If they didn’t call this film Fantastic Four then this might have been viewed as a passable semi-original Science-Fiction film, but they didn’t, so it’s not.
Fantastic Four is a reboot of the cartoony original movies from 2005 and 2007. And much like The Amazing Spider-Man reboot, we get an unnecessary origin story that could easily been compressed into the first ten minutes of the film, only to spend a full 45 minutes getting to the point where our characters gain their powers to then very quickly rush through a whole bunch of other material towards a very unsatisfying climax. Featuring the stretchy-guy, the disappearing woman, the walking fire-hazard and a walking, talking piece of Hot ’n Spicy KFC you can’t help but feel that the film is almost embarrassed to be a super-hero movie, let alone a Fantastic Four film.
The cast itself is very good, we have the guy from Whiplash, the girl from House of Cards, the guy from Fruitvale Station and Billy Elliot himself. We have a very talented group of people playing our heroes and the key villain Doctor Doom, the only problem is that the characters have very little material to work with when on screen. Once again, if this wasn’t called The Fantastic Four, these actors would have been a great super-powered team, but they are The Fantastic Four, so that makes them heavily miscast in many respects. Jamie Bell is a great actor, but with little screen time and a voice that doesn’t seem to match his rocky exterior you almost feel the desire to have Michael Chiklis back. Toby Kebbell is a great villain, just not a memorable or suitable Doctor Doom, better than Julian McMahon, but not by much.
Look, Fantastic Four has all the markings of a hot mess: The production only went ahead in order to maintain the rights, there are rumours of major issues on set with the director (so much so that it cost him his follow-up job on a Star Wars spin-off movie), reportedly there were extensive re-shoots, the trailers have failed to sway many people and if you've been paying attention to the TV spots it seems even they don't know how to market this film. They don't know whether it's dark and brooding, or a comedy, it's either about them being weapons, or friends or family, or heroes, they're not quite sure. If it thinks it's a comedy then it's selling the whole film by flogging one really unfunny joke throughout all the promotional material.
Much like World War Z this film has everything you loved about the title, and very little else. As a matter of fact World War Z is a really good comparison for this film: with the troubled shoot, re-shoots and dramatic changes to the source material World War Z was still a relatively serviceable blockbuster - just not a film for fans of the book. Fantastic Four works as a blockbuster, just not as a Fantastic Four movie - this could easily have been a generic superhero film with a different name and would have probably been greeted with less resistance.
Now I'm not bothered by the change of The Human Torch's race like many comic book fans seem to be, I'm more concerned, as a comic book fan, of the filmmakers believing that they are smarter than the source material. Even though Fantastic Four has never been the most popular comic, the things that work in the series work for a reason - changing for the sake of changing only goes to alienate the one fan base you could rely upon to see the movie.
The climax of the film really sneaks up on you and the most unfortunate thing is that the special effects in these scenes is almost as laughable as the dialogue. It seriously feels like the writer’s had a stroke in the middle of writing (or rewriting) the climax because the dialogue is so incredibly cringe-worthy.
With a film that is desperate for a sequel and claims to be existing in the same world as Bryan Singer’s X-men movies The Fantastic Four makes no reference to the latter and a sequel doesn’t feel like it will be clamoured for once the credits roll. In a world where Comic Book movies rule the box-office, Fantastic Four struggles to meet the high standards set by many of its contemporaries, and unfortunately, that is it’s greatest weakness.
As a semi-original Science-Fiction, Fantastic Four gets Two and a Half Stars. As a Fantastic Four movie, it gets One and a Quarter Stars. The film easily could have gained an additional Three Stars if it had included the new Deadpool trailer at the front. Ahhh, God-bless the internet.
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