Fantastic Four (2015)

Director: Josh Trank
Writer: Jeremy Slater, Simon Kinberg, Josh Trank,
Comic Writers: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure
Running Time: 100mins
Cast: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey
Country: USA
Production Company: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Marvel Entertainment, TSG Entertainment
Certificate Rating: 12a
My Rating: 3/5

Beyond darkness...beyond fear...lies the fantastic

[This will contain spoilers...to an extent]



A group of young adults transport their selves to another dimension in which their experience there alters their physical forms in challenging ways. They then must discover how to deal with these new abilities in ways far more advanced than what they expected.

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Upon seeing the trailer for the reboot of the Fantastic Four series I admittedly sort of had high expectations for the film, hoping it would be witty like Tim Story's Fantastic Four just 10 years prior to this version. I won't be comparing the 2005 film to this version but I was disappointed coming out of the cinema screen.

It's not that it was bad, it just really didn't live up to my expectations. I liked how it focused predominantly on the scientific side of how these ordinary young adults came together on this project eventually leading them, through a drunken mistake, to receive these powers. Yet it seemed to lack in action and somewhat dipped in and out of plot in other parts of the film. The beginning set the film up rather well, acting as a prequel of plots to come and building to the main element of the story, building the teleporter to venture into space and places beyond our knowledge. However the ending seemed to just fizzle out; there were no high-and-mighty long sequenced fight scenes (like most conventional comic-book films), most likely the high point of the fighting was over within five minutes, and it was only the last twenty minutes which set the pace up for there to be a fight scene. You can tell that Fox seemed desperate to keep the rights to Fantastic Four, and with the hope of making it into a franchise you can see where they clearly were aiming to make a sequel, but it just didn't work in my opinion. On opening weekend it did well with hype of the rebooted franchise, earning roughly $25,685,737, making the film lose out on first place to Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. But with a much greater franchise, Mission: Impossible, it is going to be difficult to beat it.

I'm going to break down the characters and also mention some of the things which just didn't fit in my eyes. So first let's of course talk about one of many main characters: Reed Richards - played by Miles Teller, most famous for his roles in independent films and suggestively his first suggestively non-indie role. I liked how it was set up by taking us back to Reed's past and how he managed to create something he dreamed of and his typical friendship with Ben - although they are apart he updates Ben on his work and allowed his friend to go on the silly "drunken" mission. One thing that left me questioning the motives of the film was why Reed's just got up and left the institute after everything the group had experienced - they were all going through the same things - did he just feel more guilt for his actions?

Susan Storm - played by Kate Mara - just appeared like an angsty teenager and despite us knowing not a lot about her and her family it would have been better to understand her a little better by delving in to her past too. I think one of the things that they missed out on this film, and where perhaps Marvel have done better, is through the music - it would have been good to hear the music she listens to. Or maybe because she is a reserved, hard working girl that that is why we don't get to see that side of her, I mean does she actually smile? But on the other hand she does save the boys lives by getting them back to Earth.

This film just seemed like a very studio safe film, making the woman save the men, and casting Michael B. Jordan as Johnny. I actually thought Johnny was one of the best characters, he brought the comedic elements to the film and played that typical bad boy persona who need to pay his dues. And then we come to Ben, played by Jamie Bell, who seemed to me to contain all the cheesy predictable lines of the film, "It's clobbering time" had to be included for the fan in all of us, but it became funny rather than a fist-in-the-air 'yeah' as the goodies are about to defeat the bad guy. And of course at the end with the creation of their team name, it's a shame because he was a really interesting character but it's like the creators just couldn't be bothered. Even some of the CGI for The Thing seemed like it had been created for a game rather than a film.

Lastly we come to our villain Victor, who I thought that throughout this film that nobody really cared about him. Do you agree? I didn't really understand the connection he had with Susan until my friend explained it to me, and let's not forget that when Reed, Johnny and Ben get back from their mistake of a mission no one interrogated them about what happened to Victor and it's like most people forgot he ever existed. Did they really presume him dead? Why did nobody bother to think 'oh, what happens if he is still alive on that planet?'. These are the questions that bothered me, why did they presume him dead, why didn't they mention briefly that they were building the teleporter to try and bring him back? Then we come towards the end of the film, the teleporter has been built and the six scientists travel to Zero and even though they see a thermal image of a human body on their scanner none of them thought to think 'oh maybe, just a slight possibility that it could be Victor'.

I quickly want to mention the somewhat lack of special effects, the CGI seemed quite low quality for a Studio big budget film; the stretchy-ness of Reed was comedic; Susan's forcefield and invisibility were pretty cool but seemed mediocre at best; Johnny's flames were impressive but he literally became a figure engulfed in flames and of course I've briefly mentioned The Thing's video games quality.

I know that there was a lot of debate about the Studio trying to hard and the director accusing the studio of taking over and so in the end it really wasn't Josh Trank's film but I think that as you watch it you can kind of understand what elements Trank (director of Chronicle) has inputted and what artistic control that Studio has used.

It might sound like I'm slating the film I just expected it to bring a lot more to the plate than what it did. Don't get me wrong I liked it, it just disappointed me! This is my view, I would like to read your views on the film, did you like it, did you not like it? Leave a comment below about what you thought about the film?

Enjoy x

IMDb: Fantastic Four