Bradley Burgess | Rawr
The Fantastic Four were Marvel Comics’ very first superhero team, laying the groundwork for what ultimately became the Marvel Comics Universe. The tale of four astronauts who gain superpowers after a cosmic storm in space gave birth to a comic book revolution, as well as created timeless characters people love to this day.
Well, apparently, no one told the executives at Fox Studios any of that before they made “Fantastic Four,” a cinematic middle finger to any fan of the comics as well as anyone who loves movies.
First of all, virtually everything other than the characters’ names have been changed for this film. Rather than go to outer space, Reed Richards (Miles Teller), Susan Storm (Kate Mara), Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) travel to another dimension, dubbed “Planet Zero,” and return with superpowers. That’s strike one.
Secondly, while the lack of racial diversity in films is a problem Hollywood has yet to adequately address, the integration of multi-racial characters within “Fantastic Four” feels forced and unnatural.
In the film Johnny Storm is black despite the fact that he is white in the comics and in the film his sister Susan is still white. This doesn’t feel like a deliberate move to combat the racial homogeny of the movie industry — it feels like a half-baked ploy to make a superficial social appeal. Strike two.
This film is telling the origin of a superhero team, yet I can count on my hand how many times all four characters share a room together. For 95 percent of the film’s running time, the Fantastic Four never interact as a team. Strike three.
There, the movie struck out. That has to be a new record.
All the great actors are completely under utilized here. Miles Teller, fresh off his star-making turn in “Whiplash,” comes off as a jerk when he flat out abandons the rest of his friends for an entire year. I’m not kidding. Jamie Bell fails to bring any pathos or substance to Ben Grimm and the movie never explores his horrifying situation of being turned into a rock monster. Kate Mara comes off the best here, probably because she’s the most like her comic book counterpart, but her talent as an actress is wasted because the script is so thin.
There’s no action until the final scene, and even then, it ends in two minutes. The villain is forgotten for hours until the last act and he becomes a bad guy for no reason. The film zooms by, hitting all the basic notes of a film, but doesn’t explore any of them. It makes the film feel hollow. Virtually no decision made in this film is defendable. “Fantastic Four” fails on just about every level, making it a waste of time, money and effort, or lack thereof. Do not see it. Save yourself.