Fantastic Four

Director: Josh Trank

Cast: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Michael B Jordan, Toby Kebbell

Length: 106 minutes

After persistent rumours of pre-production woes, 20th Century Fox’s reboot of Marvel’s original comic heroes Fantastic Four makes it to the silver screen. And while the movie is not an unmitigated disaster as some had expected, it is far from a stirring experience. 

Ten years after the first, universally panned, version hit the screens in 2005 and followed by an equally derided sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer in 2007, Fox seems to have gone the other extreme of its rather goofy first attempt, venturing into a heavier, story driven remake that strived to convey an epic retelling the first comic super team deserves. 

Created in 1961 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby before the creation of Marvel Comics and its universe of superheroes, the Fantastic Four is a prototype of sorts for the polished formula that soon underlined all of Lee’s work. Its rights, however, fall outside the realm of Marvel Studios. Despite that, the reboot is no doubt Fox’s attempt to grab a bigger slice of the pie from the hugely lucrative genre. 

They’ve chosen a tough one to tackle. Originally, the Fantastic Four storyline is in itself a “rough around the edges” creation, one where its tale of four young outsiders gaining superpowers after teleporting to an alternate universe named Planet Zero is challenging to be adapted to a contemporary setting.

Director Josh Trank, who launched his career with a much-lauded found-footage style superpowers film Chronicle, utilises a gloomy tone throughout for his darker, more dramatic and “realistic” retelling. The result is a visually unstimulating film with few ups-and-downs. 

Its setting is contained mostly to rooms and labs. The New York façade we are given a glimpse of through the window is one reminiscent of its original era, similarly, the Baxter Institution where the heroes meet and work together has a decidedly dated feel. Equally, its plot and pacing begin to take on a monochromatic, bland loop that is neither intense nor useful to character development. 

Trank’s Fantastic Four is certainly no action blockbuster. Less-than-stellar special effects aside, it would be half the film before the young heroes’ even gain their powers, and what little screen time allocated for display of their new found powers are also shared with the director’s contrived effort in conveying the despair and fear of their new irreversible identities.  

A good origin story can be a hit with fans of superhero flicks, as seen with the X-Men franchise. Yet in this case, considering the potential of its solid cast of actors — Michael B Jordan plays the wise-cracking rebel Johnny Storm, Kate Mara as the studious genius Sue Storm, Jamie Bell as the rough-around-the-edges but loyal Ben Grimm and Toby Kebbell as the brilliant but unhinged villain Victor Von Doom — it’s disappointing to see their valiant performances foiled by bad pacing and a script that feels like it had one too many hands writing it. 

Perhaps the biggest problem of all is that despite dedicating the entire film to minutely explore how they became the Fantastic Four, when we finally see the super team in action during the last few minutes of the movie, it feels like we’ve learnt nothing about them. One is left to wonder, is the lack of believable motivation and choppy development a fundamental flaw of the storyline itself, or the reboot that overindulged itself? 

There’s always the sequel to look forward to more action, but judging from what little we’ve seen in this reboot, fantastic is just a name. 

This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on August 7, 2015.