Fantastic Four (2015)

That grand moment when rebooting a movie by re-telling the superhero origin story will pay off did not happen this time – fact! There maybe was hope but it was pointless to think that Fantastic Four with a fresh cast would elevate this particular franchise to new heights and bring some joy. If anything, I’m disappointed and sad that I even, for a brief moment in time, thought that maybe it will be good. Oh how wrong was I…

First up, let’s go back in time, into 2005 when the Fantastic Four movie happened for the first time and I wasn’t as movie-savvy as I am now (or think I am). Back then, everything was so simple and not so complicated for me because I was all about the entertainment factor and I thought Fantastic Four had it. Now, after intensely studying and growing up, I think that I was pretty movie-stupid in my teenage years to think the Fantastic Four movie was any good, it was mediocre at best. So, you could understand why I thought the rebooting will go well because the bar was set quite low in terms of superhero movies. Sure, there’s Avengers, Captain America and the rest of the Marvel universe but Fantastic Four would have been, first and foremost, up against itself and they still fucked up.

Now, let me share the origin of the Fantastic Four reboot downfall – the script! And no matter how well directed, or how well acted, or how well polished by CGI, when the script is as bad as it was there’s no salvation. That’s it. That’s the biggest reason that this movie failed and it’s a shame really because despite the stupid things Miles Teller keeps saying, I sort of like him and wanted this to work out for him. But now it doesn’t matter because some guy named Jeremy Slater doesn’t know how to tell a story, how to build characters that viewers like to root for and how to create tension, excitement or any other feelings that movies should have..

There is a silver lining in this travesty of a movie though, and it’s Jamie Bell. Man, I love that man and I wish he had more screen time as Ben and not the Thing because the moment his precious face turned to rock, I was sad. And not just because his rock face was so ugly looking but because he was pretty much the only reason the first half of the movie was tolerable. He was grumpy (probably because he had realized the movie was going to be a failure), he was moody and he was my favorite until they ruined everything. And the way the whole gaining powers thing played out was so annoying as well, like, best friends since they were kids and then Reed (Miles Teller) just leaves him there? First, it did nothing for his character that is supposedly the team-leader and second, it diminished the only good thing about the movie that was Ben’s and Reed’s friendship.

Then the hits kept coming, the ridiculous story line kept progressing towards the villain’s end game that was even more ridiculous than everything that was leading up to it. Toby Kebbell as Dr. Doom was a good choice though, I must admit, he looked the part but well, only in the first half of the movie. By the way, there’s a theme here, and that is the fact that most of my favorite things about the movie happened in the first half. It’s almost like somebody else started writing the script (actual true fact), and then this Slater guy comes in and writes the second half – everything goes up in flames! That’s not to say the beginning was any good, it was simply better than what started to happen in the middle and therefore seems tolerable. Oh and like I said, the first half had Jamie Bell’s precious face so.. I didn’t really pay attention to anything else.

Long story short, Fantastic Four reboot failed to produce a decent script but the producers and Marvel were like, we got this, and went ahead with the movie anyway. Never mind the fact that it failed miserably in the box office and it didn’t gain any support from the fans, nor did it generate a great villain. Which makes this the third Marvel movie this summer that didn’t have a great villain and I’m starting to loose hope. Hope that superheros are super and that the villains they fight are actually scary. So well done Fantastic Four, you made me feel hopeless.

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