NOTE: I've just seen the film recently now that I am back in America and it is out on Digital HD so this review is very late. I just wanted to share with you my thoughts on the "Fantastic Four" reboot with this extensive article. Apologies for taking so long to talk about this.
The Fantastic Four. The first superhero team in comic book history, created by Stan Lee along with artist Jack Kirby. They first debuted back in 1961 in their own comic series and ran until this year with issue #645. The Fantastic Four consists of four superhero: Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic), who has the ability to stretch this entire body; Sue Storm (Invisible Woman), Reed's love interest, capable of turning invisible and creating force-fields; Johnny Storm (the Human Torch), Sue Storm's brother who can manipulate fire and fly; and Ben Grimm (The Thing) who has turned into a large stone-like monster. It was because of these four charming individuals that Marvel Comics has turned from a small division of a publishing company to [arguably] the biggest name in the comic book world.
Since 1961, comic books have made their way into the world of cinema with big screen adaptations of "Superman" and "Batman" leading the charge for a new wave of superhero flicks in the 70's and 80's. After "X-Men" and "Spider-Man" revived superhero films from obscurity, with films like "Batman and Robin" and "Steel" almost killing the genre, we've been blessed with dozens up dozens of films that were, for the most part, top quality stuff. The sequels to both "X-Men" and "Spider-Man", "X2: X-Men United" and "Spider-Man 2" respectively, grossed more than their predecessors and were hailed by critics as some of the genre's finest works. Then Christopher Nolan dropped his metaphorical mic with his dark and gritty take on the Batman in an origin story, "Batman Begins", in 2005, which garnered universal acclaim from fans and critics alike. Afterwards in 2008, Kevin Feige of Marvel Studios launched their Marvel Cinematic Universe with "Iron Man" starring Robert Downey Jr. as the titular character. A mere 2 months after "Iron Man" debuted in America to stellar reviews, praising the film's actor, writing and action scenes, Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight", the sequel to "Batman Begins", became one of the highest grossing films of all-time and was the first superhero film to be nominated for a non-technical Academy Award, for Heath Ledger's now iconic performance as Batman's arch-nemesis the Joker. Ever since "The Dark Knight" stunned audiences across the world, film studios were more keen on making superhero films, not just entertaining, but quality films. Rarely did we get a film with the likes of "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" in the past few years. In our new golden age of superhero films, we did get films like "Green Lantern" or "Jonah Hex" but for every bad comic book movie, we got films like "The Avengers", "Man of Steel", and "X-Men: Days of Future Past" that proved critics and audiences that the superhero genre is meant to be taken seriously.
And now in 2015, we've had an amazing roster for highly anticipated films that included "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", "Avengers: Age of Ultron", "Jurassic World", "Mad Max: Fury Road", "Spectre", "Ant-Man", "Furious 7" and more. In a time when sequels, prequels and reboots are all the rage in Hollywood, filmmakers are trying their hardest to make their entries in their respective franchises memorable and/or great. Because of this, we got films like "Mad Max: Fury Road", which is now being hailed as one of the greatest action films of all-time and has won the National Board of Review Award for Best Film. The days of films like "Independence Day", "Twister", "Godzilla (1998), "Deep Impact", "Die Another Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow" winning at the box office were over, so naturally my expectations for a new "Fantastic Four" film were set to a pretty high standard. A new superhero film reboot with a talented cast and the director of "Chronicle"? What could go wrong? Little did I know that everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong...
Before we begin talking about the new reboot, I'd like to briefly touch upon the 2 previous films that 20th Century Fox produced in 2005 and 2007. "Fantastic Four" starred Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans (yes, Captain America) as the titular characters. While Jessica Alba was clearly out of her element in the film, I found that the rest of the cast was pretty solid. Granted they never had nothing interesting to say or do in the film due to bad writing, they were all fairly likable as their respective characters in the films (again, aside from Alba). While the 2007 sequel, "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer", is only a fraction better than its predecessor, the franchise was in need of something fresh. And with Marvel Studios and DC Comics launching their cinematic universes, Fox was clamoring to find a way to throw their hat into the mix with a new reboot.
