Stars Miles Teller, Jamie Bell, Kate Mara, Michael B Jordan with Toby Kebbel, Reg E Cathey and Tim Blake Nelson Directed by Josh Trank Well, that’s different. And ‘different’ can be taken as a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the expectations of the viewer. Honestly, the early reviews were not helping much, as a general view of the movie is that it’s a non-starter and only half a decent movie. Given the landscape of super-hero movies that have come and gone in this day and cinematic age, one might suppose expectations are high. More so given the director, Josh Trank, had pulled up one of the better non-traditional super-hero movies ever made, that not many people paid attention to until after the fact. On a personal aside, I love Trank’s approach to the material, paying a kind of tribute to the era and genre the original Fantastic Four came from. That’s not to say there aren’t some inherent problems with the overall structure of the story. Also not helping matters are the trailers that preceded the movie because nothing in those trailers suggest the kind of movie we got. Were there last minute edits? Or was there a massive disinformation campaign going on with the publicity materials to subvert expectations? There were a lot in the trailers that don't turn up in the movie. Despite its comic book origins, this new adaptation is a throwback to the science-fiction exploration adventures of the late 1950s to early 1960s, and the movie follows that tack for most of its structure. Reed Richards (Miles Teller) and his compatriots are anywhere in their late teens to early 20s, very much a bunch to genius kids and dreamers, with the exception of Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell). The relationship dynamics is also fairly different from what one might expect, with nary a hint of any expected romance between Reed and Sue (Kate Mara). Reed gets invited to the Baxter Foundation to work with Sue and Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbel) on an inter-dimensional transport, with Johnny (Michael B Jordan) helping in the building of the device. All supervised by Franklin Storm (Reg E Cathey), father to Johnny and Sue; father figure to Reed and Victor. Together, they strive to crack the dimensional barrier and then it’s a journey into the unknown wherein disaster strikes, as such journeys are wont to have. And when a danger crosses over from the other dimension (not saying what here), our transformed scientists, and friend (Grimm), have to band together to stop the threat. While the powers of our heroes were meant to reflect their insecurities or personalities before, they are more of happenstance here. Each of the main stars do well enough although, preference is debatable. Teller plays Reed more as a misunderstood introvert whose quiet dreams have constantly been squashed by figures of authority seeking conformity, a contrast to Kebbel’s more experienced and older Victor. Kebbel delivers a far stronger performance with quiet simmering menace in the first half of the movie and does as best as he can manage with the second half. Mara’s Sue is also a quiet figure at first but has the ability to parlay her genius as and when needed while Jordan’s Johnny’s the rebellious hot-head trying to get out from his father’s shadow. Jamie Bell scores best giving Ben Grimm a quiet dignity (yes, aside from Victor, none of these characters might be considered extroverts or out-going) and strength while managing to add pathos and depth through the CGI monstrosity he becomes in the second half… even without clothes… or pants. While we seem to be stuck with a customary “Death From Above“ scenario to show off the high stakes, Josh Trank’s direction gives the proceedings a more grounded sense of reality, as much as an old-fashioned science-fiction B-Movie adventure flick can be grounded in reality. Not everyone will agree or appreciate the efforts there. The problem is because this is the Fantastic Four. The expectations for the characters are entirely different if compared with four different unknown adventurers on a similar adventure. The dour tone might be an issue for some. The diversion from the core characters might be an issue to some. The lack of colourful super-heroics and costumes might be an issue to some. As a whole, it’s a decent adventure, if a bit overly nostalgic for a style and period that many might consider out-dated. For me, I felt it was a daring approach (even if it follows the Ultimate Marvel version for the most part) and works well enough for an origin movie, replete with the problems of such a movie, even given it's very slim run-time (very comfortably under two hours, some might feel it's much longer). Let’s see what they can do now that this is out of the way. Rating ***1/2 / 5 (Average viewers may want to knock the rating down to **/5.) Partridge Publishing / Barnes and Noble / Amazon / ISBNS Net (for best deals) - Please support by buying or recommending to others, then I can watch more shows and do more reviews. Thank you.
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