Fantastic Four is finally out and was met with very harsh reviews. It was universally panned by critics and fans alike. It’s such a shame with all the talent surrounding this film that they couldn’t make a half decent film. Even knowing the film was going to be some kind of bad, I decided I needed to see it for myself. I went to the theatre with very low expectations and came out astounded by how bad the film truly is.
Before I completely bash the film, let’s talk about what I liked about Fantastic Four. The cast, while severely underused and given horrible dialogue, I think they delivered the best performance under the circumstances. They don’t make the film any better, but I believe they make the movie watchable. I just wished they were given the opportunity to be interesting. Jamie Bell’s the Thing was also something I enjoyed. I liked his overall design, look, and voice. I thought the his CGI was the only great thing about the movie, but even it looked mediocre is some scenes. I think having detailed performance capture for him would have been an amazing thing to watch in the final film. Another thing I appreciated was the new origin story. I like the way they built up the movie. It was very based in reality and science and I though they did a decent job at building up to their super powers. I think they could have added some more character moments to build an emotional bond between the audience and characters, but for the most part it was passable. And that’s about all the film did well.
My biggest problem with Fantastic Four is that the film is all build up. We get an hour of decent movie building up to their powers, when they finally do though, the film takes a nose dive. We get twenty minutes of horribleness which involves finding Reed Richards and the rest of the group being trained by the government after the movie skips a year. This was the cheapest and worst move the film made. Then the next fifteen minutes involves Doctor Doom infiltrating the army base and escaping back to the other dimension. Then we are given the shortest, most half-assed, cheesiest, and worst super hero film climax I’ve ever seen. You get a five minute fight scene with horrible action and no suspense. This fight scene is also the only one in the entire film. What a waste. I just don’t understand what they were trying to do with this film and instead of using any cliche to help the film they decided to just give up on the film. It’s a complete disaster of a final act, in terms of what the movie could have been.
Besides the way the film played out, you have no relationship building between any of the characters. You don’t buy any of them as friends. Doctor Doom looks horrendous, good thing he’s in the movie for only ten minutes. There’s no action in the film at all except for the lousy end fight. We don’t get to see the main characters learning their powers, let alone see them use them.
Overall Fantastic Four is the worst superhero film I’ve seen in the past ten years. Audiences have been given quality films with more mediocre source material than the Fantastic Four that have delivered Oscar worthy things. It’s a shame director Josh Trank couldn’t build on his success from Chronicle. Instead he most likely ruined his career, previously attached to a Star Wars film, he no longer is and all you heard about the film before release was trouble behind the scenes. It’s just a shame considering what could have been.