Guilty Pleasures: Fantastic Four
By Felix Quinonez Jr.
January 31, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
There was some very awkward, clunky dialogue. My eyes roll just at the memory of the “Doctor Doom, over here” line that the underused Kate Mara, as Sue Storm, had to say. Some of the key relationships were woefully underdeveloped. Ben (Jamie Bell) and Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) barely interact throughout the whole movie. Because of this, when Johnny finally does tease Ben at the end of the movie, it doesn’t come off like two friends messing with each other. It actually feels quite jarring and off-putting. The villain, Doom (Toby Kebbell) has powers that are never really explained. And the less said about the last act, the better. The finale somehow manages to make an end of the world scenario feel like there is nothing at stake.
Of course, by this point, anyone with an internet connection is completely aware of the film’s many flaws. They’ve been discussed ad nauseam everywhere else. But seeing almost the entire internet band against something always feels a bit odd.
It really seemed that most people had made up their minds to hate the movie before they ever saw it, if they even watched it at all. At one point, the movie became a punching bag. It was almost a national pastime to hate the movie. The reviews and online chatter seemed almost too happy to destroy it before it even hit theaters. Eventually, its complete failure, critically and commercially, seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy. But did the movie really deserve all that hate?
Things start out well enough as we get to meet Ben and Reed (Miles Teller) as kids. The scene, which has a very Spielberg-like vibe, does a great job of establishing the connection between the two of them. They are both outsiders and they gravitate towards one another. In a bold move, the movie links Ben’s famous catchphrase, “It’s clobbering time,” to a childhood trauma. It’s what his brother used to yell before beating him up. Whether or not, that was a good idea is up for debate, but it was definitely original.
From there, things move to high school, where we find Ben and Reed at the science fair. Although Reed’s experiment, which transports matter, got him disqualified, it did get the attention of Franklin Storm, (Reg E. Cathey) who runs a think tank that is trying to crack interdimensional travel.
Franklin believes Reed could be vital to completing their project and recruits him to join the team. There, they show Reed where he was really sending objects with his invention. Reed thought it was transporting matter to other parts of the world; in reality, it was being sent to a whole different planet.
There he also meets Sue and Johnny, who are Franklin’s children. And he also meets Victor Von Doom, who is brilliant but hard to get along with. He had begun a version of the quantum gate with Franklin, and Franklin hopes that with Reed, they can finally finish it.
When they do finish it, the feds want to take over. But one drunken night, Reed and Victor decide to travel through before the Feds can take all the glory. They enlist Ben and head off to what they call planet Zero.
Their trip to Planet Zero is easily one of the highlights of the movie. It’s a very thrilling sequence that was not only excellently executed but it captures the Cronenberg body-horrors feel that Trank was going for. There is a real sense of danger and suspense. But more importantly, it’s genuinely exciting.
And although they do manage to make it back home, they are hardly safe.
The fun side of super powers has been explored so many times that it is practically a staple of the genre - even the determinedly joyless Man of Steel had a scene in which Superman tests out his powers.
But here we see things from another side. Receiving their powers is instead portrayed as a horrific and traumatizing event that has an unexpected psychological depth that is often overlooked in the genre. And the Cronenberg influence is very evident in the scene. Instead of being overcome by joy from their newfound powers, the four of them are filled with panic and desperation.
Reed wakes up on an operating table, limbs stretched beyond recognition. He is filled with shock and confusion. Johnny lies on table writhing, as his body is burning. Sue, unable to control her abilities, is visibly overcome by fear. But nothing is as powerful as hearing Ben’s panic turn to fear as he realizes that he is not trapped under a pile of rocks but his body itself has turned into rocks.
From here, it’s very interesting to see how differently they react to their powers. Sue, the most underused in the movie, seems relatively fine with the situation. She’s angry but not overwhelmed like the others. Johnny is the one who comes closest to seeing the bright side of the situation. At some points, he actually seems like he might be excited to have powers. He is more than willing to train and essentially become a weapon for the army. Reed is the one, understandably, most overwhelmed with guilt. He goes into exile until he can find a way to cure his friends.
But Ben is easily the most interesting and moving one. Having become a walking pile of rocks, it’s understandable that he’d be the one to suffer an emotional breakdown. He is heartbroken and devoid of hope.
Jamie Bell is absolutely captivating and conveys the hopelessness of the character even without a lot of dialogue. When he does speak, his words are filled with anger and despair. When he begs Reed not to leave, it's very powerful and moving. So, when he agrees to become the army’s weapon and carry out missions for them, it’s not particularly surprising. He’s at an emotional low point and, with Reed gone, easily manipulated. The only real shame is that he deserved more screen time. And the trailers suggest that there is at least some unused footage of him.
Unfortunately, this is where the seams of the reshoots start to show. The movie skips ahead a year and it becomes clear that it has taken a turn for the worse. There is a debriefing scene that is off-putting and awkward. It seems like something was cut out and they needed some clumsy exposition to fill in the audience. From here the movie begins to come off the rails and only briefly recovers when Vic is brought back from Planet Zero.
Once he is back on the military compound, Vic, now calling himself Doom, goes on a gruesome killing spree that is perfectly executed. It is thrilling and the Cronenberg influence is clearly on display once again. But it’s not long before his evil scheme is introduced and all hope of the movie going out on a high note is extinguished.
In the final act, character development is completely ditched and the actors have visibly thrown in the towel as the movie crawls to what can arguably be called a climax. The worst part is that the ending feels so tacked on and disconnected from what came before it. It almost seems like a different movie.
But in the end, it’s hard to judge this movie without thinking about the better movie that lies beneath the surface. The backstage drama has been well documented but how much of it is true, is anyone’s guess, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that it almost feels like two different movies stitched together.
It also can’t be a coincidence that the best-executed and most effective parts of the movie are the ones that stray from the more traditional take on the superhero genre. The movie really falls apart when it clumsily tries to force itself into a super hero movie mold. It’s also here where the tone shifts abruptly and feels like the product of the much publicized reshoots.
This lends itself to the idea that Josh Trank’s vision didn’t fully make it to the screen. But unfortunately, there is no way to judge a movie that never came out. All we have to go on is the final product.
It’s just unfortunate that the movie got swallowed by the pre-release bad buzz that created a narrative that stopped people from ever giving the movie a fair chance. A more objective assessment of the movie would note that even though it is flawed and lacking the action fans have come to expect from a superhero movie, it still has redeeming qualities.
It has some good performances. And it’s brave enough to offer a different take on the comic book movie by adding horror theme elements. If anything, it’s a strong case for studios to let directors do their jobs.