SPOILERS AHEAD: It took me five years after seeing it to be able to talk about my PFFSD.
Director and co-writer Josh Trank, who claimed he had a very different movie in mind before studio interference (aka, cutting his budget and running time), has shouldered most of the blame for the failure of 2015’s Fantastic Four. Perhaps the movie was Doom-ed from the start, however.
I can’t say this strongly enough: we don’t need to see the origin of the Fantastic Four in a movie. It is kind of silly and generic. And I LOVE the Fantastic Four, had a huge collection of the original comic book series. It was great, it was quirky, and funny, and fantastical. It was Jack Kirby at his best.
We also don’t need to have Victor Von Doom involved with the FF getting their powers. He should not have been in this movie. If you have that much faith in what you are doing, save him for a sequel. I guess Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige may have talked 20th Century Fox out of using Skrulls, but this would have been a perfect opportunity to introduce them.
Five young researchers attempt a matter transportation experiment sneakily executed at a research facility, after they learn professional pilots will be testing their invention in the coming days instead of them.
Initially, all goes well. Ben Grimm, Reed Richards, Johnny Storm, and Victor Von Doom successfully get transported to Planet Zero, a world in another dimension. Victor touches some goop and gets stuck there as the ground crumbles below them, the others make it back to Earth just in time, causing an explosion in the research lab that exposes Sue Storm and the boys to the radiation from Planet Zero.
We are now already a good while into the movie. They discover they now have superpowers, yeehaw! They somehow are able to bring Victor back from Planet Zero a little later, but he’s all messed up physically and mentally from extended exposure to the planet’s weird energies. His protective suit has melted into a thin metal exoskeleton, and he has very powerful telekinetic abilities.
Doom initiates a plan to destroy Earth, and the four with the fantastic abilities work together to stop him. Blah blah blah. Seen that in three prior FF movies, but this was the dumbest version.
A movie about the making of Fantastic Four would be much more entertaining, as stories of odd behavior by Trank during production abounded. Fantastic Four is a small, dim, ugly, sci-fi pseudo-horror waste of good money.
