Film Review: ‘Fantastic Four’ reboot fails to find its footing
As Marvel freaks know, this is the third attempt to film what may be the comic book company’s most seminal franchise. The 1994 Roger Corman version is notorious for never having been (legally) seen: It was quickly and cheaply produced to allow the rights holders to hang onto contractual control of the material and was therefore never released.
Eleven years later, Fox spent in the vicinity of 100 times as much for a more commercially ambitious FF feature. The film’s approach was blandly predictable; and three of the four leads (Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba and Chris Evans) were either terribly miscast or simply badly directed. Only Michael Chiklis (as the Thing) came across well. Still, the movie did well enough to generate a sequel (“Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer”) two years later.
Why do yet another? Well, Marvel had already done fabulous business with various “X-Men” and “Spider-man” titles prior to Fox’s 2005 release. But, since that one, it has been doing more fabulous, even astonishing, business, dominating the box office to a startling degree with those franchises, plus “Iron Man,” “Captain America” and “Avengers.” The company has three of the top nine films of all time and has overall made more than the Harry Potter series, the James Bond films, the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the “Star Wars” films or any other franchise.
So now we have “Fantastic Four,” a new reboot with better casting and more serious ambitions than its predecessors. Unfortunately, it’s still not much better than Fox’s first one, partly because young director Josh Trank (“Chronicle”) has opted for more back story.
This may sound like a good idea, but Trank spends so much time on setting things up that it takes until almost exactly the midpoint before the characters gain their powers; and then we get more stuff about them learning to control them and work out personal squabbles. In short, the film is nearly over before enough has been established for them to finally have a serious conflict with a villain — Victor, of course.
We meet Reed Richards (Miles Teller) and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) when they are barely adolescents. (In these scenes, the two are played by Owen Judge and Evan Hannemann, respectively.) After a few minutes, we leap ahead seven years, when they appear to be 18-ish. Reed is recruited by dignified good guy Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) to join the Baxter Institute as part of what is essentially its Youth Genius Research Lab.
Reed’s high school science project was a working teleportation machine, which happens to be just what Dr. Storm’s group is after. The group also includes Storm’s son Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) and adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara). Unfortunately it also includes Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell). With a name like that, how can he possibly evolve into anything besides a bad guy? Worse yet, his misanthropy is particularly focused on Reed, who beats the teleportation problems he himself could never solve ... and who also appears to be a rival for Sue’s affection.
Reed, Victor and Johnny, mildly soused, decide to test the new full-size machine before evil government bureaucrats — personified by irritating, gum-chewing Dr. Allen (Tim Blake Nelson) — can take it from them. Ben comes along for the ride, and they arrive in a different dimension. They are way out of their league, and everything goes kablooey.
Luckily Sue discovers what they’ve done and arrives at the lab just in time to help them return. All but Victor make it back, but not before being altered in different ways ... and also blowing up the lab.
Here’s where things get a little murky. Sue is also altered (into Invisible Girl), presumably because she was exposed to some kind of radiation when the boys managed to blow up the lab. I say “presumably” because — while we are given some sort of setup for why the others got their particular powers — nothing is said about Sue. In fact, we don’t ever get a glimpse of her during the explosion. It feels like some bit of exposition or transitional shot was cut out. (What’s more, so much material from the other universe is teleported back with them that it’s initially not entirely clear whether they have made it back.)
The actors fare much better than their counterparts in the 2005 version (Chiklis excepted). Cathey’s portrayal of Dr. Storm holds things together like an anchor; Jordan plays Johnny a lot less obnoxiously than Evans; and the others also fare well. Gruffudd seemed too old and was so lanky to begin with that it was hard to tell at any given moment whether his elastic character was or wasn’t in midstretch.
Teller (who also starred in “Whiplash”) is very convincing as a likable square, at least when his major resemblance to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes isn’t getting in the way. (I mean, really: check it out.)
But despite the performance virtues, and even ignoring the exposition/continuity problems, the movie doesn’t work much better this time around. It’s primarily torpedoed by its structure: the first three-quarters would have made a better first third. As it is, just when the characters have reached the point where their adventures should begin, the closing credits roll.
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ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).