Now there's no way I can talk about "Fantastic Four" without addressing what happened behind the scenes of this film. After Josh Trank impressed Fox with his directorial debut "Chronicle", which received generally positive reviews and grossed $126.6 million on a $12 million budget, he was tasked to direct the reboot of the "Fantastic Four" with screenwriter Jeremy Slater. Then on October 2013, Simon Kinberg, who produced and co-wrote "X-Men: Days of Future Past", was hired to co-write and produce the film. It appeared that Frank and Kinberg developed the story together and was going for a sci-fi horror type tone, citing David Cronenberg's "Scanners" and "The Fly" as their major influences. After finishing the script, actors Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordan were cast as the Fantastic Four themselves, which was not received well by fans due to their young age. Despite all that, and hearing rumors of Doctor Doom (played by Toby Kebbell) being an anti-social hacker, I stayed optimistic about the film, believing in Josh Trank's company and the studio behind them.
The film began principal photography on May 5, 2014, in Louisiana, and ended on August 23, 2014, lasting for 72 days. However, it was reported that during filming, producers Hutch Parker and Simon Kinberg rewrote Trank's original script and made many other last minute changes, which resulted in a completely different ending to the film. Other reports have been circulating online of Josh Trank's erratic behavior on set, claiming to be indecisive and not communicating with the other filmmakers. Then, on top of all of this, reports of massive reshoots that were made, without Trank's supervision, surfaced; saying that the studio was unsatisfied with Trank's original cut of the film. The reshoots were apparently done under Hutch Parker and Simon Kinberg's supervision; shooting over 40 pages of additional material. These reshoots are... *extremely* noticeable. To a painful degree. One of the most glaring and inexcusable mistakes is what they've done with actress Kate Mara's hair.
Her hair color in the film will switch between her natural hair color (seen on the right) to a very obvious wig (seen on the left) as Kate Mara would enter one scene with one hair color and leave the scene with a different hair color. The same also happens to actor Miles Teller, who's facial hair, at times, changes from scene to scene.
It seems that the film was already facing a million different problems and it wasn't even time to edit it yet. And once editing for "Fantastic Four" began, it was reported that Josh Trank was locked out of the editing room, which would explain why there is almost no sense of coherence in the film's storytelling. It was also reported that 3 major action scenes were cut out due to budget constraints. The scene in the trailer where we see The Thing dive bombing out of a helicopter is no where to be seen in the film, again, most likely due to a lack of production time and budget. Why the scene was put in the trailer, I will never know...
But action scenes weren't the only things that were cut from the film. The first official teaser trailer for "Fantastic Four" indicated that the film will be released in RealD and Digital 3D, however the 3D conversion was scrapped during post production, possibly due to time and budgetary reasons.
In response to the cancelation of the 3D conversion, Trank said that he "want the viewing experience of 'Fantastic Four' to remain as pure as possible for the audience, which means in 2D, just as we shot the movie." Without knowing any of the film's productions problems, it is already strange to see a major motion picture cancelling their 3D conversion plans, especially in a time when 3D ticket sales are at its highest point.
And strangely enough, before "Fantastic Four" was even released to the world, 20th Century Fox has already greenlit a sequel to the film that was originally slated for a July 14, 2017 release date, which is now taken by highly anticipated "War of the Planet of the Apes"; meaning that Fox, at some point, had a decent amount of confidence in the film's chances at the box office.
But as the film's release date came closer and closer, film critics and movie fans were uneasy when it was reported that Fox would not allow critics to see the film until its release. It was also not very reassuring when we heard that even the main cast members haven't seen the final cut of the film until the world premiere on August 4, 2015 in New York City. And to add fuel to the fire, Josh Trank, one day before the film's release, took to Twitter and posted this tweet concerning the final cut of the film:
Although not direct, we can infer a lot from this one tweet, which was soon deleted by Trank (or someone who has access to his Twitter account). After this tweet, fans were left to ponder what really happened behind closed doors on the set of "Fantastic Four". Was Trank forced to give up creative control of this project about a year ago, which resulted in other people tainting his story? Or was he the cause of all of this mess? Unless you worked on set of this film, you will never know. What we do know is that the film lacks in quality because of these numerous production problems as it is beyond messy, with continuity being something that is consistently ignored and the special effects looking like something that was done in the 1990's.
We all would love to see the "real" version of this new reboot (screenwriter Jeremy Slater revealed a lot of what he wrote in the original screenplay was not in the finished product and that the film would've had Galactus, Dr. Doom and Mole Man as the main villains), however we must face reality, like Josh Trank said, and review what we have in front of us.
