Just got back from it. Surprisingly, I didn't hate it. Make no mistake, it's not a good film, but it's a little better than a 9% at Rotten Tomatoes would suggest. Still, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Clearly, something went wrong in the making of this movie. This is a movie with some pieces missing. And the net result is to make it seem like a loooooong buildup for a way-too-speedy resolution. Also, some of the pieces near the end don't match the quality of those in the first two-thirds of the film. The first hour is actually quite good. All of the characters are satisfactorily introduced and the premise that brings them together is interesting. But then it kinda goes to shit. Movies aren't written and filmed chronologically, but if they were, it feels like someone said "Ah, fuck it" at about the 60 minute mark. I liked all of the leads individually well enough, but together they don't have any chemistry. In a couple of instances, it seems like there might be some, but it doesn't last. The effects in the Negative Zone--excuse me, "Planet Zero"--are a bit dodgy. I felt like I was watching actors on the Star Trek: The Next Generation "Planet Hell" set acting in front of a green screen. None of the Planet Zero scenes--including, unfortunately, the climax--comes across as convincing. I sorta liked the characterization of Dr. Doom--and his powers are pretty awesome and terrifying--but his appearance is just mind-numbingly awful, like 90s syndicated sci-fi TV awful. I can't believe this design ever passed muster for a potential billion dollar franchise. I don't object to its divergence from the comics take; I object to its uninspired, amateurish execution. When the team gets their powers--about an hour in--we see video clips of their learning to use their powers in a presentation given by the head of the Baxter Corporation. We see a few brief clips of Ben in action with American troops. We get a brief display of Johnny shooting down a drone--a Global Hawk!--as part of a test. This all goes by so quickly, that it's like the producers missed a big opportunity. One fun part of any superhero origin story is where the heroes learn to use their powers. It also gives us a better idea of what they can do. But instead of being shown their powers, we're essentially told about them. A subplot with Reed Richards on the run and hiding out in Latin America is introduced and then oh-so-quickly terminated when he's This should've been a great character-vs.-character sequence but it ends before it even gets going. And Doom's emergence for the climax is badly handled. Really need a bit more development. I really did think Victor was an interesting character; the movie would've benefited from some sequences where he, I dunno, tries to take over Earth before being forced to retreat to Planet Zero. As it is, he no sooner emerges as a threat then that the climax is happening. Pacing problem in extremis. There are a bunch of things that hint at a more interesting plot--Sue's adoption by Dr. Storm, sibling rivalry issues between Johnny and Sue, Ben's home life--but they never develop. So, not unwatchable, not horrible, but, alas, not good. A whole lot of missed opportunity. 4.0/10
Damn, what a mess. Too much to summarize, just read the link. http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/38274/trank-vs-fox-fantastic-debate-turns-ugly
Like I said... I think a shitty film is a shitty film, and no amount of editing or post-production magic is going to fix it. Trank's career is pretty much over, which is too bad because he had potential.
Also, it's easy to hate on the FF4 because they're just such an utterly bad concept to begin with. Hopefully this is the last time we ever hear of them.
If Ant-Man can be a good movie, if Batman can be cool after the Adam West camp, then cool again after rubber nipples, if LEGO can become an instant cinema classic, and if Rocket Raccoon can become a household name, Fantastic Four can yield a good movie if the people in charge give a shit.
Fantastic Four is the World's Greatest Comic Magazine when it's done right. This movie was not done right. The Lee/Kirby years and the John Byrne run were the FF done right.
If I'm not mistaken the F4 was one of Marvels most popular comics for a very long time. The concept IMO is a good one and should work well for the big screen.
Turns out this movie was doomed from the start, and was cynically cranked out in an attempt to keep the rights exactly like the Roger Corman version 21 years ago. http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/38350/more-ugly-fantastic-4-bts-details-emerge
Popular =/= Good Idea or Good Quality. Just look at the popularity of Honey Boo Boo and 19 Kids and Counting.
The concept of the FF still is strong - explorers of the unknown discover an amazing new power. Ben Grimm/The Thing is one of the greatest characters in comics, and the family concept of the group could be really strong if written correctly. Personally I would have mixed the space exploration and different dimension origin story - an FTL experiment gone wrong. That opens the negative zone while retaining the space exploration concept. The characters all work well today - strong casting for the Sue Storm could make for a very potent female superhero. The 80/90s version of her was as the driving force of the team, and as one of the most powerful superheroes around. They also have an amazing set of bad guys - probably the best of all the super teams. Dr. Doom of course, Galactus, the Mole Man (think of a guy who can summon up Godzilla to fight for him), the Puppet Master, Molecule Man, Namor the Submariner, the Super Skrull, Annihilus, the Frightful Four, the U-Foes (a 'mirror image' version of the team). It takes some extraordinary talent to fuck up this franchise. But then, its Fox. They manage to kill masterpieces on a regular basis. I'll never forgive them for what they did to Firefly...
