FANTASTIC FOUR
DIRECTOR: Josh Trank
CAST: Miles Teller, Michael B Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Tim Blake Nelson
CLASSIFICATION: PG10 LV
RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes
RATING: **
JOSH Trank and writers Simon Kinberg and Jeremy Slater have taken a hugely successful franchise and, to put it bluntly, destroyed its appeal.
This movie is touted as a reboot. Now that usually means a transformation of the original film, which is based on the Marvel Comics superhero team. And those are meant to be better.
However, this version screams of being more of a watered-down prequel, exploring the origins of Mr Fantastic, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Thing and, the resident villain, Doctor Doom.
Fantastic Four opens with a young Reed Richards in all his geeky brilliance. His fanciful scientific theories make him a social outcast at school and he is also shunned by his narrow-minded teachers.
At home, Reed spends most of his time conducting experiments in his garage and is helped by his best friend, Ben Grimm.
A few years later, Reed (Teller) and Ben (Bell) have fine-tuned their experiment to send objects to an alternate universe and bring them back. While their innovation is rubbished at the school science fair, it attracts the attention of Dr Franklin Storm (Reg E Cathey) and his adopted daughter, Susan “Sue” Storm (Kate Mara).
Reed is offered a full scholarship and, with the help of Sue, Johnny Storm (Jordan) – Dr Storm’s rebellious drag racing son– and Victor von Doom (Dr Storm’s talented but defiant protégée), builds a Quantum Gate, in the hope that it could help save Earth with its resources.
The project goes pear-shaped when the scientists, together with Reed’s childhood friend Ben, defy orders and embark on an unsanctioned expedition.
However, the parallel universe – better known as Planet Zero – boasts a powerful energy source that, when disturbed by the intrusion of the team, affects them all in different ways. And Victor ends up being left behind during the explosion.
Of course, none of them are prepared for the changes to their DNA and this takes some time getting used to.
Fantastic Four is predominantly centred on telling the personal journeys of its protagonists. But it becomes so entangled in the drama that it fails to capitalise on other key factors: entertainment value and fluidity in the intertwined sequence of events.
Basically, the writers’ imagination got the better of them – they wanted to do too many things and the execution has become an unsalvageable convoluted, contrived mess.
There is an indifference to the actors inhabiting the characters, too. Unlike the previous movies, where there was a strong bond with the heroes, the audience merely goes along for the ride.
It has action, but nothing on the scale of movies like Captain America, Iron Man, The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and so on.
This is a film about superheroes, viewers should be in awe of them. But it plays out more like show-and-tell at school. And this is what’s so disappointing – Fantastic Four has lost the “Fantastic” part.
If you liked any of the previous Fantastic Four movies or Transformer, you should enjoy this.