When 5 people get
powers, one becomes bad and 4 are good and they fight for 5 minutes and then
credits. That sentence was better thought out than this entire movie. This is
the Fantastic Four.
 |
3 random characters who look like
Teller, Bell and Mara, talking about
'Michael' and 'Trang' gets killed off
in a Punisher comic. |
Fantastic Four is
a horror film directed by Josh Trank and stars a group of very talented actors
that end up not doing anything in the film. Let’s start off with a brief
history on this film. This is not a film made by Marvel Studios. Which means
that it is not part of the Avengers universe. In fact, Marvel was so upset that
this film was being made that they have stopped printing Fantastic Four comic
books and removed all traces of the Fantastic Four in their head office. They
even killed off some random characters that look strangely like the actors of the Fantastic Four in one of their comic books. This
film is made by Fox, who also made the X-men films. It is a corporate mandated
film from the start. Meaning that this film was not made because someone had an
idea of how to tell the story and the studio felt it was good enough to warrant
a film. It was made solely because if Fox did not make a film, the rights to
make Fantastic Four movies will return to Marvel. So this film was literally
made with the intention to get money and not to tell a good story. Just like
The Amazing Spider-Man.
 |
The director trying to distance
himself from the film. |
So with that in mind,
let’s get right to the point. Fantastic Four may be one of the worst superhero
films I have ever watched in my life. I have sat through Green Lantern, Batman
and Robin, and that silly Hulk movie by Ang Lee but none of them compares to
this film. Catwoman starring Halle Berry is the only superhero film that may be
worse than this. I thought I was done doing reviews since they were so time-consuming,
but I’ll make an exception for this film. I would have never guessed that at
this point of time when the superhero movie genre is so strong, that a high
budget movie about superheroes could be this bad. The film is so scarily bad,
it made the Jessica Alba Fantastic Four seem like a lot of fun. At least, we
had a likable Johnny Storm and the Thing in that one. In fact, it’s so bad that
the director himself is trying to distance himself from it and hating on it. So
what exactly is so horrible about this film? Let’s start from the basics of
story writing. By the way, we’ll just get into spoilers
because, who cares about this fart fest.
Almost every movie
that has ever been made follows a basic ‘3 Act structure’. The 1st
act is known as the ‘Setup’. This is where the movie establishes the universe
it has created and introduces the characters and their relationships. Late on
in the 1st act, the main character will be faced with some sort of
situation that will alter the way he/she is currently living. For a superhero
film, usually that life-altering situation is that he gets his power and a
villain emerges. The 2nd act is known as the ‘Confrontation’. This
is when the main character will confront this situation, try to overcome it and
will usually find difficulty in doing so. He/she will fail in doing so and have
to go on some sort of learning journey to improve himself/herself in order to
fix the situation. This is a very important part of the narrative as it shows a
relatable and vulnerable character that needs to grow. This allows for
character development and allows the audience to connect with the main character,
be invested in the story and want him/her to succeed. The 3rd act is
known as the ‘Resolution’. This is when the main character faces this challenge
one more time with his newly acquired skills and is usually the climax of the
film. The film will then end with the main character left with a new sense of
who he/she is.
So what’s the biggest
problem with Fantastic Four? It’s really simple actually. It has no 2nd
act. Three quarters of the film is the 1st act in which they set up
and build up for more than an hour. Then the villain appears and says he wants
to destroy the earth. When he says this, you think, “Wait, that sounds like an
ending sequence.” Then the earth starts getting sucked into a blackhole and you
think, “WAIT, this looks like an ending sequence.” Then they punch Dr Doom and
he disintegrates, and you think, “WAIT! That’s the end?!” And then it ends.
There’s no 2nd Act. No character development. No growth. Just a
group of people you don’t even believe like each other punching some guy who
for some reason doesn’t explode their brains like he did to the other people
who opposed him. So that in itself is a huge failure in the basics of story
telling. Let’s move on to the personalities on and off screen.
Josh Trank is best
known for directing Chronicle, which was alright for a relatively low budget
film. This time, he has 10 times the budget that he got for Chronicle and it
seems that he has no idea how to use it. Or how to direct for that matter. I
know that many people are saying that Trank is the victim and are blaming it on
studio meddling. I disagree. His blatant disrespect for the source material is
evident even in the first half of the film. Maybe the film wouldn’t have been
as bad without the meddling, but it would still have been bad. Reports are that
Trank sometimes appeared drunk on set and actually caused $100,000 in property
damage against the studio and blamed it on his dog. Because of Trank’s bad behavior on the set of
this film, he lost his opportunity to direct a Star Wars film. To be honest, I
am kind of relieved that he won’t be helming that.
