The theatrically released FANTASTIC FOUR movie being released in theaters is by no means a perfect film. Given the kind of expectations inherent to the property – we want, crave, need a bigger more complete FANTASTIC FOUR film.
Instead of focusing on what isn’t here, what this film isn’t. We can all feel that there’s something like 40 minutes of the movie missing. We’ve seen tweets that let us know there was a longer cut – but don’t go into the movie thinking about that. Instead. Sit back, and let Josh Trank tell you his FANTASTIC FOUR story.
Before we see anything, we hear a kid talking about growing up to be an NFL quarterback. Then we see a young 10 year old bespectacled boy making intense, semi-crazy looking notes not paying attention to where he was, what he’s a doing. Teachers, heh, this boy craves not these things… For this is young Reed Richards, Super-Genius esquire. He proclaims that he wishes to grow up to be the first person to teleport. The class laughs at him, his teacher becomes argumentative – and when Reed explains himself, he’s scolded for adhering to make-believe, rather than a real ambition, like being a Quarterback.
Meanwhile – there’s another kid in class, curious about Reed. We come to realize this squinter of a kid is a young Ben Grimm. It’s at this point, if you’re intent on disliking this movie, you can just start bitching, cuz we all know Ben and Reed didn’t meet till they become roomies at University. All this cute kid shit is bullshit, where’s my Kirby & Lee?
I suppose that’s a viable way to look at this film. It isn’t your FANTASTIC FOUR that you read in the comic. And by that standard, every BATMAN movie sucks. Because Hollywood hasn’t ever come close to giving me anything even remotely close to my imagination from reading the comics, watching the cartoons and having an infinity of conversations with my buddies about what a BATMAN film ought to be. But that hasn’t stopped me from loving Tim Burton’s films. Really enjoying Nolan’s first two BATMAN films, and then kinda checking out on that final emo-Wayne flick with a mumbly villain.
However, as this FANTASTIC FOUR film started, I began to be curious about these young 10 year old versions of my heroes. After school, we find ourselves at the Grimm family junkyard. Ben is hauling something heavy, heads into his house, as a big brother shouts at him, then you see the Big bro shout, “Its Clobbering Time” and starts beating on his younger brother, as Ma Grimm starts beating on the older brother and saying, “Haven’t I told you not to beat children in the house.”
I’ll stop there for a second. Take a look around this place. Trank and his co-writers of Jeremy Slater and Simon Kinberg… have transformed Ben Grimm into being Jack Kirby. Young Jewish kid, a scrapper… a tough little guy. More of a Dick Miller from ROCK ALL NIGHT type of guy, a small tough guy. But you see him befriend Reed Richards – and at least for this specific iteration, Reed and Ben have been working on his Teleportation experiment. In fact Reed shows up at the GRIMM Junk Yard whining about needing a Power Converter! Giggle. Fun STAR WARS reference.
We see the initial experiment – and there’s a sense of foreboding destiny, that’s specifically created by the Marco Beltrami/Phillip Glass score here. Next we flash 10 years later to a Science Fair, where Reed and Ben are presenting a modified version of that earlier experiment – and you can only imagine the Hell of being Reed Richards trapped in a low-income world – having to scrap together whatever ingenius thing his mind wanders to. Anyway, it’s at the Science Fair, where he meets Sue Storm and her adopted father, Professor Storm. Reed, btw, still thinks he’s teleporting material, but ol Dr. Storm informs him, like we’ve heard a billion times in the marketing, “I think you just cracked interdimensional travel!” then offers Reed Richards a full Scholarship to the BAXTER INSTITUTE.
Now, I’m a Silver-Age lover. To me, growing up in a comic shop, having total access to all comics to read… to read the FANTASTIC FOUR saga from issue 1 forward. Well, I love it. In the same way that I’m dying to see some filmmaker bring to life Neal Adams’ BATMAN, I would kill to see a full on Kirby&Lee FANTASTIC FOUR. But this is clearly based more upon the ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR, which was more Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, Warren Ellis-y stuff. I’ve read all this stuff – and my favorite aspect of the Ultimates is the Dimensional origin of the FF’s powers - and then, I really do dig the notion of the BAXTER BUILDING being a Hogwart’s for Science Prodigies. It isn’t my preferred FF, but it’s certainly a viable one, until it got more lame later on.
So, you see Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) helping Reed Richards (Miles Teller) move into Baxter Building. Now, I don’t mind saying this, I love Jamie Bell’s Ben Grimm. I love how he looks out Reed’s window and knows this is where his best friend belongs. I love that he’s genuinely awed that they really do wear Lab Coats here. And later when Reed sends Ben a photo to update his buddy… and you see that look on Jamie Bell’s face – and it’s unbridled joy for his best friend. All while he is at the Junkyard. I like that Reed sends Ben updates! He’s not such an egghead to forget his pal!
This first hour – I love it. I love watching Young Victor Von Doom working in tandem with Reed Richards on science formulas, sketches and programming code. The scholastic history between these two. Doom’s private motivations, Reed’s boundless enthusiasm for the pursuit of Science… It’s good stuff. Is Reed the galvanized hero and leader of the group? Not yet. Is Victor out to rule the world? Well, he’s not entirely convinced the world is even worth ruling much less saving. Victor is shown to have some degree of consideration for SUSAN, who prefers Sue… and when that scene occurs – and Reed questions her, it’s a classic Reed, Sue and Victor moment.
