still appears in the opening credits as they own the rights and while we have become so accustomed over the past few years to seeing their logo and them actually delivering quality and engaging blockbusters, it was very disheartening watching “Fantastic Four” slowly descend into a disorganized and convoluted misadventure. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t think the fault is on either Marvel or 20th Century Fox, I just feel that “Fantastic Four” is not good movie material.
While some of the central characters have cool powers, like Sue Storm, who can turn invisible and is also equipped to project powerful fields of invisible energy for a variety of offensive and defensive effects, and Johnny Storm, who can engulf his entire body in flames, can fly and also control any nearby fire by sheer force of will, the remaining two characters, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm, a/k/a The Thing, have powers that can best be described as lacking. Even though The Thing appeared in comic book form before the Hulk, because the Hulk has had many different incarnations on TV and in the Marvel movies, including the Avengers, he is more well-known and we associate super-human strength with him. The Thing seems like a pale imitation, just made out of rock.
When a class is given an assignment in which they must say what it is they want to be when they grow up, Reed Richards (Owen Judge) informs everyone that he wants to be a scientist and that he is in the early stages of building a prototype teleporter. Laughed at by his class, except for his best friend Ben Grimm (Evan Hannemann), Reed eventually grows up and does indeed create said device. Recruited out of college by Professor Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his daughter Sue Storm (Kate Mara), they join forces with Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) and Franklin’s son Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) and after an initial trial experiment, the operation is a success. When the military make it known that they will now take over, the group is not happy about it.
One night, Reed, Ben, Johnny and Victor decide to run the machine themselves so that they can teleport to another dimension known as Planet Zero before the military takes control. While exploring their new surroundings, the planet begins to erupt and as they make their way back to the capsule, Victor falls into the collapsing landscape and is presumed dead. The remaining trio make it back to the capsule but just as it is about to explode, Sue manages to bring them back, the ensuing explosion knocking everyone unconscious. When each of them comes to, they realize that their bodies have changed, on a molecular-genetic level, thereby, giving each of them super-human powers. The build-up to this point is interesting but after they assume their powers, the movie begins to subside.
The group are brought to Area 57, a secret location nobody knows about where they are monitored by scientists but after Reed manages to escape, Johnny and Ben are recruited by the military. A year later, Reed is captured and brought back to the facility where he is initially shunned by the group he abandoned but after Victor returns and can now control the elements, as well as having telekinetic abilities and threatens worldwide annihilation, the group must come together in order to defeat him, utilizing all of their combined powers. With other superhero movies, from the very beginning, we are informed as to who the good guys are and who the bad guys are so we are made aware that the inevitable finale, is going to culminate in a battle between hero(es) and villain(s) and therefore we enjoy the build-up to that point.
Here, there is no main bad guy (until the last minute) so in essence, there is no expected build-up. We have no idea where the movie is taking us and it feels like a rambling mess. Victor is a part of the group until his supposed sudden demise halfway through the movie so the rest of the film is spent watching the remaining group come to terms with their abilities. Both Sue and Johnny have accepted their powers but Ben is still pissed at Reed for leaving him but when he returns and informs the group that he was trying to find a cure for their powers, some let it be known that they have accepted who and what they are. And then Doom appears. With the military interested in utilizing natural resources from Planet Zero, Doom’s new-found home, he decides to destroy earth and rebuild it in his image but of course our heroes won’t let that happen.
They make their way back to Planet Zero and fight Doom on his home turf in a finale that can best be described as anti-climactic. Like I stated earlier, we are not made aware of a villain throughout so the movie seems to coast along with no ascertainable payoff until the very last minute and this feels like a cheat. When we first meet Victor, he sees himself as brilliant and cunning, a legend in his own mind but his sudden turn from arrogant and presumptuous to maniacal villain who wants to destroy the world, seems a tad convenient, seeing that our heroes desperately need a villain in order to make the movie work and then suddenly voila! We now have an arch nemesis. This turn of events is partly why the film doesn’t work. The other part is Reed Richards.
While in the comic books he is the leader of the group, the brains, so to speak, here, he is played with very little enthusiasm by a bored-looking Miles Teller, a very capable actor if you’ve seen “Whiplash.” Also, his powers, the ability to stretch, are cartoonish at best and never is this more evident than in the short-lived finale with Victor. As Doom is fighting him with everything he has, Reed’s ability to stretch sideways or in any direction, is more comparable to an episode of the Road Runner and with special effects more powerful today than they’ve ever been, they just cannot seem to make Reed’s powers in any way believable and this goes for the last two “Fantastic Four” movies as well, also produced by 20th Century Fox.
In the end, the group as a whole, just doesn’t work. In “The Avengers,” there is bickering galore between the central characters but we’ve also been given solo movies with these characters in advance, Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, so when they’re all thrown into the mix together, we know each of their individual quirks and mannerisms. With “Fantastic Four,” they are all introduced as a group and not knowing any of them beforehand, the movie has to set aside, portions of the story for each individual hero and some character development but the problem is, there is no character development. Or story exposition for that matter. The movie never appears to have a beginning, a middle and an end, rather, it feels like it was already in motion when it started and ended just as abruptly. Hopefully, we won’t see any more “Fantastic four” movies on the silver screen because honestly, there is nothing fantastic about them.
In theaters August 7th
