That Was Embarrassing... The New Fantastic Four Punishes Its Audience For Trying To Care.

In the anticipated flop of Marvel's "first family superhero" movie Fantastic Four, the latest reboot had me at its first half, wide-eyed and eagerly consuming backstories usually unseen from the claptrap of superhero blockbusters. Sure, it's great with what stood Fantastic Four's opening apart from other Marvel heroes like Ironman and the rest of The Avengers. There was a curiosity to its origin story, made up by a new cast of relatively green actors (Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan) to the blockbusters. But somewhere between the middling action and confusing onscreen chemistry among its characters, I gave up. It felt almost embarrassing to follow through; not least uncomfortable that its brilliant cast had to makeover an entire franchise with what little was offered to them in its screenplay. Wait, would there even be another movie?

By now, there are four. Not of the superhero members Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben, whose powers make one hell of a potential, but four desperate movies that have all but left viewers disgruntled with lackluster results. I know, their powers are almost-lame for the effects, with an elastic rubber belt, a disappearing woman, a walking torch, and a rock. But those of us who aren't familiar with Marvel's Fantastic Four comics would be aware of Tim Story's 2005 campy make of the superhero quartet. They were bad, but they survived. It’s the one where, with Ioan Gruffard, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and the dimly known Michael Chiklis playing the equally, physically unrecognizable Thing, I wished I caught Wolverine Origins, instead. Though, this version shouldn't have followed suit.

Unlike with its predecessor, director Josh Trank, who carved a pretty good "superhero" film Chronicle out of the hand-held cam genre, succeeded a different initial take. First, he did away with the caricature of superheroes. Besides keeping their powers, almost everything else about our beloved members were refreshingly offbeat from its all-familiar plot: viewers were invited to new onscreen bromance between Reed Richards and Ben Grimm, something not offered before, but captured decently over the span of their boyhood, where interactions over a teleporting machine introduced early into the film as a twelve-year-old’s creation (scoff) became the catalyst for the movie's only adult space action. Dr. Franklin Storm, represented by actor Reg. E. Cathey, also adopted The Invisible Woman, who was played by Kate Mara. Furthering the distance from the original, the cast travels inter-dimensionally, instead of eating radioactive rays for breakfast from a spaceship. Stretching our imagination beyond this universe, the members stepped foot onto an unknown CGI-splayed Planet Zero where they were to meet freak accidents that would then uniquely alter them irrevocably, therefore giving them their "powers". While we've all heard the last one before with how superheroes would spring from their pedestrian lives into glorified heroic ventures, for one, everything from the comics felt too camp, too unreal for modern theaters, as if we were supposed to empathise the fact that freakish accidents could be a blessing in disguise if it's almost-Godsend powers. For Trank, 2015 gave us enough resource for a humanised plot to tap on our imagination for what is to be wished that they needn’t have to suffer the dangers of inter-dimensional travel. You get the backstory: If you can't insure an unpredictable rally of loyal comic fans, you can't insure space travel.

I almost didn't want them to transform, as Trank cleverly dovetailed their origins to a terrifying sci-fi mishap. I loved the far-out concept of Planet Zero, contrary to reviewers who felt that it looked too much like Mars-- on an amateur's green screen. I loved, with electrifying verdure that traced lava patterns on the craters, how ignorant the characters were to its omen when they took things into their own hands with the teleporter after getting half-assed drunk, embittered by the fact that history's Neil Armstrong took credit for real science. "Let's get a closer look!" Says one intoxicated scientist Reed Richards, who should be a public warning that drinking on the job is always dangerous. Most of all, I loved how Susan Storm didn't even go there, but got her powers anyway from helping her beloved friends. I loved how accidental director Trank made the whole thing look, which eventually became the entire movie. A wreck.

It was good, at first. It made me love my superheroes again with tidbits thrown in here and there about rewriting characters with a grittier script, as if growing up should not age me from loving my juvenile hobby. But all that fell away when reality hit harder than, well, everything about it. From the poor action sequence, to the “ah?” illogical storytelling, the only fantastic thing about the movie was its fans, who filled the theaters full last night. Apart from scathing reviews that I shall not expatiate because everything that could have been said and spat about the movie has already been eloquently written to tear it apart, nobody talked about the groundwork that is its film score, a fantastic rhythmic harmony by Philip Glass who, may I assume, was brought onto the project because everything else was a prompt that I should quit my superheroes, and grow up after its fourth attempt.

Of course, Fantastic Four is not ridiculous because it's bad. It's bad because it's too easily one of the worst works of movies I've seen. To note, I'm not faulting the opportunities it could have exploited, given its great preface for a darker narrative about modern superheroes. (Remember how well Nolan's Batman did?) I'm lambasting the fact that it's a result produced from intentional meddling by the studio guys, to and fro with its director, which isn't anyone's business in the first place, until you make it so public I can't watch a movie without tagging a bad name to it. What's awful about it is that it punishes an audience who's paid money to watch a work fraught with disagreement between its makers and studio superiors. It's like watching a final year project of a movie that has suffered the critique of the unbendable, criteria-abiding lecturer policing as high-eternity mentor. It's as we all know, "artistic integrity" sacrificed for good grades. Or in Trank's state of duress, for saving Fox's face/rights. 

Just after reviews flooded in, somewhat mutating the movie into a blockbuster scorn today, Trank took to his personal Twitter account to profess that he'd a better version of it, but we won't get to see it. Insinuating that Fox had a hand in his movie, nobody cares. Or, at least I don't. In fact, I don't want my money back; take it, I signed up for it despite early buzz that the movie was going to drop with a silent thud later. I was optimistically adamant about reviews because I didn't even like Marvel's The Avengers anyway. Superhero movies, which have become a thing of a brisk trade, aren't usually good movies on their own. They're overdone with huge earth-shattering explosions and underwhelmed by little expositions. And Fantastic Four was going to be my saving grace for the latter. What Fantastic Four succeeded in was neither, due to its own off-screen dilemma. 

Thanks Josh Trank, you not only distanced yourself from a work you produced, you turned tables on the studio that granted you access to everyone's highly-favored squad of family superheroes. Granted, you're a talent, but like your Reed Richards who dumped his friends after the accident because he felt "no good for anybody", you played Martyrdom to nauseating effect this time, which really reminds me of that one group member who discredits teamwork just because the pitch was bad. Nobody likes a downer and you made a fantastic case.