FANTASTIC FOUR IS A FANTASTIC MESS

Yes, I know this came out a very long time ago in theaters but I just saw it for the first time and I HAVE to talk about it.

Fantastic Four (or as all the ads would have you call it, Fant4stic) is the story of teen science whiz Reed Richards (Miles Teller), his best friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), Super-smart but super awkward and isolated Sue Storm (Kate Mara, who is very pretty. This is one of the only good things I will say about this film.), and her hot-headed brother Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan). Sulky, rich, internet troll/hacker Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) tags along for the fun. They are all brought onto a special project that hopes to perfect inter-dimensional teleportation (ok, admittedly Ben is not a part of the project, but is invited to join the team for their first inter-dimensional trip by Reed, who feels some sort of obligation after having short-shafted his friend before). Naturally, things do not quite go as planned and out of horrific tragedy, the Fantastic Four are born.

Wow, was this film bad. I mean, I had heard tales but I had no idea. This is really one of those rare cases where it has to be seen to be believed. By now we've all heard the reports that director Josh Trank would show up to set either drunk or f-ed out of his mind on drugs, and that originally Doom was to be called Domashev (Something I had earlier reported on, and indeed appears to be true since the name change seems to have been done last second. Every time his name is said, it sounds like it was dubbed over, and the first time we see his name on screen is a quick shot that feels like an add-on). A film with this many production issues normally does not fare well.

Trank does not seem like he has any love for The Fantastic Four, in fact it feels like he is reluctantly making this film. He certainly seems interested in their individual powers, and has some somewhat interesting ideas about them (mainly as a government run fighting team used to carry out secret/special missions). It feels as if the movie was done without enthusiasm, passion, or drive. It's almost like Trank's heart just wasn't in the project. This is a Fantastic Four film that doesn't want to be a Fantastic Four film, but instead a new, weird take on the super-hero genre. If anything, it aspires to be more of a science fiction film than anything else (after all, it does center around a new dimension, named Planet Zero, that scientists hope they can use to answer questions about Earth). Now, Trank's ideas aren't awful in and of themselves (I did like the body horror element he brought to a few scenes, although it really didn't belong in a Fantastic Four film), but he shouldn't have cannibalized an already well established and beloved property like The Fantastic Four in order to present them. He should have just been given free reign to make his own, original super hero team film instead.

What about the characters? Well, they have little to no character and are poorly developed (They are never referred to as their super hero monikers, and there's not even a romance between Sue and Reed! None of them are really all that likable either). The actors don't seem invested in their roles, and lack chemistry with each other (Sad, since they have all already been proven to be fine actors. Here, it feels like they all just want to get this over and done with so they can move on to something else. Never a good sign. In fact, the only actors who do good jobs are Tim Blake Nelson as Dr. Allen, a government man, and Reg. E. Cathy as Dr. Franklin Storm, the head of the science project and father to Johnny and Sue). I couldn't buy any of them as friends. In fact, I'd say the characters don't even feel like the Fantastic Four characters we know and love.

The character guiltiest of this is Victor Von Doom. He's in the beginning, disappears for most of the rest of the film (for reasons I won't spoil....not that there's really much to spoil here), and then his alter-ego is haphazardly thrown into the last 30 minutes so the Four can have someone to fight. His motivations don't make sense, and indeed, he's not Dr. Doom (His whole thing is protecting the new dimension which he now considers his home. He feels he has to destroy Earth in order to do this.). If you've read my previous posts you know Doom is my favorite villain in the Marvel universe, but tragic mishandling of his character here aside, I just can't bring myself to be upset about how they use him here. He doesn't look like Doom (the film's new take on his mask, and their explanation for it being how it is is just silly. It's also funny how they threw in his cape here for no good reason), his motivations are silly and dumb, and he really does feel carelessly thrown into the film because a Fantastic Four film just HAS to have Dr. Doom in it. As he is though, he's not Dr. Doom (like, at all. Only in name).

Possibly the worst part of this film is the last twenty minutes or so, which feels like it was quickly re-written and re-shot by the studio in an attempt to bring the project in line with what they wanted it to be: a typical super-hero film ( If that's what you wanted, why did you hire Trank? I guess cause Chronicle made a lot of money and was popular). This is the big climax where the Four are teleported back into Planet Zero to fight Dr. Doom. This is the part where it's emphasized that the Four have to team up because individually, they don't stand a chance against Doom. It's done in the most lazy, careless, obvious way that it kind of made me angry. I suppose that I could be wrong and this was the "grand" ending Trank had envisioned for his film all along, but I seriously doubt that (Maybe he really couldn't have cared less after all).

In the end, Fantastic Four is a film that is very poorly put together (and poorly written too). Just about everything about it is wrong, wrong, wrong! The wrong director was chosen to helm and write it (Apparently two other people helped write it, I have to assume they were chosen to re-write Trank's script which the studio didn't approve of), the director's vision was way different from the product the studio had wanted him to churn out, the whole production was plagued by troubles, and the film itself is dour, grey, dull, and dark (Something a Fantastic Four film should not be). It's also curious for a film that had a one hundred twenty million dollar budget that the special effects are this atrocious and ugly to look at (REALLY bad CGI). The whole film is a fantastic, spectacular mess. It left me scratching my head in jaw-dropped disbelief at what I was watching.  This is the kind of film that should be shown in film schools as the perfect example of how not to make a film, and how very wrong a film can go if left in all the wrong hands. Fantastic Four has A LOT of sound and fury, but signifies absolutely nothing. How disappointing.

1 STAR