178 - Wrong

 So, the super hero movie marathon goes from one of the best super hero movies last week (Fantastic 4; Rise of the Silver Surfer) to one of, if not the, very worst superhero movies. 

And both are about the same heroes... ho-hum.

This is the 2105 Fantastic Four reboot - or as it is styled "Fant4stic". 

Okay. 

Right. 

Where do I start? 

My memory of this film, having on seen it the once in the cinema back in the day, was that it was, frankly, rubbish. Despite this, I went in to it with an open mind. To be fair to it, the movie starts off well, with a short sequence with Reed and Ben as very young kids which is rather fun, as Reed tries out his "teleporter" for the first time.

We flip forward a few years, and they're teenagers. This is a younger Fantastic Four than normal, but it does seem to to work. In fact, at the start of the movie I was thinking maybe I'd got things wrong about the film. I soon had that notion beaten out of me... As soon as the four get their powers the whole movie seems to fall apart. From that moment on, everything is just wrong about the movie.

The tone of the thing is all over the place, and there's none of the humour and wit you usually get with the FF. And the movie is just so dark, both in its tone and literally in the look of the thing. The four barely get to use their powers and spend far more time (when powered) apart than together. The whole thing just seems wrong. 

One of the things that the movie has received criticism for is making Johnny Storm black; to me the only people who think that's a bad idea can be described using one word. Racist. To my mind, the mistake they made was not also making Sue Storm black as well. 'Cos then they have to contrive a new backstory for the pair where Sue's been adopted. It just doesn't work. I can't help but think the studio wimped out by making this decision. 

And none of the main five cast (the four and Doom) nail the roles anything like as well as their counterparts in the preceding two films. Whether that's direction or script, I don't know (I suspect a bit from column A, a bit from column B...) I know Michael B Jordan is definitely capable of a lot better; I mean, he's great in Black Panther, and absolutely shines in the Creed films. He deserved better here.

Heck, the whole cast deserved better. 

The climax of the film - such as it is - seems to be over in the blink of an eye. The big FF V Doom fight is just getting going when it ends. And. Oh. Is that it? 

I mean, it is just so disappointing, and it's no wonder there were no more films with this cast. It's just... rubbish.  

I understand there were many behind the scenes issues during the production of the film, with extensive reshoots - including much of the climax, which would explain why it's so rushed and nonsensical, and boom... over in moments. I can't help but wonder what the original cut would have been like? My gut feeling is that the tone would still have been the same, wrong, but might at least have been a bit more cohesive. 

Still, with Disney buying Fox it now means there'll be another iteration of the FF - likely late 2023 or early 2024. Let's hope their version is closer to the previous two FF films than this one. There is some talk that John Krasinski and Emily Blunt may be Reed and Sue... could be interesting. But at least we know that this next FF film won't just be a one or two and done gig; these characters will be throughout the MCU for years to come and get the chance to shine, in the way Ioan Gruffud and so should have...

And, incidentally; Fant4stic had no Stan Lee cameo.

'Nuff said...