Fantastic Four/Fant4stic

[Iroscato]

Soooooooo...

Anyone seen this apparent trainwreck yet?

[Sgt_Artyom]

From what I've read about it so far, I'm not even sure it's worth the money.

[Zor]

Moviebob does not have kind words for it

Zor

[Iroscato]

Moviebob does not have kind words for it

Zor

Heh, just been getting into MovieBob lately and saw that...his Pixels review is legend

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm tempted to see it because I suspect that the hostility toward it is overblown. Their are a lot of other movies that the internet nerd community heavily bashed which were pretty enjoyable. I might be wrong, but I feel like I've seen this shit before.

[Bedlam]

I saw it today, I don't think it's quite the train wreck it has been stated to be in some places but it certainly isn't a good film.

If you're going to see it as an adventure movie, don't it is sorely lacking in action apart from the last 15 minutes or so.

Its basically an origin movie, and it does do a fairly good job of introducing the characters and setting up how they get their powers, it just doesn't then show them doing much with them. The films about 90 minutes long and whats on screen could probably have been cut down to 60 minutes and made the first half of a 2 hour film. On that front I would support a sequel even if this film bombs as otherwise it's entirely wasted effort.

To carry on with the 'half a film' feeling it does quite a bit of setting up the character relationships but I don't think it them really resolves any of them, the team all come together at the end but really they're not given any reason why they should come together.

The film is certainly darker than previous incarnations of the FF but it certainly isn't pitch black, although it is fairly humourless. I don't think the FF were really the team to choose for an edgier reimaging, I can't say I've read many of the comics but from what I do recall they have generally been on the more idealistic side of the balance (I'm vaguely aware they may have been hit by the grim-dark of the 90s and Reed has certainly been shown to have some extreme ideas but I don't know how dark that went). They're certainly playing up the body horror angle of the characters, particularly Reed with his stretching being rather more graphic and creepy than previous adaptions in addition most of the team never truly get their powers under control and need artificial support to live normally. However, another failing is that I can't say I really felt much for any of the characters, I don't know if that's the actors fault or the roles they were given but despite the opportunity for pathos, I can't say I really empathised with their plight.

Overall, I certainly wouldn't go and see it again or buy it on DVD but I don't feel that much regret for seeing it (I could have seen Pixels instead). It certainly was one of the poorer superhero vehicles I've seen in the last few years not even being a good popcorn flick but it's not entirely without merit.

[bilateralrope]

How often have you had the director bad mouthing their own movie ?

'Fantastic Four' director swears he's not responsible for 'Fantastic Four' movie

In case you've been living under a rock, the new “Fantastic Four” movie isn’t doing too hot. Our own critic — Drew McWeeny — found it mediocre at best, which is almost the nicest thing you can find to say about Fox’s third attempt at capturing the essence of this superhero team.

As of this writing, the film as an abysmal Rotten Tomatoes score:



Of course, everyone involved seemed to have been bracing for impact. When Miles Teller (Mr. Fantastic) is using talking points like “These films don't do well with critics,” that's a veritable canary in a coal mine. But no one expected director Josh Trank to do this:

A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would've recieved great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.

— Josh Trank (@joshuatrank) August 7, 2015

Talk about backpedaling. You can almost hear the cartoonish screech of tires as Trank peels out. Wow.

It took approximately zero minutes for the tweet to disappear from Trank's Twitter timeline, but it was too late. Screenshots are forever.

[Jub]

On that front I would support a sequel even if this film bombs as otherwise it's entirely wasted effort.

I wouldn't, how many chances has Fox had to make a good FF4 movie. I don't want them to keep the rights to this franchise when they've clearly shown that they don't actually give enough of a shit about it to make a good movie.

[Broomstick]

Moviebob does not have kind words for it

Zor

I'm not entirely sure... but I think he said

IT SUCKS

>sigh<

I have liked and enjoyed the Fantastic Four for over 40 years now. I weep for what film has done to it. I mean, the two prior films to this one were tolerable and I bought them because 1) huge discount at the time and 2) I'm enough of a fan I'll accept their imperfections. This... this looks like something to wait to appear on Netflix and hope you don't have to turn it off 20 minutes in to go vomit.

[Guardsman Bass]

I saw it a few minutes ago.

It's not . . awful, but it's not good, either. I'd say the first half to first two-thirds of it is the best part, where they're building up towards the event that gives them their powers. The weird thing about it, though, is that it doesn't really even need to be a Fantastic Four movie during those parts. I could imagine it being a new superhero movie, kind of like if the director made a bigger budget version of his previous movie (Chronicle). It's not bad in those parts, although it is a bit slow.

The second part, after a time-skip, kind of sucks. There's a little intensity when the Fantastic Four are fighting Victor Doom, but it's otherwise pretty blah. It doesn't help that the film is about 99% humorless, and there's very little chemistry between any of the characters. At the very least, they should have given them more time to show the development of control over their powers.

I wouldn't bother seeing it, although I don't really regret seeing it either.

[Batman]

@Broomstick-
You're kinder to those movies than I am and I never really read the comics. I only bought the first one because it was discounted and I'm a sucker for superhero movies and 'I' think it was mediocre at best. The second one was 'worse'. So far this looks like something that will end up on Schlefaz.

[Broomstick]

Well, yeah, the prior two are mediocre at best - nonetheless, I added it to my collection of superhero/comic book movies. If it's cheap, I'll buy a mediocre movie with (to me) a redeeming feature or two.

Also, I think Ioan Gruffudd is hot. What, you guys never had interest in a movie because one of the leads was a hot babe? I also thought Pierce Brosnan was extremely yummy in Remington Steele days. Which, I suppose, gives you an idea of my (visual) taste in men.

[Batman]

Brosnan was a better Bond playing Remington Steele than Dalton was playing Bond. And while I can't speak for 'us guys' no, I personally never had. What would be the point? If you're only interest is hot women there's plenty other avenues than mainstream action movies (and have been for a long time).

[Jub]

I can say that I've never bought or rented a movie just for T&A. I'd generally say that's what the internet is for.

[Broomstick]

I can say that I've never bought or rented a movie just for T&A. I'd generally say that's what the internet is for.

Ah, right - back in my day we didn't have the internet. In fact, I remember before buying or renting movies was a thing.

Not just T&A - there was sufficient plot there to combine with the good lucks to make it worth $5, I'll put it that way.

[Guardsman Bass]

I think I bought a copy of Species way back in the day just because of the nudity, so I'm guilty of that as well. I also had a videotape of Dark City, although not just for that reason (I liked the movie then and now).

[Batman]

There may have been movies that while I never bought any for the T&A, I might have taped some for it. And I don't recall any noteworthy nudity in 'Dark City'?

[Guardsman Bass]

There's a scene where a woman is undressing after taking our protagonist home.

[Q99]

I'm tempted to see it because I suspect that the hostility toward it is overblown. Their are a lot of other movies that the internet nerd community heavily bashed which were pretty enjoyable. I might be wrong, but I feel like I've seen this shit before.

I hear it quite negatively compared to the prior F4 movies, which fall into the 'bashed but you can have fun' category.


This is doing worse on Rotten Tomatoes than Catwoman.

Howard Taylor has an interesting review (and he reviews movies based on 'how much fun he has,' factoring in things like expectations).

"The best metaphor I can think of for this movie is that it is akin to the output of a cargo cult. The film makers have all these artifacts of the great comic book adaptations that have visited their island in the past, they have collected the flotsam that has washed up on their shores, and now they have built something that they think looks like a movie in the hopes that they can summon a magic that they do not understand."

[Tiriol]

My personal take on it:

it helps if you think the movie not as Fantastic Four movie, but rather some long pilot episode with a big-ass budget for a mediocre TV sci-fi/fantasy mash-up series inspired by Fantastic Four.

