Opening in 2007 with a younger Reed Richards and his classmate Ben Grimm, Richards is your stereotypical weirdo nerd kid who sits in class doodling potential projects and coming up with wacky contraptions. His latest creation, which captures Grimm's attention, is an attempt at teleportation, and seven years later (and now played by Miles Teller and Jamie Bell respectively) their advancements on the project captures the attention of Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara), who had been working with Dr. Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell) on an inter-dimensional travel project called the 'Quantum Gate', and offers Reed a scholarship at the Baxter Building to assist them, with Dr. Storm's thrill-seeking son Johnny (Michael B. Jorden) later helping out with the project. When it's deemed a success, government officials and the majority of the faculty (lead by Tim Blake Nelson) prepare to get NASA involved, which leads to a drunk Richards, Doom and Johnny calling Grimm to join them in experiencing the new dimension first. When that leads to a casualty and an enormous blackout though, three of the explorers and Sue all get weird new abilities, and get locked up at a secret base for the government to exploit them through. But when Doom reappears and wishes to destroy Earth, it's up to the new batch of superheroes to save the world.
While as a concept Fantastic Four is fine enough, the actual execution of the piece is all over the place, with the reported reshoots and rewrites being quite evident following a rather tacked-on "One Year Later" midway through. The first half Isn't without its flaws, with the aforementioned child Reed segment being ripped from countless films before it with nothing new to add (not to mention some really wooden child performances) and the actual production of the project not only causing Ben to be absent until he needs to gets his powers but also goes on for quite a while. But when in the middle you get a sequence on the other world – nicknamed Planet Zero – which is both eye-catching and a tad cheesy with its reasoning for certain powers for some of the team and a particularly creepy Cronenberg-esque segment where they discover what's happened to them – although not helping is how hilarious Teller looks with incredibly long arms and legs – when you have the film speed ahead to a year later and with everyone adjusting to their predicaments only for forced reasonings of group fractures and a villainous return which was doomed to fail, you only have the screenwriters to blame.
A key component to many films is heart, and I can only imagine that director Josh Trank and 20th Century Fox had very little when it came to creating the Fantastic Four. While Trank does an admirable-enough job at directing a film with very little lighting much like his first feature foray Chronicle, there are plenty of moments where he, the screenwriters and the studio let the iconic characters down. From having Reed run away and leave everyone, including childhood friend Ben, to using his abilities to change his face, it’s something of a travesty as to what they've done. But what is certainly the biggest turn-off for most with this film is the treatment of Dr. Doom. Whilst he may not be the internet blogger many feared he would be when news from the film was beginning to trickle into public awareness, his underused human side and his swift return and defeat in what feels like a ten minute segment at the very end – not to mention his terrible redesign and power range – could be considered offensive to long-time fans, while mainstream audiences will be turned off by him solely because of how underused and underdeveloped he is. Outside of having some form of feelings for Sue which is never expanded upon, having a hatred for others for no reason and having a love/hate bond with Reed, there is no actual character. If it weren't for the fact that he's one of Marvel Comics' most iconic villains, he wouldn't be needed at all.
But the film isn't without its merits, with the majority of special effects being passable – especially the motion capture work done on the finished Thing – and as mentioned previously Trank's direction is good but not outstanding. And while there are unintentional moments of hilarity such as the Thing giving a light head-butt to someone and them being knocked into unconscious, the poor attempts of intended levity aren't as cringeworthy as anticipated.
Leading the team of scientists and heroes is Reed Richards, as portrayed by the living bewilderment that is Miles Teller – an actor who can do grand jobs in various indie fares like Whiplash but can be terrible in the likes of Divergent. Here, he does an admirable job as the future Mr. Fantastic, but that doesn’t stop a number of his lines being hard to bear and for all his alleged intelligence can be a little dim-witted at times. By his side when he isn't on the run or working through his scholarship is Ben Grimm, who's previous experience at motion capture in 2011's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn has helped him with everything but his American accent, and he has some difficulty acting like the tough guy he's meant to be. As the female face of the Fantastic Four is Kate Mara, who doesn't play much of a role outside of being one of many reasons why Doom is against Richards and being able to see patterns. Oh, and also because she's a woman. But she does do a good job, even if her chemistry with her contemporaries is forced. As for brother B. Jordan, he's just doing his Chronicle part again.
As the parents of both Storms and as the adoptive father figure of Reed, Reg E. Carthey is very wooden in the role of Franklin Storm; presenting the most emotion during a vital scene in the third act but quickly brushing it away to keep composure. As mentioned previously, Toby Kebbell has the unfortunate pleasure of playing a terrible representation, alongside a character so low in quality in comparison to his breakout performance in last year's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but he does at least try. And finally, there's Tim Blake Nelson's gum-chewing scientist, who acts like a villain and speaks like a villain, but isn't one because the majority of his decisions do make sense. Well, apart from militarising the heroes and turning Grimm into a muscle-bound American Sniper.
Here's the thing – despite its current reputation by critics and audiences alike, and especially sites like RottenTomatoes and IMDb, Fantastic Four is not a bad film. Certainly, it's nowhere near a good one, but as a mild improvement on the Tim Story attempts a decade prior, as well as notable attempts with the likes of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and, in my eyes the worst superhero film yet, Ang Lee's Hulk. But no matter how much of an improvement it is over other movies, it still has some major faults and some occasional laughable moments. A shell of the film it could have been, and with clear production problems prevalent, Fantastic Four is less fantastic and more iffy. 4/10.
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