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MOVIE REVIEW
Defying expectations
 The
summer of 2015 will go down in history as the season where every
superhero movie defied expectations – and in most cases, for the wrong
reasons.
The highly anticipated ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’, which started the
season in May, was a huge disappointment that was okay at best. Then
came ‘Ant-Man’ in July, which had every reason to be terrible, but
turned out to be a pleasant surprise and one of the best movies yet from
Marvel Studios.
That brings us to ‘Fantastic Four’, a reboot of the 2005 and 2007 Tim
Story-directed versions which starred Chris Evans and Jessica Alba,
among others. Truth be told, I actually didn’t mind those movies. That’s
not to say that they were great (because let’s face it, they weren’t),
but for anyone who was able to embrace the light-hearted,
family-friendly tone, there was fun to be had.
The problem was that fans of the comic book series that first debuted
in 1961 didn’t want a kid-friendly ‘Fantastic Four’, so Fox went back to
the drawing board for a darker version of the material that took itself
more seriously.
But directed by Josh Trank, who cut his superhero teeth with 2012’s
critically-acclaimed cult favourite ‘Chronicle’, the rebooted ‘Four’
takes itself too seriously and is about as far from ‘Fantastic’ as a
comic book-based movie can possibly get. The structure is choppy,
disjointed and uneven.
The conventional story takes way too long to kick into gear, and
thanks to characters (and performances) that are bland and boring,
getting to that point isn’t the least bit interesting. It’s all setup
and no payoff, and it’s not fun. As a result, the ‘Fantastic Four’
reboot is such a colossal disappointment that it makes the Evans-Alba
version look like ‘The Avengers’ by comparison. (And you know your
Marvel-based movie is in trouble when even Stan ‘The Man’ Lee doesn’t
have a cameo.)
So between the new reboot, the two prior installments and the
low-budget Roger Corman-produced version from 1994 that was never even
released, one can’t help but wonder – why can’t anyone get this right?
Maybe that great ‘Fantastic Four’ movie just wasn’t meant to be – at
least, not under the current regime.
But where there’s life, there’s hope, and that hope just might be
Marvel Studios. Just like Marvel came to Spider-Man’s rescue and struck
a deal with Sony to allow for Spidey crossovers in the Marvel movies and
more involvement in the next stand-alone Spidey film, maybe Marvel
should strike a deal with Fox to allow for more involvement in a bigger,
better ‘Fantastic Four’movie.
Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm certainly
deserve a better movie, since their comic book title basically launched
the Marvel Universe 54 years ago.
If and when that does happen, here’s hoping that it will defy
expectations – and for all the right reasons.
- Scott Mantz for Access Hollywood
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