FANTASTIC FOUR (PG-13)
Released by 20th Century Fox
Reviewed by Adam Mast
There’s no getting around it: FANTASTIC FOUR is lifeless. Furthermore, this origin story is over before anything really happens, and the fact that FANTASTIC FOUR features such a terrific roster of amazing young talent only makes this dull cinematic experience all the tougher to endure.
Based on the famous Marvel comic book series, FANTASTIC FOUR revolves around a group of brilliant young minds—Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), Reed Richards (Miles Teller), Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), Sue Storm (Kate Mara), and Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan)—as they join forces in an effort to perfect a teleportation device.
The device is successfully tested by way of a non-human test subject, prompting money man Dr. Allen (Tim Blake Nelson) to inform his genius inventors that the project will be handed off to the folks at NASA. Naturally, Victor and crew don’t take kindly to this news, so in an effort to receive the credit they rightfully deserve, Victor, Reed, Johnny, and Ben decide to get drunk and test the teleporter on themselves while the level-headed Sue stays in the lab. As expected, things do not go as planned.
The team is ultimately teleported to another dimension. While exploring their new surroundings, an unfortunate mishap forces Reed, Ben, and Johnny to leave Victor behind. When the trio returns to their point of origin, they are not themselves. And as fate would have it, a dramatic re-entry into their own dimension also affects innocent bystander Sue.
Now cursed with strange new powers, a stretchable Reed, a rockified Ben, a fire blazing Johnny, and an invisible Sue are treated like guinea pigs by the government. Eventually, Reed escapes the lab, leaving his friends to fend for themselves as he tries to make right what went so horribly wrong.
Cut to a year later. Yes, this film lazily jettisons the plot an entire year, and when we meet up with these characters again, they are in a slightly different mental state. Ben “The Thing” Grimm is now serving the military by way of his massive, rocky physique and unmatched strength, while Johnny “The Human Torch” Storm waits patiently to use his new-found power to take out the world’s biggest enemies. Sue Storm wants no part of any of it and bides her time honing her invisibility and force shield skills all while hoping that Reed Richards might return.
As previously stated, this FANTASTIC FOUR is an origin story, and it takes a long time to get going. Actually, that isn’t an accurate statement, because that would imply that the movie does eventually “get going.” Sadly, it never really does. Director Josh Trank (who effectively meshed the increasingly tired found footage trend with super hero mythology in the creative CHRONICLE) simply never finds any sort of rhythm here, and origin story or not, that theme of family that you’d come to expect from these characters never really comes to fruition.
FANTASTIC FOUR features a roster of truly amazing talent, but you’d never guess by watching this film. Teller (WHIPLASH) and Mara (127 HOURS) both look bored and irritated. Jordan (FRUITVALE STATION) displays a bit of that swagger fans will be looking for, but there’s too little of it. Toby Kebbell (so good as Koba in RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES) has charisma to spare, but he’s sorely underwritten and forced to utter the film’s silliest line: “There is no Victor. Only Doom.” That stuff will fly in GHOSTBUSTERS, but it doesn’t fly here.
Of the cast, Bell (BILLY ELLIOT) fairs strongest because he’s the only character we truly feel sorry for. And therein lies a real problem in this version of FANTASTIC FOUR. As written by Josh Trank, Simon Kindberg, and Jeremy Slater, there’s nothing particularly likable about these characters, and the actors playing them are unable to generate any real chemistry. What’s worse, there’s absolutely no sense of joy or awe here.
I did dig that this take on FANTASTIC FOUR amps up the sci-fi angle. I also enjoyed the film’s tonal homage to ‘80s efforts that I hold near and dear to my heart. The opening of the picture has an EXPLORERS vibe with a hint of early era Spielberg suburbia, while the teleportation plot thread and the primary villain’s talent for causing heads to explode will remind some viewers of THE FLY and SCANNERS, but in the end, Trank’s attempt at “Cronenberg-goes-Amblin” never remotely takes flight.
In addition to weak pacing, lack of cast chemistry, and the overall rushed nature of the proceedings, all the relationships in this picture are so underdeveloped that they don’t even feel like actual relationships. The friendship between Reed and Ben comes closest to working, but even it feels unfulfilling. Furthermore, the contentious plot threads in this picture don’t seem to go anywhere. Look no further than Victor’s supposed jealousy toward the so-called budding connection between Reed and Sue. Talk about undefined. Then there’s the monumentally uneventful climax in which heroes must come together to take on an end-of-the-world threat. When the inevitable villain first shows up, his killing rampage suggests that the threat is about to get real, but quite quickly, everything just sort of fizzles out. Blink and you’ll miss it.
Trank has suggested that the version of FANTASTIC FOUR 20th Century Fox released is not the version of the film he intended audiences to see. But quite frankly, everything that did make the cut is so dull and so lacking in energy that I don’t see how a few more scenes could have made that big of a difference. The question is, will any of us ever have a chance to find out? With Trank’s relationship with Fox soured (speculated reports abound that Trank’s onset behavior was volatile at best because he wasn’t permitted to craft the film he initially set out to make) and with this project allegedly being a rough ride for everyone involved, the chances of extra footage ever seeing the light of day is pretty slim. Where does this leave future adaptations of Marvel’s first family? No telling, but if I had the ability to teleport all previous cinematic incarnations of this source material to another dimension, I’d do so.