Moving on, the
cast of this film is supposed to be a good one. Miles Teller (Reed Richards)
just got off from an amazing performance in ‘Whiplash’ while Michael B. Jordan
(Johnny Storm) is likable in everything he does. All 5 main actors are very
good actors with great talent, but they were all just phoning it in. Horrible
performances across the board from everyone. In fact, all the actors were
specifically instructed not to read up on the Fantastic Four at all in
preparation for the film. Nothing much else to say about that. Let’s talk about
the characters.
 |
Who needs sets when everything can
be done in front of a green screen? |
This film is
apparently based on the Ultimate Fantastic Four comic books which I have never
read. I read the real Fantastic Four. So, I’m going to overlook the fact that
the Fantastic Four are now young people and that the Human Torch is black which
I’m pretty sure is still not part of the Ultimate comics. But let’s get into
the core of the characters. First off, Sue and Franklin Storm have no character
depth at all. In fact, I defy anyone to describe them with one word without
describing what they look like, their role in the film or that they are smart.
They aren’t characters. Franklin is the narrator and Sue is the girl. In fact,
add the Torch to that list because he is nothing in this film. That is the
reason why when something happens to Franklin, the audience feels nothing at
all. Next, Ben is the only character with any emotional weight, and I still
didn’t like him. He was just sad and annoying the whole time, which goes
against the original character. And then later on, he gets over it and isn’t
sad anymore for no reason at all. And then he chooses his famous quote ‘It’s
clobbering time’ because his brother used to say it before he beats him up?
What kind of genius thought that up? The character motivations were so weak.
Why are Reed and Ben best friends? Why does Reed decide to bring Ben to not-Negative-Zone
instead of Sue who he likes and who is much more qualified and closer to the
machine? Answer: Because movie. In fact, I have a feeling they built the 4
chamber teleporting machine and then later on realised they had 5 characters to
give powers to and ended up sidelining one of them.
 |
Who in their right mind thinks that the
left one looks better than the right one? |
Now, let’s talk
about Dr. Doom, because he deserves his own paragraph. Dr. Doom, along with
Magneto and Loki, is supposed to be one of Marvel’s most prolific villain. So
how is it possible that they cannot make him a good villain in films? For all
of you who do not know, he is essentially Marvel’s Darth Vader. In fact, since
the comic was out before Star Wars, it was probably Darth Vader that ripped off
Dr. Doom. And Darth Vader is one of the greatest villains in film history. So
don’t tell me that it’s impossible to portray such a villain on film. I do not
know how it is possible, but the Dr. Doom in this film is even worse than the
first one. He has only one character trait. He loves Sue Storm. That is
literally it. He is not power hungry or desperate to change people’s perception
of him or Latveria. He just likes a girl and now he wants to destroy the world.
The film lost every fundamental aspect of the character. Also, they completely
change his power set and costume, to the extent that the only resemblance Doom
has to his comic book counterpart is his name. The costume is one of the worst
villain designs in any superhero film. Yes, that includes Mr. Freeze in Batman
and Robin. It was just embarrassing.
This film was bad
all around. The CGI is terrible for a film with a budget of $120 million.
Nothing of consequence ever happens. From the one year skip to the bad dialogue
to the confusing way they get their powers, the film is just a mess through and
through. Stan Lee doesn’t even make a cameo appearance to give this movie any
sort of redeeming quality. Don’t even get me started on how they got their
name. I laughed so loud in the theatre when they came up with it. Speaking of
which, the Thing really needs pants.
When it comes down
to it, there are some superhero films that I dislike, such as Man of Steel and
The Amazing Spider-Man, that I would still consider to be movie quality. But sitting
at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, Fantastic Four is far from that standard. If it were
made as a TV movie that people could just watch for free when they’re bored, at
least the audience would have only wasted their time. But the studio, making
people waste their time and money to watch this atrocity, has gone way too far.
It’s not even so bad that it’s good. The most positive reviews I have read or
heard is that the first part is okay. An ‘Okay’ half movie should not be good enough to have people
spend money on. ‘Okay’ should be a TV movie. We need to raise our standards for
a $100 million production that we spend almost 20 bucks for when we can be
seeing better things for free on TV.
Why am I getting
so worked up about all this? It’s just a film, right? Not to me. To me, it’s
much more than that. Every potential film is an opportunity for an artist to
captivate his audience and for 2 hours or so, bring them out of their problems
and worries and into a world that he has created. There are so many talented
people on this planet today who love the Fantastic Four and love making movies.
They are people who would do this out of sheer passion for the brand and would
be so respectful of the film and of the fans that they would make an amazing
film. But instead of giving an opportunity to these people, the resources had
to be spent on a stubborn studio, a weak director and writer who has no respect
for the source material and a cast who are not even trying. That, to me, is
such a tragedy. And don’t tell me a good Fantastic Four film can’t be done,
because it has been. It’s called ‘The Incredibles’ and it was fantastic.
Superhero movie rating: 2/10
After Credits Movie Rating: 2.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment