Fantastic Four (2015)

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nFantastic Four (2015)

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nDirector: Josh Trank

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nCast: Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, JamienBell, Toby Kebbell

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nTo hate or not to hate the new Fantastic Four, that is thenquestion. Fantastic Four, I knew them well Horatio, or as well as I was going tonknow them, cause this is another franchise that Hollywood just can’t seem tonget right. What the hell? How hard can it be? What keeps getting in the way ofnmaking a good Fantastic Four movie over at 20^th Century Fox? Well,nfor one, they have a habit of rushing a project so they won’t lose the rightsnto it. This nasty habit is really getting on my nerves because the results arenhalf assed movies that are made in a rush to compete with the contracts deadnline. They did it with The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and they’ve done itnagain with The Fantastic Four (2015). But let’s put things in perspective, thisnproject was doomed from the very beginning, first up, nowadays, people onlynwant their Marvel movies to come from Disney/Marvel; they don’t want Marvelnfrom 20th Century Fox. If it isn’t purely Marvel, it’s a twisted, mutant halfnbreed that no one wants. So the guys making this Fantastic Four movie had thatnto work against. They also had behind the scenes drama, and once the publicngets a whiff that a production is muddled by production woes, well, it becomesntainted. Audiences lose their confidence in the project and usually it tanks.nLook at what happened with Terminator: Salvation (2009), people heard about thenbehind the scenes squabbles between Christian Bale and the film’s director andnboom, the film tanks at the box office. There was certainly an air of doom overnthis new Fantastic Four film, what was going to be the ultimate fate for this reboot?n

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nWell, the film gods have spoken and they have deemed thisnreboot unworthy. Not me, I actually enjoyed it and kept telling myselfnthroughout the films running time “this isn’t that bad!” It’s an origin storynand it flows like one. Like so few movies today, this new Fantastic Four filmnstarts out by taking its time to tell its story, to flesh out its characters;nit gives us time to get to know them. Unfortunately, the film becomes a rushednjob somewhere around its second half; suddenly the film is in this rush to tellneverything. So anyhow, following the formula of an origin tale, we don’t getnthe full blown version of the Fantastic Four until the very end, when theynfinally learn that they can use their powers collectively to beat the villain.nAnd I’m fine with that; this is the film where they discover who they’venbecome. It handled that well I think. People are bitching and moaning becausensupposedly it doesn’t have action, yet I thought the film has the same beatsnand amounts of action that any super hero film has. This movie was no differentnthan any other origin tale, and maybe that’s where the film falters. It’snformulaic. It goes through all those beats that an origin story must gonthrough. Characters get powers, they don’t know how to use them well, theynlearn, then they beat the villain; in that order.  So I’d say that you shouldn’t expect anythingnground breaking in terms of story development, you might find yourselfnpredicting events.

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nIt seems to me Josh Trank wanted a serious, dark version ofnthe super hero movie, whereas 20^th Century Fox wanted something thatnwas accessible to the whole family. So the film is uneven in tone in thatnsense, so we get darknvisuals accompanied by simplistic dialog, which is really where the film failsnfor me. It wasn’t the fact that Ben Grimm wasn’t wearing spandex undies andnboots, it wasn’t changing the characters ethnicities that rattled my bones andnit wasn’t this films version of Dr. Doom that grated me, it was that god awfulnsimplistic dialog that makes the characters sound like 12 year olds. But I letnit go because I guess they were marketing the film primarily with that targetnaudience in mind. Which is yet another problem because if the film hasnsimplistic dialog put in there so kids won’t get “lost” with the film, then whyndo we have a Dr. Doom exploding various bodies and heads with telekineticnpowers? Why is it that when the characters discover their powers the film feelsnlike a horror movie? Not that I mind that stuff, that bloody violence was ancool touch in my book, it made things a bit more menacing, but in a film that’snclearly made with a younger audience in mind, it just felt a bit out of place.nBut I will say this, I saw the movie accompanied by a 5 year old and to mynsurprise he was glued to the screen, didn’t fall asleep for a second. So fornthose who say this movie is boring…I beg to differ. Shoot me, I liked all thendimension traveling stuff, the machines, the sound effects. It was cool sci-finterritory in my book.

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nIt’s true, you do feel, especially on the films second half,nthat things aren’t flowing properly and I’m willing to bet that this is wherenthe studio interfered the most. And it’s not that it was slow, it’s more likenthere are bits and pieces of the story that weren’t filmed, or were excised allntogether. Hell, one look at the trailers and you’ll see a fare share of scenes that were completely eliminated from the film. You’ll feel like things arenhappening way to fast, suddenly its see you later Dr. Doom and while it was allna tasty cgi spectacle, superior to the fight the Fantastic Four had with Dr.nDoom in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), it does feel like anrushed job, like a last minute attempt to wow us and send us home happy. But today’snaudiences are savvy, and they know when they are being cheated out of a properncomic book film. Still, through the mess, there are glimmers of a good film thatnshine through. For example, while a lot of people are complaining about Dr.nDoom not looking like their beloved man in the Iron Mask, I still enjoyed thisnversion of Doom with green eyes and telekinetic abilities. There’s this momentnwhere Doom goes all Akira and starts blowing up people’s heads with the powernof his mind and to me that was just, well, really cool, what can I say. Itnproves that Josh Trank still has a hard on for making an Akira movie. Sadly,nafter this fiasco, I doubt he’ll get to make another big budget summer flick,nif he does it will be some sort of Hollywood miracle, that or Trank hasnconnections.

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nSure Fantastic Four is not a great comic book film,nespecially when we take in consideration that it was a troubled productionnbecause of the animosity between the studio and director. The director of thisnfilm is Josh Trank, the guy who made Chronicle (2012) which in my book was andamn fine movie, so underrated, which makes me wonder what the hell happenednhere, something wasn’t working properly that’s for sure. There was definitely a disturbance in the force. If anything, what this new Fantastic Four filmndemonstrates is how a director works best when given complete artistic reignnover a project. Trank had that when he made Chronicle, which was a smallernproduction, with less studio pressure and the result was a great sciencenfiction film. It’s a different story when you play with the big boys.  If you can’t take the heat, get out of thatnkitchen kid! Apparently, Josh Trank just couldn’t take the heat; he even wentnas far as disowning the film on Tweeter stating that he had a good film plannednout a year ago, and that the one we’re getting in theaters just isn’t it. Dude,nthat’s like shooting down your film! If the film had any chances of recoveringnits budget due to audience curiosity, that comment you posted just shot thosenchances to hell.

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nTrank says that the studio interfered, that they messed withnhis vision, followed by a “that’s the truth though” Meaning, he’s trying to benhonest, sadly, Trank’s probably burned a couple of bridges down in Hollywood. Itnlooks to me that after posting comments like those on social media, we won’t benseeing any more films directed by Mr. Trank any time soon, and that’s somentruth right there as well. New filmmakers must remember that when you make thisntype of big budget studio film, you have to play ball.  You have to know that commercial filmmaking isna fine juggling act between making a marketable film the studio can sell (andnmake hefty profits from) and satisfying yourself as an artist. If you go fullnblown “I am an artist, this is MY film and fuck you studio guys!”  Well, you’re not going to get very far innthis business, and yes it is a business. When making this type of Geronimonpicture, the filmmaker must remember they are making a film for the studio, younare hired by them, they are the boss of you during the whole production.  Remember kids, commercial filmmaking is 50npercent art and 50 percent business; one can’t go without the other.  And you have to be a professional, not a 12nyear old kid with a hissy fit. Still, it seems to me people are on a hive likenmentality with this one, they are not even giving it a chance, which is sadnbecause at the very least, this film is a million times better then FantasticnFour (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) combined,nwhich is an achievement in my book. My hatred for those Tim Story Fantastic Four films knew no boundaries! I certainly hate them more than this one. Bottom line, this isn’t a perfect film butnI’ve seen far worse. Twentieth Century Fox has just stated that they are notngiving up on this franchise, even though this film has flopped hard at the boxnoffice. Of course they are not going to let go of it, it’s a cash cow just like the Spider Man or X-Men franchises, unfortunately, Fantastic Four is a cash cow that 20^thnCentury Fox hasn’t figured out how to milk properly. 

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nRating: 2 out of 5

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