With an estimated $27M US Box office, I guess another Marvel franchise franchise is stillborn. There seems to be no reason why director Josh Trank tanked, anymore than there is a reason why Sue Storm (the vastly overrated Kate Mara) has a black father and brother (the Human Torch, though nobody is actually named as such, Michael B. Jordan).
I love cheesy B Flicks as much as the next man, but they have to be fun, bad special effects must not be at the expense of a joyful superhero ride. This is the dowdiest and most tedious movie since the start of Iron Man 2 -only it goes on for two hours of eh?
You know the story, this retelling of it sucks, every change is, as always, for the worse. Reed Richard (Miles Teller -seldom worse) is recruited to Storm Industries to help transport matter to another dimension, where he meets a young Dr. Doom, a not yet his love interest Sue. The US Government is chomping at the bits and ready to send soldiers to the other dimension. SOOOO, Reed gets in touch with childhood friend Ben Grimes (Jamie Bell), and off they go to another dimension where things go very wrong.
The rest is Marvel folklore, three of the four fantastics have very cool superpowers (become all flames, stretch body, invisibility) and one becomes a brick shithouse. How such essentially lighthearted stuff can be played like Eugene O’Neill is easy to answer, it can’t be done. Why they tried? That’s a bafflement indeed. Certainly Kate Mara looks as though she has spent her entire life smelling the Things farts and not enjoying it. Oh and Miles, who lives and dies by his smirk, is fanstatically miscast as Reed. The only Fantastic thing about this disaster.
Grade: D+
Marvel has thrashed the FF franchise three times in a row. It’s a shame because the series was one of the company’s golden age hits with Jack Kirby.
The one time they didn’t have control of it was in the poverty years. Another company hired Roger Corman to make a quick and dirty B-movie to retain the rights to the franchise. Stan Lee condemned it, unfair of him since, if you’ve ever seen any of his crap reality shows about super-heroes in life, he’s no judge of excrement.
Anyway, the 1994 Corman movie, along with 5 C-list actors, one who plays Doom better than the new guy, is in multiple places on YouTube. Cheesy before the age of special effects and clearly Corman-made, it still has heart and has much in common with the first few years of the comic.
And it doesn’t insult the audience with the half-wit from Whiplash playing Marvel’s original genius, Reed Richards, who always had gray/white sides.
Solid B with a man in a rubber suit playing the Thing that’s actually not too bad and a nice wedding at the end.
Then go look up at the first Captain America vs. Red Skull movie from the same era. There was a time when Marvel was pretty desperate for money. The lesson being making not desperate often makes bad.