Fantastic Four: Movie Review


Let's get straight to the point, "Fantastic Four" doesn't turn out to be anywhere near being fantastic at all. It literally falls flat and thuds hard to the floor as it fails to make any compelling reason for people to flock and be interested in it. It is a bland, generic and uninspired superhero movie that doesn't give justice to its source material.

For years, the Baxter Foundation has tried to break inter-dimensional travel but have failed to do so. All this changes when Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) fatefully meets Reed Richards (Miles Teller) and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) at their school science fair. Richards, with his presentation, just made inter-dimensional travel work albeit in a very small scale. As Richards is taken in by Baxter, he recruits Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell), his daughter Sue (Kate Mara) and son Johnny (Michael B. Jackson) to help achieve a working prototype that could transport people into the next dimension. All goes well but when an accident occurs, it gives the young team, including Grimm, superhuman abilities.

Oh where do we start with this train wreck? "Fantastic Four" turns out to be an extremely frustrating and dull experience that not even a young and upbeat cast could save it from total disaster. The biggest culprit is probably its story and how it eventually develops towards the end of the film. It's just unimaginative at best and really doesn't go anywhere. This is a straight-up origin tale - we do get that - but nothing comprehensive really happens and any side-plots were never delved deeper into. Second is its cinematography and effects which were mostly dark and grim which further added to the somber mood. As for effects, it was below average. Scenes just didn't have that realistic feel and most of the time, the CGI effects were too obvious. It felt like "Fantastic Four" was years behind in this regard and would have had fit well a decade ago (ironically when the first "Fantastic Four" was also released). Third is that it lacked what made superhero films tick - epic duels. What could have made this film at least passable was an epic end to a slow start but sadly, it never did. The film doesn't have any fights or action sequences in between and worse, the only battle it had was a sleeper. It was unforgivable how the battle against Doom turned out to be. In the end, "Fantastic Four" is a huge disappointment. It doesn't stretch anything to make itself at least passable.

Rating: 1 and a half reels





Why you should watch it:
- the young cast had chemistry

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- no epic battles and the last and only showdown was a huge letdown
- the story was unimaginative and generic

Post a Comment

Comments