I also like Michael B Jordan’s Johnny Storm, who rebels against his Dad, who wants him to live up to his potential, but Johnny is at that point where he’d rather race cars. When he wraps his custom hotrodded Toyota around a pole and breaks an arm, he gets the good arm twisted behind his back – and suddenly we have a fantastic team of four at Baxter.
Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Victor Von Doom. Yikes! What about Ben? You’ll see.
I’ll stop there – and say this. That first hour. All the way until you see the card that says… “ONE YEAR LATER” – feels like a very smartly crafted build up. Suddenly after that point, all the dialogue feels chunky, stereotypical and lame. The fights you see feel sorta there, and sorta not – and it’s a very different vibe.
Once we get Doom back from “Planet Zero” – which was supposed to be the Negative Zone, we know this, because we’ve read interviews with folks saying that a lot of the film takes place in the NEGATIVE ZONE, but not in the film. Hell, I even heard about FANTASTI-CAR scenes shot, but nowhere in the film.
So what happened? I wonder if we’ll ever hear for sure. But after that “ONE YEAR LATER” hits – this film decides to rush to underwhelm. The editing style even seems to shift. It’s weird. Now – is there anything I like about the last half hour?
Sure. I like that Dr. Doom goes all Revok on the Area 57 base popping peoples’ heads like they’re fucking pimples. Take that Darth Vader! Now, I’d prefer Doom to have more magic and energy powers… I’d prefer for him to have Doombots! I’d like him to have an entire country’s populace under his control with super-science weaponry. And I want Reed to have giant Kirby Machinery that does incredible things.
The main complaint from the very enthusiastic AICN crowd that saw the film tonight, was that they wanted more the post first-hour of the film. I heard folks that wanted a more traditional design for Dr. Doom. I get that. But at least it wasn’t that terrible design from the Ultimates FF. I hate that Doom with a passion. Here, Toby Kebbell’s Dr. Doom goes head popping, then is going to destroy all of Earth to save his precious Planet Zero that is his world to command. And that’s plenty maniacal enough, but there needed to be more. More FANTASTIC stuff.
Having the Fantastic Four walking through hallways – well that’s not really the action spectacle I was looking for here. I want a giant monster breaching the street in front of the BAXTER BUILDING – that was in one of the Slater drafts I read for this. As was Annihilus. So long as the studio resists making their comic book films as ordinary as they can, they will not receive a FANTASTIC response from the audience.
If the second half could have delivered as the first half did, this would have been an absolutely fantastic FANTASTIC FOUR film. The final DOOM showdown was fun, but the fighting is all fairly straight forward.
There’s a lot of that in the film. Like when Ben goes to capture Reed and they fight. A headbutt is not going to knock out Reed Richards. We need to see Reed stretch his body around Ben, mummifying him. Cuz, that’s how Reed fights Ben. We don’t need to see Johnny Storm on fire, walking around hallways at a government facility that apparently doesn’t have sprinklers. He needs to fly. That’s what the Torch does.
The good news for me in this movie is that I vastly prefer this cast over the Tim Story one. Alba’s Sue Storm was a complete embarrassment. Mara is far far better. Miles Teller is a more wide-eyed gosh gee whiz Reed at this point, but if this film makes money and they proceed with this cast, it should be 5 years after this point – and we should see all the characters solidify more into the iconic personas that they are.
Here’s the thing though… FANTASTIC FOUR wasn’t the greatest thing ever with Issue 1, it kept getting better. The bolder and more fantastic they make make this group the better.
I love how Doom manipulates Reed into suggesting they just take off into the other dimension. I like the guilt Reed feels, I love the anger and frustration THE THING has. I like that Johnny likes being the Human Torch – and I like Sue Storm’s whole presentation here. She feels less like a wallflower and instead the fantastic Sue Storm.
I hope no matter what happens this weekend with the film, that eventually, we’ll get to see the full Trank version of this film. That ONE YEAR LATER mark is such a clear point where you see the film change. The pacing, the writing… it just wasn’t what matched that primary hour of the film.
If you love FANTASTIC FOUR, this isn’t bad… there’s the bones of a really respectable FANTASTIC FOUR movie, something just cut the movie to the bones and left too much fantastic material (we hope) unseen.
Personally… I say, hire Peyton Reed – make that 1960’s FANTASTIC FOUR film – and then have them exist in that universe that X-MEN FIRST CLASS and DAYS OF FUTURE PAST gave us. And go full KIRBY.
This is a film where you’ll feel things shift unnaturally and it feels like different fingerprints. The truth will eventually come out. It always does, right now the true villains of this project are hidden behind confidentiality agreements, but that won’t last long, nor should it. It really does feel like a good movie that got waylaid by unseen powers. Only Uatu knows for sure.
Lastly... let's talk about that gif, I posted above. To a large degree, this is the exact sort of scene I desperately wanna see from THE FANTASTIC FOUR - that they've never given us.
THE FF at the Baxter Buidling - Reed stretched all over some giant machine, that poor Ben Grimm is incredibly holding up for him, all while conversing absent mindedly with the love of his life. That single gif captures in motion a lot of the pure wow fun of the FANTASTIC FOUR that 3 Fox films in and we haven't even touched.
We've got no idea what all was cut, but so long as we can imagine, it'll fester and anger and distrust of the studio system that released a hobbled film into theaters and expect us to not notice. We've gone through this too many times now. Not with just superhero films, but masterpieces like BRAZIL. You don't dial a movie like FANTASTIC FOUR back, you dial it UP! ALL THE WAY!
