Plot
Four young outsiders teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe which alters their physical form in shocking ways. The four must learn to harness their new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

Release Year: 2015

Rating: 5.4/10 (1,797 voted)

Critic's Score: 32/100

Director: Josh Trank

Stars: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan

Storyline
FANTASTIC FOUR, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel's original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

Writers: Simon Kinberg, Jeremy Slater

Cast:
Miles Teller - Reed Richards
Michael B. Jordan - Johnny Storm
Kate Mara - Sue Storm
Jamie Bell - Ben Grimm / The Thing
Toby Kebbell - Victor Von Doom / Dr. Doom
Reg E. Cathey - Dr. Franklin Storm
Tim Blake Nelson - Dr. Allen
Joshua Montes - Quarterback Speech School Kid
Dan Castellaneta - Mr. Kenny
Owen Judge - Young Reed
Kylen Davis - Teasing School Kid
Evan Hannemann - Young Ben
Chet Hanks - Jimmy Grimm
Mary-Pat Green - Mrs. Grimm
Tim Heidecker - Mr. Richards

Taglines: When you change the world, prepare to defend it.

Official Website: Official Facebook | Official site |

Country: USA

Language: English

Release Date: 7 August 2015

Filming Locations: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

Technical Specs

Runtime: 100 min

Trivia:
Runs the same time, 1 hr 46 min as Fantastic Four (2005) previously did. See more »

Quotes:

Author:

Rating: 3/10

So when I saw that they're "rebooting" Fantastic Four, I thought, "this could actually be really good. This has the chance to start things over and be something great." The trailers showed potential - they featured a new premise with some great new concepts. Also, take note that I'm not a superhero/comic book fan. I am a filmmaker, though.

I think the first major clue for me that this movie was doomed was, surprisingly, its tagline. "Change is coming". As a filmmaker, I know that a big concept movies want to have nowadays is "everything changes" - the idea that everything is started over or some big event is going to happen. One of The Amazing Spider-Man 2's taglines was "everything changes". Transformers 4 had the tagline of "the rules have changed" and "everything will change". This film's taglines are "change is coming", and "when you change the world, prepare to defend it". Movie taglines dealing with "change" are typically weak and overused methods of making movies seem like they're creating a "clean slate", or better yet and in this case, a reboot of some sort.

Another major clue for me that this movie was doomed was, also surprisingly, its running time of 100 minutes. Why? Because when you have a film like this - a reboot, where it has to introduce various new characters, set them up and a new premise/universe, the movie isn't going to be an hour and a half long. It's going to be two hours. Those extra twenty- thirty minutes can make a difference. For the record, the first two Fantastic Four movies had around the same running time. The original film was only six minutes longer. But that movie wasn't the best one, either.

I reminded myself of X-Men. X-Men was a great movie. It had a similar running time, but not the same task, as it wasn't a reboot. Yet as the first installment in a franchise, it did a fantastic job at setting things up. There isn't much that's fantastic about Fantastic Four.

Now to tell you what's wrong with this movie. First off, the pacing. The running time really is a problem. This film is rushed beyond belief and its plot is nonsensical. The characters' introductions are decent enough, particularly the Fantastic Four, but their roles throughout the entire film are thrown off by the bad pacing. Second, the plot. As I said above, the film's plot seemed interesting. It had potential and it looked like it could go somewhere. There are even hints at awesome things to come. But it's in shambles. You hope and feel it will go somewhere but in its hour and a half running time, it feels so empty. That's because of the third thing, the writing. The writing isn't good - the film's climactic conflict feels backed up into the end of the movie, as in there wasn't enough time to set it up. Before this, the bad writing caused the plot to feel scattered, and that caused the film to feel empty. I also want to add that I honestly don't know why the Torch was played by a black actor. Again, I'm not a comic-book fan, and I'm certainly not racist, but I know enough to know that the Torch is white. I don't understand why they couldn't keep him that way. On top of that, the actor who portrayed him did a pretty poor job at it, so it was a complete failure. Nevertheless, there are much bigger things wrong with this movie. Speaking of things, The Thing is entirely CGI in this movie. No make- up, costume or anything - just a giant, naked rock monster. Yes, he's naked, too. Not even any shorts.

Reboots, remakes, prequels and sequels are pouring in nowadays, and many of them are constantly bombing. Fantastic Four is, unfortunately, one of them.

By the way, a sequel is set to come out in June 2017. Good thing they announced that before the film came out ... a few months ago, of course. If you know what happened to The Amazing Spider-Man series, you may know what could very well happen here. Ultimately, while I wasn't pleased with the film, I do hope you enjoy it more than I did.

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Comments:

Fantastic Four

July 8th, 2005

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