This week’s choice of film for BMaF was one out of curiosity as we chose to see the reboot of the Fantastic Four, a film that seems to have been plagued with issues around its production, which only seem to be enhanced when it was announced the film would not be screening for critics, normally a good sign that the film may not be the best
At one point this was even talked about as being a found footage film, a genre that I can not stand, this however in part is that on seeing on a big screen they give me terrible motion sickness, not sure if that is just me though, it’s director quit working on a Star Wars stand alone film as signs that he did not get on with the studio and a decision to post convert the film to 3D was dropped to save money
So is this film as bad as you may have been made to believe? It actually starts quite well, giving a back story of Reed & Ben doing there science projects at school before meeting up with the rest of the ‘fantastic’ four of Johnny and Sue Storm, the trouble is this takes up just under an hour so for those wanting to see a big Marvel comic book action film will of course be disappointed as the four’s powers get less than a third of the films screen time
And this in part is the film’s major downfall, it is just far too serious, it needs A ‘Iron Man’, ‘Hulk’ or even an ‘Ant Man’ to just turn up and inject a bit of humour. The characters pasts are all so depressing so when the science project is being worked on by Reed and Ben it is at least a welcome distraction from them being bullied or treated differently by classmates, family and teachers
When the project happens, only 3 of the 4 go to the unknown planet that their experiment teleports them too, with fellow student Victor Von Doom along for the ride. When the impact to their lives occurs giving them their fantastic powers, the 4th fantastic member gets their powers from a deflection from the impact which seems a bit of luck
The unknown planet, known as the negative zone, is also a major issue for me as it appears to be just a dark set, the CGI in this film is not brilliant it has to be said
That being said, as someone who enjoys the ‘Sharknado’ franchise CGI is not the issue, whilst this film doesn’t drag, it’s just dull, it has a shorter run time than most Marvel films so it doesn’t hang around long but as a reboot, it certainly doesn’t add much to the previous Fantastic Four films that stared Chris Evans & Jessica Alba and at least that felt like a comic book as had fun to it
This is the biggest let down of the film for me, its cast of Miles (Whiplash) Teller, Kate (House of cards TV show) Mara, Jamie (Billy Elliot) Bell and soon to be seen in Creed, Michael B.Jordan are all adequate in their roles but can do so much better, Jamie in particular is lost under the Thing CGI character
Toby Kebbell is at least menacing as Doom but his challenge again the four seems to be thrown onto the end of the film and the showdown of the 4 against him is over as quick as it began
Had this been the pilot to a TV series you could maybe understand and look forward to further episodes with the now established cast but it isn’t, it’s a summer blockbuster and you have to wander if we’ll get a second episode with this four
Only recently director Josh Trank tweeted and quickly deleted to the effect that he could have made a better film but for the film company applying pressure, if that is true or not remains to be seen but for me the released effort of the film is the first real stinker of the year
I would also like to point out that some of Doom’s kills are pretty nasty and this film in my opinion is lucky to get away with a 12a certificate
Did you think the Four were ‘Fantastic’ or did you ‘Marvel’ at how bad it was, let us know
Fantastic Four
Run time 1 hour 40 minutes
Cert 12a
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