The film begins in Oyster Bay, New York in the year 2007 as a young Reed Richards (Owen Judge) talks to his fellow classmates and his teacher about his dreams of being "the first person in human history to teleport himself." Naturally, all the kids in the class, including the teacher (Dan Castellaneta), shun his fantastical aspirations. While everyone in the class laughs at Reed, a young Ben Grimm (Evan Hannemann), sitting in the back of the classroom, intently listens to his impossible ideas.
Later that night, when Reed is looking through the Grimm family junkyard, Ben finds him and agrees to help him finish his prototype teleporter. In Reed's garage, the experiment with the machine and successfully teleports a model car to another unknown location.
7 years pass as Reed Richards (Miles Teller) and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) presents their completed teleporter at a 48th annual Nassau County Science Fair. The same teacher from the opening scene, along with the science fair judges, disqualifies Richards' machine; calling it a magic trick. However, the invention catches the eye of Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his adopted daughter Sue Storm (Kate Mara). He recruits Reed to his government-sponsored research organization, the Baxter Foundation, to continue his work and to complete the Quantum Gate, a prototype teleporter that was designed by Dr. Storm's former protégé, Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell).
Already the film's tone switches from being a Spielberg-esque sci-fi drama starring children to a light-hearted rom-com, with Richards flirting with Storm in the Baxter Foundation library (probably one of the most cliche places for young adults to flirt in). Very rarely does this first act have any genuine moments with these characters, and even when the film has a chance to create an interesting dynamic, they completely lose sight of it. For example, when Reed moves into the Baxter Foundation, he is leaving his childhood friend, Ben, behind to become a greater and smarter man. They have a very short good-bye in Reed's new dorm but that could have been a very emotional scene if we got a chance to know these characters more.
Another issue with the film is the portrayal of Victor von Doom. While Kebbell is a more than capable actor to play the part, his anti-social shut-in hacker character is not faithful to the original character. Granted, he doesn't have to be the leader of Latveria, a fictional nation in the Marvel Comics Universe, but at least make him menacing or physically imposing compared to the other members. Here, he just looks like any other Internet hacker and we've seen plenty of those in other films. The writing and direction, not the actor, is to be blamed here.
Anyway, the film continues as Dr. Storm reluctantly recruits his biological son, Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), to complete the Quantum Gate. After Johnny comes into the labs, there is an extensive montage sequence of Reed, Sue, Johnny and Victor working on the gate, and here lies one of my major problems with the film. In another superhero film, "Iron Man", we were able to connect to, not only the character, but to the machines that he built because we were emotionally invested in what he was making. Here, we don't really care about this Quantum Gate. We don't any time to be emotionally invested in this invention. And during this montage, there is a particular shot that looks a heck of a lot more interesting than the entire sequence:
Here is the entire team eating Chinese food, chatting and having a good laugh. Why wasn't this scene extended? Much like the scene in "Avengers: Age of Ultron" where all the superheroes attempt to lift Thor's hammer, there could be a sense of levity here that might have added some interesting character interactions. Because we don't know any of these characters, we are not emotionally invested in anything or anyone (this is a phrase I'll be saying over and over again in this review). With a well written scene of them just talking and being their characters, we can relate to them more and get to know them better so that when certain events down the line occur, there is some emotional weight to it. But this scene that could've been a nice way to get some character interactions going was just completed wasted. Brilliant.
And then there's this bit during the montage...
This hurts me on an emotional level. Reed Richards, the Mr. Fantastic, is taking a selfie with a model of his invention... I just don't know what to say here. Yes, it's nice to see him connecting with Ben with this picture, texting him that he couldn't have done it without him, but again, we aren't invested in their relationship so this scene doesn't feel as sweet or, if this was meant to be comedic, as funny. And Jamie Bell's reaction to the text in the film was cut way too short. We could've had some more insight to what he felt about Reed's new operation. This is the first time that Ben was not a part of this project so wouldn't he bit a lonely that he can't be with his best friend during this big moment in his life? The drama is completely missing from the film and it just keeps on going like nothing ever happened.
