Review: Fantastic Four (2015)

Young inventor Reed Richards (Miles Teller) and his buddy Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) earn the interest of Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his adopted daughter Sue Storm (Kate Mara), when showing off Reed’s teleportation device at a school science fair. The judges disqualify Reed, thinking he’s created a fantasy toy, but Dr. Storm is suitably impressed enough to invite Reed to move into his research facility, where Sue also works. Along with Ben, Victor (Toby Kebbell), and Storm’s wayward son Johnny (Michael B. Jordan), they work on using Reed’s teleportation device, which despite what Richards had originally thought, actually transports objects not to another place on Earth, but another planet/dimension! When NASA (represented by jerky Tim Blake Nelson) want to send someone through the device, Reed, Johnny, Ben, and Victor take it upon themselves to sneak in late one night and use themselves as guinea pigs. However, tragedy befalls Victor, and the others come back with strange (super) powers. Reed has rubbery limbs, Johnny can conjure flames, and poor Ben is turned into a creature made from stone. Sue, through a manner that I didn’t quite understand (second-hand smoke? Collateral Damage?), also becomes the Invisible Girl.

 

I really liked Josh Trank’s previous “Chronicle”, but boy did this guy’s rep take a hit fast. This 2015 kinda sorta film adaptation of the Marvel comics has problems all over the place. However, for me most of the blame should be directed towards Trank and his co-screenwriters Simon Kinberg (“X Men: The Last Stand”, “Sherlock Holmes”, “This Means War”) and Jeremy Slater (“The Lazarus Effect”). For as much as this is a joyless experience full of glum performances from miscast actors and an overall lack of excitement, the basic problem is…this doesn’t seem like much of a “Fantastic Four” film at all. I get that the film might be kind of going the ‘origins’ route, but after 66 minutes into a 93 minute movie, the characters were still attempting to reverse whatever had happened to them. Since we know they eventually learn to live with (and use) their powers, it seems silly and counter-productive to spend two-thirds of the movie doing nothing to establish the characters as superheroes, let alone fully establish the film’s villain. I’m sorry, but this wasn’t plot. It was 20 minutes of prologue stretched out past an hour, with less than 30 minutes of actual movie. I’m not a fan of the “X-Men” franchise really (I liked “The Last Stand” and “First Class”, though), but at least the first of those film managed to incorporate backstory, scholastic scenes, and an actual proper plot/conflict all in the one film. Here we get the majority of the film focussing on backstory and scholastics. It’s pretty useless, really. No wonder this thing flopped, it totally air-swings. When the main villain finally re-emerges at the 72 minute mark, it’s well past too late. This is a truly pissweak film that has ‘troubled production’ all over it. Truth be told, I’m not sure why we needed this film, when we had two previous “Fantastic Four” films in 2005 and 2007 (neither much chop). The only version I’ve ever liked was the late 60s Hanna-Barbera cartoon, and boy does that hold up a lot better than any subsequent version.

 

It starts interestingly enough, with a Spielbergian unhappy family set-up, which is pretty enjoyable. In fact, there are moments of rather sombre, tragic sadness sprinkled here and there in the film that suggest kernels of something halfway interesting. For the most part though, it’s pretty flat and unengaging. None of the actors playing the four (nor villain Toby Kebbell) look like they’re enjoying this, let alone have any chemistry between them. Casting the boorish Miles Teller in a role where he’s ultimately meant to be likeable and sympathetic is the exact opposite of the best use of him. The guy has a douchy frat boy persona that for my money, seems like it’ll permanently attach itself to him. The guy has no humility on screen and doesn’t seem aware of it. He’s totally miscast as a science nerd as well, drunken frat boy is his stock and trade. I did like the rubbery CGI on his character’s flexible limbs, however. Kate Mara, meanwhile, suffers from taking herself way too seriously, and only part of it can be excused by her character. The girl’s a spoil sport and on top of that clearly doesn’t want to be there. As for Mr. Kebbell, he’s as glum as Mara here, and that it fits his character is only marginally more excusable than in Mara’s case. The worst performance of the lot, though, comes from one of the more experienced members of the cast, throaty Reg E. Cathey as the father of Michael B. Jordan and Kate Mara. The guy is having a seriously off day here, with a distractingly amateurish performance from someone who should know better. Weaselly-looking Jamie Bell isn’t as innately suited to playing The Thing as say, Michael Chiklis was in the 2005 film (in theory at least. I can’t remember if Chiklis’ performance was any good or not). However, at least once he gets turned into The Thing you can’t even recognise Bell, due to the (quite good) CGI.

 

Michael B. Jordan copped a lot of flak here, partly through accusations of nepotism with his “Chronicle” director Trank. For me, though, he’s the only one here who comes away with his dignity in tact (though some of his interviews and snarky comments about the film and critics pegs him as a bigger douche than Teller, to be honest). He’s clearly got charisma, and is the only one in the film who really commands your attention. It’s a bit of a shame, then that Trank and his co-writers aren’t much interested in his character. Or any character. The script is woefully lacking in character development. So much so that the film feels somewhat incomplete or hacked to pieces in post-production. Whether it was the producers trying to salvage something out of the mess Trank created or if indeed they ‘ruined’ his film, no one can really say unless they were directly involved. I have my suspicions, though, and I can certainly say that the final product is woefully unsatisfying.

 

The best thing in the entire film is the solid, Jerry Goldsmith-esque music score by the strange duo of Marco Beltrami (“Scream”, "Repo Men") and Philip Glass (“Koyaanasqatsi”, “Candyman”). It works, the film doesn’t. If you’re gonna do an origins story, at least have the smarts to stretch it out to about two hours. By only running a little over 90 minutes and having the characters not start to gain their super powers until the 45 minute mark, this is a total mess. Dreary and lousy, something clearly went wrong at some stage of this film’s production and no one was able to salvage it in post, either, that’s if they didn’t butcher it even further. Woefully disappointing, miscast by a suicidally depressed bunch of actors, and unlikely to satisfy even the most agreeable of comic book/superhero movie fans. Trank has botched this, and Michael B. Jordan’s charisma can’t come close to saving it. I hope he recovers, because “Chronicle”, one of the best superhero (or superpowers) movies of the last few decades, was full of promise.

 

Rating: D