Rating of
1/4
Fantastic Failure
Matthew Brady - wrote on 08/09/15
I honestly can't believe I'm going to say this. I never thought the day will come when I say that "Batman & Robin" is no longer the worse superhero movie ever made after seeing this movie, but the difference between the two is that at least Batman & Robin was fun to watch and wasn't depressing and dull that Fant4stic was.
The story is about a contemporary take on the classic super-hero team - four young scientist are involved in an experiment where they find themselves teleported to another dimension. When they return, they find themselves gifted with unique powers - ones they will have use to stop an evil rising to power.
It's been 10 years now since the 2005 "Fantastic Four" was first release. Looking back on that film is like looking back on a bad memory that you wish will fade away. The 2005 movie wasn't all that good, but to me it wasn't on the same level as Batman & Robin as some people think. Rise of the Sliver Surfer was the squeal that nobody asked for but they're made anywhere because...well I don't know they just did. The squeal wasn't all that great just like the first movie, but the movie itself wasn't like the worse thing on the planet as some people have make it out to be. I'm not going to talk about the 1994 movie, because already did a review for it.
Now here's 20th Century Fox fourth attempt of making a Fantastic Four movie. We got a new director and a new cast to start off fresh and try to make a new franchise. Many people didn't react very well to the news of a reboot and people got even more mad at the new cast and the fact that they young and Michael B. Jordan was cast as Johnny Storm. I was the only one giving this movie a chance as I believed that Josh Trank will make a great Fantastic Four movie and make us forget the other ones as Josh Trank is a good director. But it's not until I sawed the movie myself and my jaw was on the floor and it's not because the movie was amazing, but how god awful this movie was. "Fantastic Four" (Or best known as Fant4stic from the posters) is one of the worse superhero movies of the year and of all time.
I heard a lot of bad things coming from director Josh Trank. Some people who worked with him have openly said that he was awkward to work with and at one point came on set drunk and intoxicated while filming a scene. The problems that happened behind the scenes really do show in this movie, as I can tell they did some re shoots as Kate Mara hair keeps changing color in a couple of scenes. I blame the studious for changing a lot of things and making it a living hell for the director and the cast. Josh Trank is best known for directing the 2012 film "Chronicle" and that movie was a smallish movie that Josh Trank had a lot of freedom to work on with and at least there wasn't any studious coming in and changing things and making it really hard for everyone else. It's very clearly that Josh Trank wasn't ready for something big like this as he was originally suppose to direct the upcoming Star Wars sequels, but dropped out because he had enough.
The biggest opportunity that was wasted was the cast. They didn't do a terrible job as they characters but they didn't do anything special and that's a real shame as these are great actors that had nothing to do in this movie.
The visual effects in this movie are probably some of the worse looking effects I've seen since the early 90's and it's quite shocking that this movie with a lot of money behind it and have such awful looking effects. The CGI used on The Thing was completely hideous and I kind of miss the 2005 Thing a little bit. Some people may like the CGI used on The Thing but I didn't. There's a shot in the movie where Reed Richards (after he gets he's super powers) stretches his face to look like someone else to be in disguise, but when he puts his normal face back to normal and the CGI used in that one shot looked laughably bad. There wasn't a single shot in this movie that didn't even look convincing.
Now lets talk about Dr. Doom in this movie or I like to call him Mr. Freeze number 2, because Dr. Doom is this movie was a complete joke and he wasn't in the movie that much, he just turned up towards the end of the movie. Dooms motivation in this movie was pretty random and wasn't well written at all. Before Victor turns into "Doom" the only character development that we got from his character is that he thinks he's smarter than ever one else and he just hates people...WHAT!. The way Dr. Doom looks in this movie is so freaking awful, I mean he looks like that robot from Superman 3, but if you put a black bin bag around him and set it on fire, then let it dry out a bit, then you add some Christmas lights around him and now you got Dr. Doom. The final battle scene with Doom and The Fantastic Four is only five minutes long, yes I actually timed it to see how long it was and it was way too short.
Watching this movie from beginning till end is like watching one of those MTV parody skits that's funny because of how bad it is but also being self ware. This movie takes itself way too seriously and tries to be all dark and gritty. At least the other two Fantastic Four movies had a sense of fun and adventure to it if you compared it to this dull flick.
Overall Fant4stic is depressing, grim, poorly cast and not fun to watch at all. I rather watch Batman & Robin than this movie ever again, at least that movie doesn't take itself too seriously.