During the last segment of the montage, we get a moment of Reed and Sue flirting at the lab as Victor watches from afar with a sad look on his face. Even though his feelings for Sue are hinted at in a previous scene, this moment feels like it's coming out of left field and derails the film entirely. Is it necessary? If you deleted this scene, would it change the film? Not at all. So why include it? I guess they wanted to shoe-horn a romance in this somehow but this is very sloppily done.
After the montage ends, the Quantum Gate is complete as the researchers begin organic testing. They first send a chimpanzee through the gate and it is a success. The chimpanzee safely returns to the lab and they receive visual data from the unknown dimension they named "Planet Zero". Seeing that the project was a success, Dr. Allen (Tim Blake Nelson), one of the Baxter Foundation's supervisors, decides to give the gate to NASA where they will begin sending humans to Planet Zero. Down on their luck, Victor, Reed and Johnny, while drunk, decide that they want to be a part of history and plan to go to Planet Zero without letting Dr. Storm and the others know.
This may honestly be the only genuine scene in this entire movie. 3 talented actors interacting with each other as their characters, talking about their feelings and what they stand for, instead of just spitting out exposition after exposition. But this scene ends way too quickly and doesn't have good enough writing to sustain itself, rendering it almost pointless. This scene is entirely driven by the charm and likability of these actors.
Before embarking on their mission, Reed calls Ben to come to the Baxter Foundation to join them on their mission. Reed, Ben, Johnny and Victor go through the Quantum Gate and onto Planet Zero, where they discover a mysterious green substance that seems to harness some sort of energy.
When Doom attempts to touch the mysterious green substance, the surface of Planet Zero begins to erupt as the crew desperately tries to make it back to the gate. While Reed, Ben and Johnny make it back, Victor falls into the mysterious substance and is presumed dead. Meanwhile on Earth, Sue tries to get the crew back to the Baxter lab, but as the gate travels backs to Earth, it explodes and mutates Reed, Ben, Sue and Johnny on a molecular level, giving them superpowers. Once they are all captured by the military, they are sent to a classified base where they are placed under custody and tested.
The 4 members all exhibit the iconic superpowers they are all known for. Reed being able to stretch, Sue being able to turn herself invisible and create force fields, Johnny engulfing his entire body in flames and being able to fly, and Ben turning into a rock-like humanoid creature.
The special effects used on the Fantastic Four themselves are, for the most part, pretty well done. The computer generated The Thing, animated and rendered by the Moving Pictures Company, looks absolutely fantastic. Never before has The Thing looked so life-like in a motion picture.
The fire effects on the Human Torch, also done by the Moving Pictures Company, are also fine. However, I can't honestly tell which of the films did it better, this one or the previous two...
Sue as the Invisible Woman clearly had the easiest effect to achieve, however they don't cheapen it at all. Pixomondo provided the effects for her force fields and invisibility, which are definitely upgraded from the previous two films.
And there's Mr. Fantastic himself... Why did you make him look like actual rubber? I know his main power is to stretch like rubber but why are these effects not rendered properly? Weta Digital, the company responsible for the Oscar-winning effects of "The Lord of the Rings Trilogy" and "King Kong", animated the Reed Richards stretchy effect and... it honestly doesn't look like something that belongs in a post 2010 blockbuster film... Just atrociously bad.
Moving on.
During their containment, Reed is able to squeeze out of his constraints and escapes the base, leaving his other teammates behind. Once gone, Dr. Allen uses this opportunity to begin using The Thing as a government weapon in various covert operations.
An entire years passes as Dr. Allen plans to open the Quantum Gate once again to create an army of super soldiers, after The Thing being a complete success.
Now, here we face another problem. Why did the film just skip an entire year?! The film just cuts to black right after Ben agrees to work with the government and the only bits of information we have of what happened in that year is a title card reading "1 Year Later" and some archival footage of The Thing's missions as Dr. Allen narrates overtime to a boardroom. Hell, the covert operations involving The Thing sounds like a more interesting movie than the one we are already watching. You had so much potential to create new character dynamics and dilemmas with Ben taking orders from the government, but no. The film decides that it wants to skip over everything and explain it through dialogue. Great. Because more expositional dialogue is what this film needed. And in this entire year of plot the film decided to skip through, the other team members are able to control and harness their powers with ease... But just a few minutes prior, they were completely unstable and uncontrollable, so how were Sue and Johnny able to control their new abilities? How long did it take? What have they been doing the whole year in Area 57? None of these important questions are answered, leaving us with only scraps of dialogue and archival footage to work with. This is just sloppy filmmaking.
