Alright, so I finally watched this infamous movie today. I just want to say some things before I get into the review. I think Trank's Chronicle is a very good movie that interestingly subverted certain tropes of a genre. Using "found footage" allowed for the most grounded "superpower" film so far; there was no camp, no fancy tech, no glossy aesthetics, no big personalities, no CGI action/violence, and no evil masterminds. These have all been pillars of the superhero genre and Trank managed to make a good superhero movie without any of them. Chronicle offered moral ambiguity that invalidated words like "antagonist," "hero," or "villain."
I also want to say that I enjoy Story's Fantastic Four films. I would never defend their quality, because I actually do think they are really bad. But sometimes when I need to destress or cheer myself up I'll watch those movies. The characters have big cartoonish personalities, the action is cheesy with bad special effects, the plots are nonsensical, and the acting is weak. I used to think I liked watching them because it was fun to make fun of their faults. But now I think I like them because they are unashamed to represent the corny, campy legacy of comics that made me a fan in the first place.
Trank's Fantastic Four is an attempt to combine the polar opposites of the genre; a melding of the earnest deconstruction of Chronicle with the tongue-in-cheek kitsch of the Story films. I became interested in this movie because of this incongruity and I thought it could do something interesting to the genre. The film also illuminated aspects of fan culture - namely intense brand loyalty and comic book purism. This movie looked like it was going to bring that ideology to a boil. In some ways, that's exactly what the movie did. Some fans feel vindicated by the poor critical and financial response; purists have triumphed over anyone that dares challenge the fandom and the casualties are the Fantastic Four. Maybe this is how it should be. Or maybe purism is hammering the nails in the genre's coffin. But that's a question for after Marvel, WB, and Fox have burned through their icons.
Now for the movie itself. It is painfully obvious, to the point of being indefensible, that this movie fails as an adaptation of the Fantastic Four. It's such a bad adaptation that the superficial links to the source material make the movie worse. Sue's line about Dr. Doom (I can't remember how it goes, but it's the only time this movie was hilariously bad), the use of Victor Von Doom, "it's Clobbering time," "Flame on," Johnny and Ben's weak attempts at a feud, the name "Fantastic Four", etc have no place in this movie. They made me feel... kinda bad because in Story's films these things were cheesy, but it was a happy cheese. "Flame on" in this version brings to mind the images the film showed us of a man in pain burning alive.
There was a lot of horror in the movie. Victor's accident, Johnny's burning body, Ben's claustrophobic rock body, Reed's gross stretchy body, Doom's head exploding power, and more. There's actually a precedent for this if you watch Venture Bros, which features a parody of the Fantastic Four that consists of a man who painfully combusts when exposed to oxygen, a woman who turns her skin invisible to expose musculature, an evil elongated man, and a Thing that you just sorta feel bad for. It's a great and disturbing parody because it exposes a darkness underneath an ideal.
Fantastic Four (2015) halfheartedly goes for horror, without any of the parody. To the film's credit, the best scenes in the movie are the horrifying ones - the accident on Planet Zero and the aftermath. I thought the movie was going in a genuinely interesting direction. It subverted our expectations of superpowers, extended the theme of dangerous science, and made me care about the characters' well being. I'm a big fan of playing with genres, deconstruction, and doing things differently; and the movie seemed to be doing all of those things. But that momentum was lost suddenly and jarringly with the time jump.
Instead of showing us how these characters deal with their powers, how their new status quo has impacted their relationships with each other, or how they turn something negative into something positive, the movie decides to make Tim Blake Nelson uninterestingly explain to us what has happened in the last year in order to shoehorn a military plot that didn't go anywhere. "One Year Later" was a fast forward button to an action climax that didn't belong in this movie. "It's clobbering time," says Ben Grimm; a character raised in violence, who thanklessly helped his best friend his whole life, and who was turned into a murderous monster.
I guess this is a good time to discuss the characters. I have never been able to decide if the Fantastic Four privileges the patriarchal nuclear family or celebrates unique family units. I think the answer is both, but I want to see a movie that does the latter.
The only relationship that is decently developed is Ben and Reed. It was almost touching earlier in the movie: two best friends going on separate paths in life. Reed asked Ben to come with them to Planet Zero as a way to involve Ben in his life again. It's heartbreaking when Reed sees Ben after the accident and has to leave him. Their dynamic fell apart after the time jump. Reed was looking for Ben throughout that year, but he knew where he was the whole time - where he left him. The filmmakers failed if they were going for character drama because Ben's condition, Reed's responsibility, and his abandonment are never resolved. It was cruel when Johnny called Ben a thing.
After a year or so of "I'm not racist, but..." posts, we finally see Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm... and there wasn't that much of him. To be fair, he did have a character and an arc. He resented the path his father was trying to put him on. His powers provided an alternative life purpose and he embraced it. However, the movie should have developed what being a government operative actually entailed and why that is dangerous. What a perfect opportunity for Sue to be a great big sister: the government is about to use her little brother as a killing machine. She should have convinced him why it's wrong and taken the power away from the military.
The treatment of Sue Storm, and women in the movie, bothered me. I am extremely sick of excuses for why there have been so few female superheroes in comic book movies. It was frustrating listening to Ant-Man's contrived reasons for forcing Lang in the suit and not Hope. And now this movie doesn't even include Sue in the trip to Planet Zero. The horrifying alternate dimension trip becomes an all-boys-club booze-fest. It felt like the movie reluctantly included her. And on top of that, Sue is once again the object of desire for Reed and Victor.
And regarding the other women in the movie... oh wait... there weren't any. Unacceptable.
I have to say, I liked this version of Doom way more than McMahon's version. I hated his Doom's lines, delivery, powers, and motivations. I thought this Doom actually looked quite cool when we first see him on Planet Zero. He doesn't work quite as well up close when we can see more details, though (his eyes and mouth look really bad). It would be nice to see why Victor is so anti-establishment/authority, but I understand resenting the people destroying the earth and trying to stop them from doing the same thing to another world. Doom was definitely not the worst part of the movie (like I thought he was in Story's movies).
When remembered in isolation from the rest of the movie, I like the final battle. I thought the effects were decent, the teamwork had clever moments, and Doom's powers were visually interesting. But knowing that the formulaic climax took away from character development, decent pacing, and general plot, keeps me from really enjoying it. It's a superpower slugfest that went against the tone and themes of everything before it.
Ultimately, this movie should not have been called Fantastic Four. It should have been another original movie done by Trank that focused on the horror of getting powers and what that does to a group dynamic. This movie needed the freedom of being an original creation. Fantastic Four (2015) is a comic book adaptation that is made worse when it adapts the comics. That's a problem.
