This rebooted Fantastic Four film follows the standard
formula from the comics, five friends use their science genius to enter a
dimension and develop different superpowers. If you know anything about the FF
synopsis, you know the opening to this film. They attempt to pad it out with
different backstories and character variances but essentially the plot is what
you’d expect.
That’s the biggest gaping problem with this film, they
played it too safe and yet somehow tried to pull from too many different influences
and tones. The film simply doesn’t know what it wants to be. Does it want to be
light-hearted and fun like what we’re used to Marvel films being today, or does
it want to be gritty and market itself to a new generation craving something
darker like the Nolan Batman films? It’s amazing to me that Fox hasn’t managed
to crack the code that is this franchise. The Fantastic Four was once a sought
after and well known property that gave Fox huge head start on Marvel who had
to build credibility on what were originally considered B list characters. But it’s
now apparent that they solely don’t know what they’re doing with this material.
I saw X-Men: First Class again today out of pure chance and it
still amazing how Fox managed to bring in a new cast of young actors and a
fresh creative team and make a great film. They totally pulled it out of the
bag that year, saving a dwindling franchise and making a sweet-ass film in one
swift swoop. This film could have been to Fantastic Four what First Class was
to X-Men. But they totally missed the mark. I’m not really sure who to pin this
on. For months (if not years) we’ve heard stories of failed productions and
scripts for this potential reboot never getting off the ground. We’ve also more
recently heard how difficult the actual greenlit production was with Josh Trank
being incredibly difficult to work with. Its clear to me now that he’d bitten
off more than he could chew moving from a small film like Chronicle to a
blockbuster like this. Many pickup shots were filmed by a different director
and as a result we have a haphazard and horribly paced film.
There is plenty of talent on board: Michael B. Jordan, Toby
Kebbell, Miles Teller and Kate Mara seem to be doing their best with what they
had. But none of them were utilised appropriately, and it’s a shame because all
of them have shown before they’re capable actors. I suppose when you have a
studio telling you one thing and a wildcard director saying another it’s a problematic
workspace where essentially nobody gets what they want. Going back to my point
about the director, this film needed a Matthew Vaughn or a Christopher Nolan. I
know Vaughn was involved but clearly not to the extent that he could have his
voice heard and it’s a massive shame. There’s some pretty good visual effects
in the film I suppose but with no valid character development to speak of this
film turns into a Star Wars prequel where nothing is at stake for me to care.
One last thing, (and I apologise if this review has become
as poorly structured as the film it's written for) why do superhero films have to end
with a huge beam of light blasting into the sky? It’s almost as if focus groups
or surveys have been involved somewhere along the line by some studio executive
and they’ve come to the conclusion that the bigger and ‘blastier’ the beam of light
is the more fan boys and girls will lose their minds. I’m sick of these tropes
and clichés. If it happens that anyone with creative power over these films is
reading (and I doubt that very much) please stop trying to rebrand and remarked
your franchises for a new generation just to hold onto film rights. There
should be a law somewhere that says that remakes and reboots can only exist
when someone with a creative and exciting vision comes forward and blesses you
with their ideas. Because anymore rushed reboot mistakes like this and the comic
book genre will fizzle out as swiftly as it fizzled in.
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