Anyway, the plot continues to rear is ugly head as Dr. Storm tells Sue that she has to find Reed in order to save everyone from the clutches of the government. Reed, hiding in Central America, is eventually caught by the U.S. military and Ben and is taken back to Area 57.
This scene between Reed and Ben actually does build their characters and their dynamic to a progressive point, which felt natural. There is finally a scene with some genuine emotion and not more dry exposition. It took time to let the film breathe for a moment and let the emotional weight of the story sink in for once.
Once back in Area 57, Reed is soon put back to work by Dr. Allen who wants him to complete the 2nd Quantum Gate in exchange for a cure of some kind for their mutations. He reluctantly agrees and finishes the gate and allows a new team of people to travel to Planet Zero. In the desolate outer-dimension, they come across a deformed Victor, who has somehow fused with the mysterious green substance. Thinking Victor needed medical help, the scientists bring him back to Area 57 for questioning but he quickly escapes and begins exploding... everyone's... heads...
I think we've all heard the complaints by now. "He doesn't look like Dr. Doom!" "He's not menacing enough!" "He looks dumb!" We've all heard them so I don't know what more I can add to this argument. The only thing I can really say is is that this design would be cool and unique if it were in an original sci-fi alien film but this is Dr. Doom! One of the biggest and baddest villains of the Marvel Comic Universe and this thing is the design you went with? Who designed this? Who approved this? There are just so many things wrong with this design, I honestly don't know where to begin.
But as the film progresses, Victor, now going by Doom, sees humanity and Earth as expendable so he plans to destroy the human race to rebuild Planet Zero through a portal energy beam. Before entering through the Quantum Gate, Doom kills Dr. Storm in front of Sue and Johnny as he enters Planet Zero. Our four main heroes, enraged by the death of Dr. Storm, chase after him through the portal and arrive on the planet.
And here we go... HOW ARE THEY EVEN BREATHING?! THIS IS AN ALIEN PLANET AND THEY CAN JUST BREATHE NORMALLY WITHOUT ANY SPACE HELMETS ON?! Then what was the point of all those containment suits they wore when they first entered Planet Zero? How could they just breathe in this alien atmosphere all of a sudden? I can buy that Doom can breathe and interact with this new environment because his entire body was fused with the alien substance, but how are these 4 still able to breathe on this alien planet?! It's so infuriating! Did the filmmakers not care for logic or common sense when making this film?
Nevertheless, the Fantastic Four and Doom have a very short and generic fight on this desolate planet that you are not emotionally invested in with a blue light shooting up into the sky. We already had "Iron Man" and "Man of Steel" pull off the beaming blue light shooting up into the sky so we don't need more of this odd cliche. The logic of this entire fight sequence, which is actually the only action set piece in this entire film, is just to punch hard and when that doesn't work, punch harder. It really does feel like a 2nd grader wrote this scene.
After some more punches and squabbling, Ben punches Doom right into the portal, disintegrating him. Doom, presumed dead, is stopped as Johnny closes the portal and they all return back to Earth.
Once arriving back in Area 57, they are hailed as heroes and are rewarded with their own military base of operations. It is there that Reed decides that they need a name for there new team, calling themselves the Fantastic Four, after hearing Ben use the word 'fantastic' when describing their new base.
Roll credits.
Well, that was it. Everything wrong with the 2015 reboot of the "Fantastic Four". Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that it was all bad. The four main leads are incredibly likable and talented young actors who embodied their roles with a certain level of dignity and strength. The clear homages to Cronenberg's "The Fly" and other body horror films are also something that most film fans would probably enjoy seeing, which also gave this film a very distinct look and feel to it. However, everything else just does not work. The writing, the directing, the editing, the special effects and the list goes on and on. It's almost amazing how this film even got made after hearing all the project problems its had, but why did it have to be this story? The Fantastic Four deserve a good film and we've been waiting for a long time to see a faithful, entertaining adaptation of the first superhero team ever. Hopefully Fox will revert the rights back to Marvel Studios so that they can take a crack at the iconic 4 and let them join the Avengers in the future.
What did you think of "Fantastic Four"? Fantastic or not fantastic?
