Great, another remake of the Fantastic Four. That’s never happened before, except in 1994, 2005, 2007 and just a guess, but there’s probably at least five other Fantastic Four adaptations underway. This one isn’t a stand out, unless you’re looking for something that’s stand out bad.
If that’s the case, this fits the bill.
This one, directed by John Trank, never really stood a chance. Many anonymous insiders have been trashing this movie since before it was released. Even Trank complained that he had a ‘fantastic’ version of the movie that was subsequently ruined but 20th Century Fox. Just about everyone involved seemed completely uncommitted to this project.
This review is going to be spoiler heavy, because it’s literally not worth watching the 80 minutes of tedious backstory, followed by the 20 minutes of equally tedious climax.
First off Miles Teller plays Mr. Fantastic. This 28-year-old actor seems a bit young for the role, so they fixed it by…making his character even younger? For some reason they portray Reed Richards as an 18-year-old self-taught world class genius who discovers the secret of inter dimensional travel during a school science fair.
Also with him is Ben Grimm (aka the Thing) who plays a boy bullied by his older brother. As if to shoehorn in his catch phrase, they make it so the older brother yells out “it’s clobbering time” just about every time he’s about to beat on his kid brother, which is kind of depressing
Ok, anyway back to the science fair. Of course wackiness ensures when they accidently break the gymnasium. Luckily, Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his adopted daughter, Sue (Kate Mara) just happen to show up to announce they are also attempting to master inter-dimensional travel. So Reed gets a full scholarship that conveniently places him closer to his love interest.
There’s a bunch of other characters as well, including an entirely forgettable bad guy, but I really stopped paying attention about half way in. It just gets to be too much, like they really want to make sure they shove in as many back story moments as possible in order to cash in on the nostalgia. The problem is, this film is so far removed from the original that it bears little resemblance to any of the original characters.
The cast was utterly forgettable, the screenplay poorly written and ridiculous even by superhero movie standards and the entire thing dragged on so long that half the time I forgot what the point was by the time they reached it.
It just didn’t work. Making all the actors so seemingly young, while trying to shove in too many origin stories, made everything feel rushed and idiotic. I can kind of see why this movie was getting trashed even by the people that made it. The actors sleepwalked through their roles, in a script so filled with clichés and plot holes it could be used as a colander.
I can’t give it a worth the watch. In fact, I hope the Fantastic Four perfect their inter-dimensional technology so I can find a new place where this movie never existed.
We Gave it: 1 Star: Official Movie Trailer and Movie Poster Below
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