'Fantastic Four' more like fantastic bore
It's not so fantastic.
Chicago film critics suspected this when 20th Century Fox booked its only press screening of Marvel's "Fantastic Four" on Wednesday after regular newspaper deadlines.
You'd think after already producing two "Fantastic Four" movies - one in 2005, followed by "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" two years later - Fox would get it right on the third attempt.
Nope. This "Fantastic Four," directed without flair, depth or empathy by Josh Trank, lacks even the modicum of fun and excitement offered by the more charismatic original actors Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis and Ioan Gruffudd. And their movies weren't all that super.
In Trank's reboot, it takes almost an hour before the four new, duller, unsympathetic Fantastic superheroes finally obtain their powers. Then another half-hour before they use them in combat scenes against the seemingly unstoppable Victor Von Doom.
It's almost a tradition for superhero origin movies to bore audiences with origin minutia for a while so they'll appreciate it when any action scene actually comes along.
"Fantastic Four" provides plenty of minutia, opening in 2007 with supersmart junior high student Reed Richards trying to perfect a matter transference machine like the USS Enterprise's transporter room in "Star Trek." He bonds with fellow student Ben Grimm, who helps him get his invention up and running for a science fair.
Seven years later, Reed (now Miles Teller) and Ben (Jamie Bell) remain buds, but Reed has been whisked off to work-study at the brainiac Baxter Institute where Dr. Franklin Storm ("The Wire" star Reg E. Cathey) researches matter transfer theory with his adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara) and her hothead brother Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) after he tries to star in his own "Faster and Furiouser" movie by wrapping his Toyota around a light pole.
They're joined by Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), one of Dr. Storm's star pupils, a leather-jacket swaddled, bewhiskered malcontent given to easy jealousy and moody shifts that should indicate he's not in science to better humankind. Hey, his name is Doom. It's hard to say which he wants more: personal glory or the lovely Sue Storm, who slowly takes an interest in nerdy Reed.
"Fantastic Four" sputters along like a slow fizzling fuse on a lightly loaded firecracker until Doom, Reed and Johnny get schnockered on booze and take an unauthorized trip to an unknown dimension ruled by raw energy. Ben goes with them because he's Reed's buddy.
Things go awry. Doom disappears. Reed becomes super elastic. Johnny becomes a flying human torch. Ben becomes a rockbiter from "The Neverending Story." And Sue, who doesn't even get to go on the inter-dimensional roller coaster ride with the boys, becomes invisible, but can create mental force fields that protect people and fly them through the air.
(Clearly, some superheroes seem much more credible and comfortable on the pages of a Stan Lee comic book than they do in the more literal arena of motion pictures.)
The Baxter board of directors, led by bureaucratic Tim Blake Nelson, instantly wants to weaponize the willing Johnny and Ben to help out in Middle East conflicts. Reed, meanwhile, has gone into exile to avoid a similar fate.
Don't worry. By the time a transfigured Von Doom returns to take over the universe like an immortal "Carrie" capable of telekinetically moving objects and willing people to death, the quartet gets together for some serious clobberin' time.
If nothing else, Trank's misfiring "Fantastic Four" could be used as a cautionary tale against drinking while on duty and working on secret science projects.
The only "Fantastic Four" movie possibly worse than this would be Roger Corman's infamous 1994 version written by Palatine's Fremd High School graduate Craig J. Nevius and starring Jay Underwood and Rebecca Staab. Reportedly, the low-budget production effects were so laughably awful, the film was never theatrically released.
"Fantastic Four"
★ ½
Starring: Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey, Tim Blake Nelson
Directed by: Josh Trank
Other: A 20th Century Fox release. Rated PG-13 for language, violence. 106 minutes