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FANTASTIC FOUR (2015) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

fantastic four (2015) movie

Genre | Science Fiction

Classification | M

Running time | 100 minutes

Released | 6 August 2015

cast

Miles Teller ... Reed Richards
Michael B. Jordan ... Johnny Storm
Kate Mara ... Sue Storm
Jamie Bell ... Ben Grimm / The Thing
Toby Kebbell ... Victor Von Doom / Dr. Doom
Reg E. Cathey ... Dr. Franklin Storm

director

Josh Trank

writer

Jeremy Slater ... (screenplay) and
Simon Kinberg ... (screenplay) &
Josh Trank ... (screenplay)

Stan Lee ... (Marvel comic book) and
Jack Kirby ... (Marvel comic book)

cinematographer

Matthew Jensen

music

Marco Beltrami ... (music by)
Philip Glass ... co-composer

film editor

Elliot Greenberg ... (edited by)
Stephen E. Rivkin ... (as Stephen Rivkin) (edited by)

box office result

Worldwide $167,977,596

Australia $3,874,288

North America $56,117,548

the best dialogue

Dr. Franklin Storm: How did we get this far? Human beings have an immeasurable desire to discover, to invent, to build. Our future depends on us furthering these ideals, a responsibility that rests on the shoulders of generations to come. But with every new discovery, there is risk, there is sacrifice... and there are consequences.

Victor Domashev: I gotta say, it's pretty impressive...
Reed Richards: Thank you.
Victor Domashev: ...that you nearly destroyed our entire planet with speaker cable and aluminum foil.
Reed Richards: Yeah, that was an accident.

Sue Storm: We can't beat him. He's stronger than any of us.
Reed Richards: Yeah, he is. But he's not stronger than all of us.

FANTASTIC FOUR (2015) MOVIE IMAGES

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FANTASTIC FOUR (2015) STORY SYNOPSIS

Transported to an alternate universe, four young outsiders gain superhuman powers as they alter their physical form in shocking ways. Reed Richards becomes Mr. Fantastic, able to stretch and twist his body at will, while pal Ben Grimm gains immense strength as the Thing. Johnny Storm becomes the Human Torch, able to control and project fire, while his sister Sue becomes the Invisible Woman. Together, the team must harness their new abilities to prevent Doctor Doom from destroying the Earth.

FANTASTIC FOUR (2015) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 6 August 2015
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐½

Anyone who has followed the production of Josh Trank’s FANTASTIC FOUR will know that there was an undercurrent of discontent simmering away from the time that the casting was announced through to principal photography, where the Director went AWOL on occasion and, it’s reported, Matthew Vaughan was brought in to take over. It’s fair to say that FANTASTIC FOUR does not realise the potential of the individuals involved in the making of this film. From Writer Simon Kinberg, who gave us 2014’s wonderful X-MEN DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, to Trank himself, who delivered an out-of-the-box found footage superhero delight with his film CHRONICLE, there’s no doubt that FANTASTIC FOUR may come to be regarded as a missed opportunity for 20th Century Fox’s Marvel movie universe. Don’t be deceived however by negative word-of-mouth or pithy put-down reviews, FANTASTIC FOUR is a solid science fiction action film that attempts to weave a shred of humanity through its otherwise outlandish story.

The first part of the film belongs to Miles Teller’s Reed Richards who has been developing a teleportation device since he was a young kid. Rejected time and again by the adults around him, the only person who believes in him is school friend Ben Grimm, played by a vastly under-utilised Jamie Bell. Richards’ fortunes seem to improve when he is approached by Dr Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara), who offer him the chance of a scholarship at the prestigious Baxter Institute. Sensing the opportunity to finish work on his long-gestating inter-dimensional travel project, Dr Storm convinces wayward protégé Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) to return to the institute to help Richards complete his work. In a contrived piece of plotting, Kinberg’s script also shoehorns Michael B. Jordan’s Johnny Storm into proceedings as a guy who can build anything!

Upon completing their inter-dimensional shuttle, the group’s work is immediately seconded by shadowy Government operatives who plan to bring NASA into the loop and send trained astronauts to uncover the secrets of the parallel universe that awaits. Reed, Johnny and Victor are none too happy about the plan and decide they want to be the first to plant the American flag into whatever awaits, but not before Richards declares (in a somewhat drunken state) that they can’t go without his old friend Ben Grimm by his side. As viewers might anticipate, things don’t go exactly as planned and the hastily-arranged expedition ends in tragedy when Victor seemingly falls to his death trying to escape an alien energy surge that has started to rip the landscape of the foreign planet apart. Realising the four young men’s misadventures, Sue Storm tries to wrest control of the shuttle’s controls back at Mission Control, but, before she can, a shockwave blasts the ship back to base sending a wave of energy through the building that transforms the four young people forever.

There may be viewers who watch FANTASTIC FOUR and be disappointed that the film doesn’t deliver a series of large-scale action set-pieces that mirror what most comic book based feature films do these days. Those looking for a film with a 140 minute running time will be disappointed, as FANATASTIC FOUR clocks in at just on 100 minutes and the film is the better for it. Too many comic book films over the last decade have fallen for the “more is more” trap and have become too reliant on excessive CGI to try and drive a story outcome through visual spectacle. FANTASTIC FOUR actually does a good job of balancing the focus of its Third Act antagonist with a measure of CGI that allows the Richards, Sue, Johnny and Ben Grimm to harness their collective powers together for the first time as a team. Viewers (especially comic book movie fans) looking for MAN OF STEEL levels of destruction porn will be sadly disappointed by the lack of scale in this department.

For all of its supposed production challenges, FANTASTIC FOUR does enough to establish a solid base from which to relaunch Marvel’s First Family and tie them into other 20th Century Fox Marvel films. Trank’s direction is not as bad as some may have been suspecting, but most of the flair he showed with CHRONICLE is absent as the need to fix the camera in one location and shoot a scene proves too mundane an activity for him to deliver anything like the hand-held close-up action he delivered with that film. Simon Kinberg’s script is also a little too on-the-nose, as Reg E. Cathey’s Farnklin Storm comes across as a poor man’s Charles Xavier, spouting world theories without the precognisant telepathic abilities of the X-Men’s mentor. It’s certainly not fault of the actor’s. His gravelly-voiced, low-key version of the elder Storm plays a critical role in bringing the team together, but Kinberg lumbers him with just about every piece of exposition in the story and it becomes both repetitive and predictable.

As for the remaining cast, everyone shows up and does what they need to do to get the job done. Miles Teller plays Richards as not quite the bumbling scientist cliché, but both the story and Teller’s delivery make him more awkward than what he needs to be. Kate Mara is vanilla bland as Sue and Jamie Bell spends most of time as a CGI creation once the action kicks up a gear in the second half of the film. Michael B. Jordan makes Johnny both literally and figuratively a bit of a hot head and his performance injects energy into the chemistry between the characters that is absent with the others. Toby Kebbell does the most he can with the under-developed Victor Von Doom, but the origins of this version Dr. Doom may not sit comfortably with FANTASTIC FOUR comic book aficionados. Kebbell’s Doom, much like the rest of this new version of FANTASTIC FOUR, is partially developed with a modicum of humanity; which will have an appeal for a certain amount of viewers who are satisfied with 100 minutes of entertainment set against a backdrop of largely forgettable action. The BIG question for the makers of FANTASTIC FOUR is whether that’s enough to keep Marvel’s First Family in the feature film big league.