Fant4stic (2015 review)

2 outta 5

In the long, long ago of the early 1990s, there was a movie called The Fantastic Four that was made simply so a studio could hang onto the license.  Now history repeats itself.  The primary reason the most recent Fantastic Four film exists is so another movie studio, 20^th Century Fox, can retain film rights.  If this wasn’t made, the film rights to Fantastic Four and all of its characters – mega baddie Doctor Doom, shape-shifting aliens the Skrulls, planet eating baddie Galactus – would revert to Marvel and Disney.  Then they could be added to the Avengers lineup and lots more money for The Mouse. 

Fox doesn’t like that so they made another Fantastic Four movie, disregarding the crummy two other movies they made in 2005 and 2007. This Fantastic Four does succeed in being different from the last two Fox installments.  However, it is so tonally removed from the original comic book source materiel it is almost unrecognizable.  It’s as if the filmmakers really wanted to make a serious, dark, sci-fi body horror movie and slapped Fantastic Four on it.  This film does work in some moments but not enough. When the only Fantastic Four movie that had the correct tone is the cheap, unreleased one from 1994, something has gone horribly wrong for Marvel’s First Family. 

Teenage genius Reed Richards (Miles Teller) has invented a teleporting device with his buddy, Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), getting the attention of scientist Franklin Strom (Reg E. Cathey).  Reed is sent to a technological think tank to work on a larger device that opens a gateway to another dimension with help from Franklin’s son Johnny (Michael B. Jordan), Franklin’s adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara) and Franklin’s former protégé, the embittered Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell).   Their journey to the other dimension gets messy as Victor is abandoned and Johnny, Sue and Reed return transformed with unnatural powers; Sue can turn invisible and create force fields, Johnny can fly and light himself on fire, Ben is a giant rock creature Thing, and Reed can stretch his entire body.  After Reed escapes captivity, his friends have to hunt him down.  Meanwhile, the government intends to reopen the portal but Doom is waiting on the other side.

Despite superpowers, the film is shockingly inert.  Generally, superhero flicks open with an action scene but here the big action scene is kid Reed and kid Ben using their early version of their transporter to turn off the lights.  Way too much of the script is characters babbling about fake sci-fi movie science and not doing anything interesting.  The adult actors are decent but feel disjointed.  Mara’s Sue bounces between quiet introvert and strong independent leader.  Even her hairstyle seems to change from scene to scene, possibly because the movie underwent extensive reshoots.   Teller is good as Reed but it’s less how the character is written and more that Teller elevates the materiel.   Johnny Storm should be the fun-loving character, Chris Evans certainly nailed that aspect in his two efforts, but Jordan is a tad dour.   As for Grimm, the design of his rock creature is distractingly off-model. There are a few iconic Fantastic Four beats shoved into the movie.  Grimm has a catchphrase of “It’s clobberin’ time!” but here we see it hollered at kid Ben by his physically abusive brother, which is weird.  It’s even weirder when Grimm yells “It’s clobberin’ time!” at the climax, implying Grimm grew up to be an abusive jerk like his brother.  Johnny Storm’s Human Torch would proclaim “Flame on!” and ignite (Evans did that very well) but here Jordan sort of mutters “Flame on,” like he’s embarrassed by it. 

Viewing this as the Fantastic Four through the prism of a body-horror movie, it has some effective moments.  The arrival to the other dimension looks suitably otherworldly and gets really intense when Doom falls from Reed’s grasp into an unknown abyss.  Also the accident when they get their powers is brutal and the aftermath when Reed wakes up is a good shocker.  There is a solid 10 minutes or of horror scenes seeing the disturbing affects the powers are having on them.  Yet by the end when they get together and fight like superheroes it’s less them working as a team and instead feels obligatory.

Kebbell’s Victor has a few decent lines like when he derides the Government using the portal for “water-boarding in the 4^th dimension”. Doom’s design after he returns from outer space exile is neat from a visual standpoint, he looks like a person encased in a glowing, melted, space suit that has fused with his body.  When Doom starts telekinetically splattering people into bloody spurts, it’s an effective horror movie beat.  This would be a cool bad guy in a different flick; as a version of the regal, bombastic Doctor Doom from the original Fantastic Four comics, it’s awful. 

One thing the previous Fantastic Four movies actually got right was the quartet enjoying their powers and being a family.  Here, only times the characters banter amusingly is in the movie’s closing minutes.  Instead, they spend most of the film sulking about being super-powered freaks. This may have a decent scene or two but overall Fantastic Four is a drawn out drag, confused about what it wants to be.