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I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry. This isn’t some revisionist attempt to claim that Fantastic Four, directed by Josh Trank, was great. In fact, even calling it good might be a bit generous. The sad fact is that the movie had too many flaws to overlook.

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.

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