So That Happened: Fantastic Four

    Fantastic Four (2015 - 20th Century Fox)

    • Directed by Josh Trank
    • Screenplay by Jeremy Slater, Simon Kinberg, Josh Trank

    The Mistake:  Let's 'Batman Begins' the shit outta the Fantastic Four!

    Kate Mara's wig is really distracting.  That's what I kept thinking while watching the 2015's Fantastic Four.  Or Fant4stic, for wh4tever re4son.

    This is a movie where the stories of the behind the scenes turmoil are far more entertaining than anything that actually made it to the screen.  The short version?  It's 2013 and 20th Century Fox wants some of that Marvel money.  They also need to get a Fantastic Four movie into theaters quickly before the rights revert back to Marvel.   Plans for a sequel to 2007's Rise of the Silver Surfer fell apart when that movie underperfiormed so any new project will have to go the reboot route.Their X-Men series does well financially and is fresh off a successful soft reboot with First Class.  What else That leaves them The reshoots.  Josh Trank's inexperience and eventual meltdown.  The studio meddling.  If there was a

     

    Not since Bryan Singer's original X-Men have I seen a movie that seems so utterly embarrassed to be based on a comic book.   With X-Men, that attitude was at least understandable.  Think back to 2000; the last big comic book movie? Batman & Robin.  Singer and 20th Century Fox had no choice but to go the more serious, grounded route with X-Men.  Therefore, you get characters referred to by their real names more often than their codenames; they all get heavy black leather uniforms which are about as exciting to look at as lab co

    There were two movies I kept thinking of while I was watching Fantastic Four (or Fant4stic, for wh4tever re4son):  The original X-Men and Batman Begins.

    Someday, I'd like to see a

    Let's go back to the early 2000s for a second.  The major studios are beginning to put out comic book movies with some regularity.  20th Century Fox hits with the first X-Men in 2000; Sony tops that with Spider-Man in 2002; Fox responds with X2 and Daredevil in 2003.  Right around Daredevil, I remember reading online (56k modem and Compuserve, represent!) about a possible Fantastic Four movie to be directed by Peyton Reed.  (Yup, the same guy who did Marvel's Ant-Man last year.)

    This Fantastic Four would be be a 60's period piece with the FF as celebrity superheroes, fighting monsters and saving the world.  Cool.  George Clooney was mentioned as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic; again, cool.  Charlize Theron as Sue Storm/Invisible Girl; all right, looking good.  Paul Walker (R.I.P. gone too soon, tippin' a 40 to you as I write this) as Johnny Storm/Human Torch; solid choice. And John C. Reilly as Ben Grimm/voice of the Thing; interesting, though the mention of him only doing the voice implied a CG Thing which really

     

    Let me just start by saying I like the Fantastic Four.  Not this movie, mind you. Good god, no; this movie is terrible.

    Mr. Fan