The last cinematic versions of Fantastic Four were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively and both were very pedestrian affairs. Since then we’ve had numerous very successful (and very good) Marvel adaptations in Iron Man, Captain America, X-Men, The Avengers, The Wolverine, Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy. So surely the time is ripe for a decent production of Reed Richard’s crew? Apparently not.
Despite its incredibly successful Marvel brethren, this Fantastic Four is yet another dud, albeit a dud with a $200 million dollar budget.
The story is fantastically linear: we follow genius, Reed Richards, from childhood as he meets each of the characters who we know will become part of the Four as well as the guy we know is destined to be the villain, Victor von Doom (with a name like that, how could he not turn bad?).
Usually in an instance like this the structure of the film would be mixed up, moving the action forward and telling the preceding events in flashback but not here; we’re left to suffer the events in strict, dull, consecutive order. The result being a good hour of plodding character development before we get any glimpse at our pending heroes’ super powers. We’re then pushing an hour and a half before we get to the inevitable battle with Dr Doom – the first (and only) real action set piece. This is a long time to wait for something to happen!
The CGI is mostly on par with what we’d expect these days though Mr Fantastic’s stretchy limbs still don’t seem right somehow. The most noticeable improvement in this incarnation of the franchise is that Thing now looks and sounds like he’s made of rock rather than rubber.
That Fantastic Four was released within weeks of Ant Man suggests a throw-away attitude towards this film from Marvel. An attitude reinforced by a lack of any post credit sequence or Stan Lee cameo (that I could see anyway).
Despite high hopes for this reboot, this remains at the low rent end of the franchise.
Stuart Jamieson
www.fantasticfourmovie.com
