Fantastic Four (Fantastic Bore)

I watched Fantastic Four to review because I was almost certain I would hate it, and I needed something to help me unwind in the stressful summer period. It's a fairly safe assumption that anyone who ever had any actual talent in 20^th Century Fox has long since abandoned the company to an invading force of leprous retards who create design documents by flicking fountain pens at a pile of shredded paper. I was looking forward to a delightfully horrible movie to get good and angry at, but it turns out I was disappointed. Fantastic Four is so bad, so utterly putrid, that I can't even get worked up about it! It falls right off the edge of my critical spectrum into the black cloying void of dispassionate loathing. It doesn't even have the hilariously awful quality of previous Fantastic Four movies, like in the last one which made the Silver Surfer look like some damp, cardboard cut-out.

The only slightly tolerable parts of Fantastic Four is the atmosphere of the film, mainly because you could give Mr. Fantastic a shield, unfocus your eyes, and convince yourself that you're watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier - a much better movie. The action within the film is almost entertaining but given the humourless tone, the lack of dynamic between the titular characters, and completely squandering the promise it displayed it falls incredibly short of being anything spectacular, unlike The Winter Soldier. It also doesn’t help that the film’s aesthetically drab and dramatically inert, and doesn’t offer anything memorable.

The leprous retards of 20^th Century Fox have basically been lost in their own little world for the past few years, but occasionally something penetrates their malformed three-inch-thick skulls. Recently for example, the notion finally broke through that most people want Fantastic Four movies to be about The Fantastic Four and that their ever expanding entourage of side characters can all go dive under a tractor. So the cast of supporting characters is cut down on this venture. Mole Man makes an appearance but he was with the series while it was still good so I'll let that one slide. We're also introduced to a new "better" cast for the Four with less humour and more boredom. It doesn't help that the dialogue's so blimming embarrassingly written I had to pretend I was listening to it in German just to give it enough of a sense of cultural distance that my hands didn't keep slipping off the top of my head and fastening around my throat.

Another thing that finally penetrated their minds is that putting the Fantastic Four in a darker environment is repeatedly proven to be like releasing freshwater fish into the Dead Sea; they just don't get along. So the main plot consists of the fantastic four slowly becoming what they should’ve been at the start of the movie. Then 20^th Century Fox’s nanny was called away and they fell back on their leprous retard instincts. Ironically this movies pacing is just all over the damn place, starting with Reed’s childhood, jumping to the "One Year Later" title card and things go off the rails. Twelve months from the characters’ lives are gone, and the audience is thrown back into the proceedings after a lot of things have already happened to the main characters. Throw in a rushed fight with Doom, and the heroes suddenly find themselves with their own headquarters at the end. Another issue was the lack of character development. While Reeds was at most, tolerable with his intellect at the expense of his personality, the other members come off as complete jokes. Aside from her pattern recognition and brief flirtation with Reed, Sue wasn’t that interesting. Johnny was established as a "hothead," but he seemed more angry than brash, and his reasons for joining the team were flimsy at best. Ben was essentially a blank slate whose primary function was being Reed’s friend, and even when he did turn into The Thing, he was mopey the whole time. Granted, I’d probably be sad if I turned into a rock monster, but this Ben Grimm had none of the sass and personality he had in the comics and previous film series (not that were any good). I'm ashamed enough that I'm even watching this, movie, and now the movie itself is insulting me for it!

Mind you, even the sound department sounds like something you’d here from a film with of budget of like £15,000. Most of the sounds in this movie sounded like a vuvuzela attached to an elephant dying of flatulence, and the green screen effects were so goddamn noticeable sometimes that it made me want to pick my own teeth out with a pizza slicer, and in terms of costumes, Doctor Doom looks like a kid you’d have knocking on your door at Halloween, (actually even THEY would look better than him)

This isn't the movie for you if you like jumping right into the action. Come to think of it, this isn't the movie for you even if you don't. I'm not sure what kind of person could consider this the movie for them but they probably live in a cave and subsist on raw fish. Nostalgia is the only reason The Fantastic Four still get a free ride despite repeatedly rubbing their little faces in our own with terrible movie after terrible movie. The Fantastic Four are done. They've passed it. They don't need more movies, they need help! Specifically the kind of help that involves taking them behind the shed and tearfully putting both barrels through their confused, oblivious little faces. Stuff them, mount them, bring them back as The Incredibles.

Grade - F (For Fantastic Flop) - Avoid at all costs