One year after the release of the universally castigated superhero movie, Sean Wilson pops the question: is it really THAT bad?
Amidst a disappointing 2016 blockbuster movie season I’m struggling to identify any genuine underdog movies, ones that received their fare share of critical bile but which I actually liked. (Case in point: Suicide Squad, which has been near-universally hated and which I detested too.)
2015 however was slightly different. I can pinpoint at least three summer releases that I felt were unfairly treated: Tomorrowland, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and, most controversially, Fantastic Four. All of these movies tanked at the box office (Tomorrowland was considered a colossal live-action write-off for Disney) and received middling-to-poor reviews, slipping from the minds of most viewers whilst lingering in mine. True they are all considerably flawed but I can think of several, far more hateful 2015 releases that really got my back up. So on that note, why on Earth would I launch a defence of Fantastic Four, widely considered one of the worst superhero movies of all time?
To recap, Chronicle director Josh Trank’s attempt to re-launch the Fox-owned Marvel property was the third such effort, following Roger Corman’s laughable 1990s effort and the sub-par pairing of 2004’s Fantastic Four and 2007’s Rise of the Silver Surfer, both starring, erm, Ioan Gruffudd. Billed as that old chestnut, a ‘darker and grittier’ take on one of Marvel’s campiest ensembles, it promised so much. That it came crashing back to Earth faster than the Human Torch after a night on the tiles was saddening.
The production woes were widely reported, both the studio and Trank clashing over the direction of the movie, one pitching for a broadly entertaining popcorn extravaganza and the other for a moodier, intimate character-led piece (guess who fell on which side of the fence). With reports of an uncommunicative filmmaker and a studio that had demanded extensive reshoots, all negative press that began circulating well in advance of the film’s release date, it was perhaps inevitable that the movie was set up for a fall. And to cap it all off, in a colossal bit of professional misjudgment Trank took to Twitter to criticise Fox and claim that the version of the movie released in theatres was absolutely not his vision. Little wonder he was quickly dislodged from his position as a new Star Wars director.
The ensuing reviews owed less to a consensus than a feeding frenzy, critics falling over themselves to pull the movie apart at the seams the way a child pulls the wings off a fly. Wrote Brian Tuitt in USA Today: “An unfortunate movie that does an embarrassing disservice to the decades-old property and is a frightful waste of all the talent involved”. And in Time Out, Tom Huddleston wasn’t holding back: “Frankly, it’s amazing this is watchable at all”. It was official: we had yet another Fantastic Four movie on our hands that pissed all over the legacy of Marvel’s original superhero family.
Frankly, I took umbrage to the collectively vicious attacks on a very flawed but partially commendable movie (although given I’m a reviewer myself, the phrase ‘glass houses’ no doubt leaps to mind). Let me make it absolutely clear: I do not think Trank’s Fantastic Four is a great film. It’s a complete mess but I would argue it’s at very least a semi-ambitious one (at least in its recognisably Trankian segments) with likeable performances from its young cast headed by Miles Teller (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic), Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm/The Human Torch), Kate Mara (Susan Storm/The Invisible Woman), Jamie Bell (Ben Grimm/The Thing) and Toby Kebbell (Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom).
I applaud Trank’s attempt to bring some of that Chronicle-esque grittiness to a flagrantly tongue-in-cheek property involving stretchy limbs and invisibility, honing a discreet visual style (sans found-footage) that throws more emphasis onto the efforts of its ensemble cast. I loved the opening sequence in which the younger versions of Richards and Grimm bond over a hushed science experiment in a basement (deliberately reminiscent of Joe Dante’s underrated Explorers), foreshadowing the doomed science experiment later in their lives that will ultimately turn them into superheroes.
I liked the warm banter and physical interplay between the characters, one failed high-five between Richards and Johnny striking a pleasingly affectionate note. And I even enjoyed the widely criticised moment where our central group of guys get pissed and, under the influence of the beer goggles, make an inter-dimensional trip to a planet suspiciously reminiscent of Mordor. (Hey, it’s not like they don’t regret their decision afterwards.) And the scene in which Richards wakes up horrified to discover his limbs are now of abnormal length perhaps crystallises what Trank was trying to achieve, a blend of pop fun and genuine horror rooted in recognisable character responses.
All of this I find commendable and even enjoyable – but it only takes us up to around the 45 minute mark in the movie. And what then materialises in front of our eyes is as clear a line in the sand as is possible to envisage, an unmistakable dividing line between Trank’s personality and the studio-controlled second half filled with explosions and incoherent action. A fade to black yields an utterly baffling continuation of the narrative in which it’s revealed that Grimm’s rock monster The Thing is now essential to the U.S. Army whilst Richards is off doing… something else and Susan has developed a completely new hairstyle. How much time is meant to have elapsed? And why oh why is the transition so catastrophically handled?
It’s a harbinger of how badly the film then goes downhill, descending into the worst kind of CGI-fuelled schlock – and cheap-looking schlock at that. As soon as Von Doom materialises as resident baddie Dr. Doom it’s hard to suppress one’s exhalations of disappointment that such a classic baddie has been visualised as a crash-test dummy smeared in Vaseline. And when our heroes engage in a sloppily-edited climactic battle with him, it fails to hold water simply because of how the movie has failed to invest us in the wonder or nuance of the team’s superheroic abilities, not to mention the fact they defeat him far too easily. And the clumsy coda that attempts to maneuver the phrase Fantastic Four into position with the aim of alluding to future instalments? Boy does it clang hard.
It’s a pretty abysmal state of affairs that torpedoes whatever ambitions Trank had of channelling David Cronenberg within the context of a superhero movie. There’s no denying the second half of the movie is so poor that it drags the entire project down from ambitious to ambitious failure – but does this make it one of the ‘worst superhero movies ever made’? Let us consider that phrase: when it’s invoked, the movies that are surely called to mind are Cannon’s staggeringly inept Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, shot in Milton Keynes and with a bubble-permed joke for a villain. Or how about Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin, a dayglo nightmare of a picture that almost single-handedly killed off Batman for good before Christopher Nolan triumphantly resurrected him?
I can hand on heart say that I don’t consider Fantastic Four as bad as those movies; there are enough smart ideas and solid performances (at least in the first half) to make it acceptable. And let’s be honest, is there anything in it as dreadful as the repetition of Superman’s flying shots in Quest for Peace? Hardly. The film’s critical mauling was unfortunate, symptomatic of a pack mentality that failed to recognise its intermittent strengths whilst amplifying its (not inconsiderable) flaws.
It just goes to show that it’s easier to pile on a movie when everyone else is doing so; for my part, I attempted to distance myself from the critical vitriol not for the sake of being contrary, but because I genuinely found moments of substance within the movie. This is where being a film critic, surely one of the greatest jobs in the world, becomes a rare test when your opinion flies in the face of overwhelming consensus. Frankly, give me Trank’s movie over the headbanging noise of Suicide Squad any day of the week.
(When it comes to a proper Fantastic Four movie though? I’ll stick on The Incredibles.)
Sean Wilson
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