Actors were good, though, although Reed Richards's actor was easily the one with least expressive range, mostly a stereotypical awkward nerd. I liked the take on Victor Von Doom in the beginning Spoiler

right up to where he turned into a walking burned folio guy - after that, he lost all coherence and connection to Doctor Doom of popular culture or even his previous character, outside some barely maintained misanthropy which was more like a problem with authority figures and some usual 20s-30s age range disappointment with the world.

Best actor by far has to be Franklin Storm's actor Reg E. Cathey, although his performance was hampered by stereotypical motivational speeches, which were called out in the movie itself. For some reason the team felt all too young, though. I know this is based more on the Ultimate universe Fantastic Four than main continuity, but there was something off about the age factor.

I liked the origin part of the movie much more than the superhero part. I wanted to see how the characters interacted and what they aspired to be. There's some quiet, but dignified, resignation in the way Ben Grimm handles himself throughout the movie. Sadly, nice character study does not a successful superhero movie make. Marvel's movies have already shown that you can take a closer look at characters' motivations, origins and ideas without sacrificing most of the movie for it. The Amazing Spider Man also handled the balance better. And superheroing part felt like something they just tacked on.

Besides that, the film had an actual pro-science stance in it and I liked it. Or I should say that the first part of the movie had that pro-science stance, then it turned into some poorly written, cheap copy of the first Avengers movie where they try to get all the future Avengers to work together. And then the threat of an end of the world comes out of nowhere (there was some build-up, but the set-up didn't lead naturally to what happened, so it was jarring). The movie took its time with establishing the characters and then rushed the whole superhero thing and it suffers a lot for it.

All in all: go to see it only if you can manage what I suggested at the very beginning of this post. Otherwise it's not the best way to use your money and you *will* be disappointed if you are a fan of the original comic.

[Grumman]

I'm not going to watch this. I never read the original comics, but I liked the Heroes Reborn pseudo-reboot during the time I collected it and I'm a huge fan of Doctor Doom done right. It was obvious from the start that this movie was not an attempt to do the Fantastic Four done right, so I'm quite happy to see it crash and burn.

[The Romulan Republic]

What exactly made that obvious to someone who hasn't seen the movie and hasn't read all of the comics?

[Iroscato]

I'm starting to doubt you can do FF justice in cinema these days. The 2000's movies were, I think, closer in tone to the comics and are a moderately entertaining way to waste a few hours IMO. They're still quite shit. And this one takes a Hrrr Drrr GrmDrk approach and has so far cataclysmically failed. A lot of it might be down to the various production problems on the part of both Fox and Trank, but I hated the approach they were taking straight from the off.
The best I think they could do is something like The Flash TV series, which knew exactly how absurd the whole thing was, yet still managed to be an excellent show with humour, darkness, and real emotional thump. I really do think the "Dark Knight effect" has had its day with The Flash, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers now pretty much ruling the comic book landscape. It's time to have some fun with your superheroes already.

[Grumman]

What exactly made that obvious to someone who hasn't seen the movie and hasn't read all of the comics?

Because if you're making a direct adaptation and not a spiritual successor, your first thought should be "If the source material does not make a good film, how little do I need to change and still make a good film?"

Is Fant4stic a better movie because there is no family resemblance between Johnny and Sue Storm? Is Fant4stic a better movie because Victor Von Doom isn't the glorious dictator-slash-scientist-slash-sorcerer from the comics? No? Then don't fucking change it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Frankly, "...no family resemblance..." sounds like a nice euphemism for "How dare they change the character's race?" To which my answer is that unless there is a reason why the plot or themes demand that a character be a certain race, you should just cast whoever you like best and leave it at that. I mean, you do know there's this thing called "adoption", right? That family members don't have to look alike?

Does the change in any way lesson Johnny and Sue's relationship? Is their any reason to answer yes to that question that doesn't boil down to either racism or just knee-jerk hatred of anything that's not the same as the source material?