by Chris @Movieguy84
Going into Fantastic 4, I knew about the negative press around this film. I still had hope for it though and kept a positive attitude as the movie started. My positive outlook only lasted about twenty minutes into this boring flick.
The movie starts off with a young Reed Richards and Ben Grimm in sixth grade. Richards is the smart kid while Grimm is the tough kid. They work together to help Richards build a teleportation machine and eventually present it at their high school science fair. There they meet Frank and his daughter Sue Storm. They invite Richards to help them at the Baxter Foundation to finish a similar teleportation device. The end up working with the gloomy Victor Von Doom and angsty rebel Johnny Storm and eventually complete the project.
As soon as the machine is a proven success, rich business men come in and decide the machine should be used by NASA to teleport humans. Richards, Johnny Storm and Von Doom are upset. They feel they will end up like the smart guys that build the space shuttle while they watch the astronauts take credit with the travel.
Richards calls up his BFF Grimm and the four of them drunkenly decide to make a secret trip with the machine to claim dibs on the new planet. Sue Storm finds out and attempts to assist their return when their trip ends up going awry. Only Richards, Grimm and Johnny return but are barely alive in an accident that also injures Sue.
The military takes over the situation and the four are put through tests as they recover. Frank Storm watches on in horror as his children attempt to recover. Richards soon escapes and the film jumps ahead a year. We then see the other three honing their new skills, while Richards is still missing.
The movie ends up with the four of them having to team up after Von Doom is discovered attempting to destroy earth. Unfortunately all of that happens in the last ten minutes of the movie. It all ends with a very cheesy, kinda clunkily filmed “what should we call ourselves now?” scene.
While I did enjoy the tone at times, it didn’t seem to work with a superhero movie like this. The four heroes have super powers like stretching, turning invisible and becoming a flying fireball. You can't get too serious with this material. Other recent superhero movies have been succeeding by owning the goofiness of their heroes abilities and making the adventure a fun time while not being too serious. I feel like Fantastic 4 proved that superhero movies can’t be too serious. Now I know that the Batman films were serious, and those were all successful, but Batman comes from a more darker place. Much of the DC comic universe is like that, so making the films like that works. Most of Marvel’s superheroes are a little on the over the top/campy side and the filmmakers of those movies have made that work.
The movie also moved at a very slow pace, which I didn’t mind at first since I knew this movie was basically going to be a introductory one. The only thing is, if a movie is going to drag you for so long, it better have a great pay off. Fantastic 4 does not.
The characters were also a huge problem in this movie for me. I did not like one of them at all. I cared a little for Richards because I knew a little of his background and his devotion to building this device. Other than that, everyone else came off as selfish and annoying. When the guys take their secret trip on the machine, I don’t care. Von Doom gets hurt, and left behind? Good for him, I hated him. And when the big battle commences, I again don’t really care. The whole, “we can only defeat him together,” theme is nice, but a bit unbelievable at this point since everyone has acted as if they completely hated each other until that moment.
Again, I know this movie had a lot of issues going on behind the scenes (and I recommend looking up info about it, because it’s actually more interesting than the movie) and they made it very apparent that some scenes were added later (Sue Storm had a very noticeable blonde wig in some scenes, including the big finale), but in the end these things seemed to hurt the movie.
You’ll most likely be mildly entertained with this superhero flick. I recommend skipping it..
Going into Fantastic 4, I knew about the negative press around this film. I still had hope for it though and kept a positive attitude as the movie started. My positive outlook only lasted about twenty minutes into this boring flick.
The movie starts off with a young Reed Richards and Ben Grimm in sixth grade. Richards is the smart kid while Grimm is the tough kid. They work together to help Richards build a teleportation machine and eventually present it at their high school science fair. There they meet Frank and his daughter Sue Storm. They invite Richards to help them at the Baxter Foundation to finish a similar teleportation device. The end up working with the gloomy Victor Von Doom and angsty rebel Johnny Storm and eventually complete the project.
As soon as the machine is a proven success, rich business men come in and decide the machine should be used by NASA to teleport humans. Richards, Johnny Storm and Von Doom are upset. They feel they will end up like the smart guys that build the space shuttle while they watch the astronauts take credit with the travel.
Richards calls up his BFF Grimm and the four of them drunkenly decide to make a secret trip with the machine to claim dibs on the new planet. Sue Storm finds out and attempts to assist their return when their trip ends up going awry. Only Richards, Grimm and Johnny return but are barely alive in an accident that also injures Sue.
The military takes over the situation and the four are put through tests as they recover. Frank Storm watches on in horror as his children attempt to recover. Richards soon escapes and the film jumps ahead a year. We then see the other three honing their new skills, while Richards is still missing.
The movie ends up with the four of them having to team up after Von Doom is discovered attempting to destroy earth. Unfortunately all of that happens in the last ten minutes of the movie. It all ends with a very cheesy, kinda clunkily filmed “what should we call ourselves now?” scene.
While I did enjoy the tone at times, it didn’t seem to work with a superhero movie like this. The four heroes have super powers like stretching, turning invisible and becoming a flying fireball. You can't get too serious with this material. Other recent superhero movies have been succeeding by owning the goofiness of their heroes abilities and making the adventure a fun time while not being too serious. I feel like Fantastic 4 proved that superhero movies can’t be too serious. Now I know that the Batman films were serious, and those were all successful, but Batman comes from a more darker place. Much of the DC comic universe is like that, so making the films like that works. Most of Marvel’s superheroes are a little on the over the top/campy side and the filmmakers of those movies have made that work.
The movie also moved at a very slow pace, which I didn’t mind at first since I knew this movie was basically going to be a introductory one. The only thing is, if a movie is going to drag you for so long, it better have a great pay off. Fantastic 4 does not.
The characters were also a huge problem in this movie for me. I did not like one of them at all. I cared a little for Richards because I knew a little of his background and his devotion to building this device. Other than that, everyone else came off as selfish and annoying. When the guys take their secret trip on the machine, I don’t care. Von Doom gets hurt, and left behind? Good for him, I hated him. And when the big battle commences, I again don’t really care. The whole, “we can only defeat him together,” theme is nice, but a bit unbelievable at this point since everyone has acted as if they completely hated each other until that moment.
Again, I know this movie had a lot of issues going on behind the scenes (and I recommend looking up info about it, because it’s actually more interesting than the movie) and they made it very apparent that some scenes were added later (Sue Storm had a very noticeable blonde wig in some scenes, including the big finale), but in the end these things seemed to hurt the movie.
You’ll most likely be mildly entertained with this superhero flick. I recommend skipping it..