Review of Fantastic Four

Back in 2015, I saw a huge cardboard display for the new Fantastic Four movie, and I thought, “Oh no, is this gonna be one of those movies where it’s coated in that ugly desaturated earth and metal tones?” So, I didn’t watch it because I wasn’t into Marvel movies in general, but it might be a critical success regardless. However, this movie describing the origins of the team, which includes Mr. Fantastic (Miles Teller), Invisible Girl (Kate Mara), Human Torch (Michael B. Jordan) and Thing (Jamie Bell), and their plot to defeat the evil Dr. Doom (Toby Kebell) had been critically thrashed, warranting a 5% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Well, after seeing this, part of me can see why, but on the other hand, on the other perspective, it’s not exactly worthy of a low rating. The story splits into two segments: Reed Richards building the dimensional transporter and the four superheroes fighting Von Doom. Although the story takes itself way too seriously, most of the movie is shot in the dark, and the most of the action happens in the background, Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four is competent on visual effects, the musical score by Marco Beltrami and Philip Glass, and the performances by Teller, Mara, Jordan and Bell. Most of the faults in the movie come from producer and co-writer Simon Kinberg, who wanted to capitalize on the success on The Avengers and X-Men and make a realistic version of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s story. His obsession with dimming the lights and desaturating every scene makes a chunk of the movie unwatchable and drab. On top of everything else, Trank tweeted that he wanted to be faithful to the source material except with a body count, resulting in a drastic tug of war game between him and Marvel. Despite the messy storyline and blatant studio intervention, Fantastic Four wasn’t a good movie, but I’m glad I saw it.

(2 ½ Black Hole Sky Portals out of 5)