emlogomain.jpg

Main
Facebook
Tumblr
News/ Updates
DVD Reviews
Blu-ray Reviews
Movie Reviews
TV
Interviews
TV show review: CONTINUUM season 4
PHOTOGRAPHY

FANTASTIC FOUR (2015)

Movie review by David Blackwell

 

100 minutes, rated PG-13

STUDIO: 20th Century Fox/ Marvel

Theatrical RELEASE DATE: 8-7-2015

Childhood friends Reed Richards (Miles Teller) and Ben Grimm (Jaime Bell) have been working on a teleportation device for years and it draws the attention of Professor Franklin Storm.  Reed goes to work at the Baxter Building where there is a similar project to Reed’s that allows access to another universe.   He works with Franklin’s adopted daughter Sue Storm (Kate Mara), reckless son Johnny Storm (Michael B Jordon), and the jealous protégé Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) who started the Quantum Gate project in the first place.   A reckless journey to the alternate universe has resulted in giving them powers which they struggle to control and Reed wants to find a way to cure them, but the military has other plans for them.

 

The reboot of the FANTASTIC FOUR movie franchise holds promise where the first hour is a great origin story where the last 30 or so minutes is just a rushed mess as it shifts gears into a different type of movie all of a sudden.   Josh Trank tweeted he had a fantastic version of the movie a year ago and he quickly deleted the tweet.  The reboot has gone through some rewriting and reshoots.  One does wonder if there are too many cooks in the kitchen as you have a studio (20th Century Fox) feeling the pressure to create a franchise that is as strong as the X-MEN series.  Lots of wonderful set-up and character development is shown off in the first two-thirds of the new FANTASTIC FOUR.  This new movie may not be as fun as the Tim Story movies, but it makes up for it with the drama before it all gets ditched for some misbegotten feeling we need to fit in superhero action pieces and hope it all comes out fine.  Then you have the Victor, Reed/ Sue love triangle that goes nowhere.  I would be interested to see what could be done in the sequel which we hopefully get to see (but box office performance has propelled rumors Fox may opt for a Deadpool sequel in the Fantastic Four 2 release date instead).  The movie has fantastic production design and the new Fantastic Four costumes are great as this movie is a mix of the original FANTASTIC FOUR and ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR.  I don’t get the flack over making Johnny Storm black since Michael B Jordon does get the brashness of the character right.  He is about the only character besides maybe Ben Grimm that you can change the race of the character since I always think Reed and Sue as white.  I just wish the last third of the movie was as great as the set up in the first hour, but instead we end up with a sometimes frustrating reboot which is basically a set-up for hopefully a better sequel if 20th Century Fox opts to make another movie with these actors.

 

This review is ©8-10-2015 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

Like Enterline Media on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/enterlinemediaweb and follow on tumblr at http://enterlinemedia.tumblr.com