The end of your world... is the beginning of mine!
✯
The best thing that happened to me when I saw Fant4stic didn't even happen during the movie. Afterwards, as I started my car, my radio turned on and immediately "Another One Bites the Dust" started playing. I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of it all, since I had just finished crying because of how completely terrible this new reboot ended up being. Seriously, it makes me want to go backwards and watch the last two Fantastic Four films to erase the painful memory of this "reboot."
Poor Josh Trank. I know he's not entirely blameless, but if his deleted tweets are to be believed, he could've made this franchise into something special. Of course, the big studio execs had to have their way with this film, being a Marvel property, and poor Trank had almost no creative control. If I'm understanding correctly, I believe that Trank originally wanted to make this remake into a gritty horror film. And some of those elements do make it into the final film, but only barely. Dr. Doom (or just "Doom" as they call him now) is initially played off as a formidable horror villain, unstoppable and on a bloody rampage. But his reign of terror lasts exactly five minutes and ends in a sixty second battle. If you think I'm exaggerating, I'm not. The fight on the fourth dimensional planet literally lasted sixty seconds.
Victor Von Doom himself was just so horribly personified in this film. All of the members of the Fantastic Four are shown as teenybopper nerds who are just starting to get their feet wet in science. Of course, the prologue just had to show us how much of a boy genius Reed Richards is, and solidify that he was lifetime friends with Ben Grimm (AKA The Thing). Let me just say, the "boy genius" story trend died off a long time ago. It just doesn't work in modern movies anymore. Jimmy Neutron was great in its time, but films like this and Tomorrowland just prove that the formula needs to die. It's cliche, it's unnecessary, and it just doesn't really add any depth to these characters that we Marvel fans are supposed to already know all about. A new origin story really isn't necessary, but the way each of the heroes were shown gaining their powers was so awful, it was almost comedic in its presentation.
Speaking of comedy, how about the cringeworthy dialogue? Sue Storm (or "Sue-Sue", as Dr. Storm likes to call her) and Reed Richards (Miles Teller of Whiplash fame) had absolutely no chemistry. Their lines together felt so forced, and I felt like their potential together was wasted with this crappy script. I literally felt like shoving screwdrivers into my eardrums just so I didn't have to hear the terrible dialogue. Trank and his other two screenwriters (who were probably the biggest culprits in the butchered dialogue) conjured up a hodgepodge of unreal dialogue that actually managed to be worse than the dialogue in Life is Strange, Square Enix's failed attempt at an episodic game series.
Why is it that Marvel is trying to revamp their beloved superheroes with high-school teenybopper reboots? Why do all of the characters have to be given awful dialogue? Why does Fox feel the need to integrate their Marvel movies into their own ripoff cinematic universe? Why couldn't Josh Trank just be left alone to make the Fantastic Four he envisioned? Had he not already proved himself with the magical Chronicle? Executives just love to ruin great films before they're even released sometimes, don't they?
I really hope that Fant4stic doesn't prove to be a kiss of death on Josh Trank and Miles Tellers' careers. I still have faith that they have a tremendous amount of talent, and given enough artistic freedom, they could make some really great films together. It's a shame that Damien Chazelle felt the need to drop Teller from his newest project, and I suspect it's because of this piece of garbage film.
I tried to find something redeemable in Fant4stic, but the more I watched it, the more I hated it. The more dialogue that went into my ears, the more I could feel the screwdrivers closing into my cochleas. I really felt like insisting on a refund from my theater, but as a long-time patron, I didn't want to feel unwelcome on future visits. Consider it a donation, Fox, and consider this a warning on getting so controlling over your Marvel projects. The best thing for them to do at this point would honestly be to just sell the property back to Marvel. At least they would have more of a chance to incorporate the characters into their cinematic universe. But at this point, I fear that the franchise has been tainted three times too many to wash the disgusting covers that have enveloped this franchise. But who knows? Maybe Marvel will throw on their own magic flair. Disney's been going fairly strong with their films lately, and I wouldn't mind seeing this property given one more chance with the proper studio. They just have to figure out a way to not make the characters look so stupid.