This is the thing, Marvel had to sell all the rights piecemeal back in the day because they were bankrupt, and they were bankrupted by the same sort of un-artistic business assholes that just fucked up FF. 20+ years on, and this bullshit's still going on.
I'm sure there is some logic for this that makes sense but I can't see it. Why not just sell them to Marvel and not incur the costs and the embarrassment of making these films?
Some studio bosses have contempt for the audience, and think they'll watch any old crap they shovel out there. The success of the Transformers franchise doesn't help to correct this perception.
Because if they have the rights, there's a chance that they can make some money off of it, equally important, Disney can't. So that's one less billion dollar blockbuster Fox has to worry about going up against.
I don't buy that the studio made the film just to keep the rights, especially after spending big money and getting good talent for the project. If you're going to pay for a good movie, why not get one? It sounds to me like Trank imploded and the studio scrambled to make the film releasable. It's the opposite of the studio being too meddlesome; they were too disengaged until it was too late. I would be surprised if Josh Trank ever gets another directing job on a major feature film.
I think there's plenty of blame to go around. If Trank's vision sucked, why did they sign off on it? If Trank was a douchebag on the set, and couldn't hack a big budget movie, why wasn't he fired sooner? We were hearing this shit virtually as it was going on, so the studio execs must have too.
I think the studio thought Trank's vision was very good. But it sounds like Trank had some major personal issue or cracked under the pressure while trying to execute that vision. That's what I meant by "disengaged." I think they were so far down the road with Trank, that they were hoping for the best. When principal filming ended and there wasn't a complete film, I think that's when their hand was forced. It was reported that the studio pulled funding for three action pieces late in the production, and, if so, this was a major blow to the film. But it's not clear why they did it. Did they think the film was already out of control and wanted to avoid losing tens of millions of dollars? Had they lost faith in Trank and were worried they were throwing the money away? There's an interesting story here and, given that there are millions of dollars and careers involved, I'm sure we'll eventually hear all sides of it.
However all this shakes out, barring a freak "The Interview", Sony hack perfect storm of chain reactions, it'll probably be a minimum of 10 years before we see FF on the big screen again. Possibly a generation. I mean we're looking at the new standard replacing "Batman & Robin", level of flop here.
Why settle for "good" talent, when you can have "great" talent? RDJ was perfect for the role of Tony Stark, and people were gushing at the thought of him in the role. Remember your (and just about everyone else's) reaction to this cast? The only other superhero role I can think of which was met with such an unenthusiastic response when the casting was announced was Batfleck, and that was erased as soon as the trailer dropped. It could be, but if the studio was unengaged, that sounds like they weren't too terribly concerned about the quality of the film they were going to be putting out. You're probably right. I don't think Fox is likely to do that at all. The first FF film was in '05, the second was in '07, this one comes 8 years later, so perhaps they have to push one out every 10 years. If that's the case, then I can see them waiting until 2020 rebooting the franchise, or they might do like what was done with the Hulk, and do a "soft reboot" on the next film in 2017.
There's no point sitting on the rights until they expire. And there's no point in having the rights if you can't make money with them. I see only two real possibilities: 1. Fox tries again with Fantastic Four, some years from now. 2. Fox sells the rights back to Marvel. If #1 happens, it will have to be completely divorced from the current disaster. No Miles Teller, no Kate Mara, etc., etc. Blank sheet of paper take on the concept. Even then, it will be a big risk as Fox has already had 3 not terribly successful bites at the apple, and the most recent one is shaping up to be a very expensive bomb.
I've never really cared much for FF, but I do think they have potential as a franchise, but they really need to give it a long rest, they just don't seem that marketable. Had they had taken someone like John Hamm or some other forty something actor and stayed true to the source material and made a good ensemble team like the first X-Men, they could have pulled it off. I just think it's going to be quite a while before they can do a proper reboot.
So far it's made just $32 million in the states for a total of $71 million worldwide. This is one giant failure. Will it even reach $100 million ?
Yeah, stronger actors might have saved this one. RDJ made Iron Man. Otherwise it probably would have failed too. Same with Batman Begins, Bale was good but with Caine and Freeman and Liam Neeson chewing up the screen it sealed the deal. X-men had Stewart and McKellan and Jackman. Those could have been horrible otherwise. The 3rd one is only watchable because of the actors. Everyone knew the casting was bad on this one right from the start. But, we remembered dismissing Heath Ledger as Joker, Keaton as Batman so we thought we might be wrong. As for the director. Knowing he was new to a big budget movie, why not give him some of your best cinematographers and screenwriters or other key crewmembers to help him along? Sounds like they gave him too much. Just feels like Fox half asses everything. Even on their TV shows. Fox shows just look cheap.
In any event, no, "stronger actors" wouldn't have saved this one. The problems it has aren't really due to bad acting (and, I submit, where the acting is "bad," it's because the direction was sorely lacking). You never really know if casting is wrong until you see what the producers have in mind. Ledger seemed like a bad choice for the Joker, simply because we imagined The Dark Knight's Joker would be pretty much the same as the previous incarnations of the character.
