Sometimes a movie is panned before it's even been released. Sometimes justly, like John Travolta’s Battlefield Earth and sometimes unfairly like M Night's Lady in the Water. This weekend saw the opening of one movie that has had the same treatment as both these films... Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four. Is the criticism justified? Let's dig in...
Honestly, I never liked Tim Story's original Fantstic Four films - I found them to be too kiddie safe and cartoony. Enter Josh Trank, he who gave us Chronicle, and his take on the Fantastic Four is younger, more racially diverse and more sci-fi horror than kid safe.
This Fantastic Four is more of a character piece than a skop, skiet and donner. The cheesy, kiddie safe humour is out and a darker, grittier “realism” is in, ala The Dark Knight. I think the fan boys and critics have panned the film because it decided to play with ethnicity and change the tone of the film from the source material - not the first and probably not the last film to do this.
After what has happened with Sony and their Spiderman franchise I wouldn't be surprised if the fan boys are wishing that Fantastic Four goes the way of Spiderman 2 so that the mouse company via Marvel will have control over the franchise. That's my theory. Hence all the hate.
As a film, Fantastic Four is akin to old sci-fi horrors like Alien and Solaris, which is saying a lot - although I do feel there was a bit of tinkering towards the end of the film. The film spends a lot of time setting up its new universe and characters.
There's an element of body horror where the super powers are not fun abilities to have but are almost a curse that the characters need to learn to live with. The talent on display from the cast carries this theme very well. How many films deliver on what the trailer promises these days? Fantastic Four is one of the very few that does.
Now the question is: will we ever see a sequel with the same cast and same feel? For the world has been set up nicely and it would be lovely to see the characters at a play minus exposition. Fantastic Four is very far from Battlefield Earth - it's not as idiotic as Terminator Genisys and not as brilliant as the first Iron Man but there's a lot going for this movie that somehow most critics decided to overlook. I say go judge for yourself.
Rating ***
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
index
* Junk **Almost bearable ***Now we cooking **** Almost perfect ***** Classic
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++