DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... The New Fantastic Four Movie

What is it about the FF that makes it so darn hard to make a good movie out of their stories? There are so many really great stories that could be told with these characters, yet the makers of the movie inevitably do everything that Marvel does not do with their in house movies, and produce absolute flops.

I was actually kind of looking forward to this movie when I first heard about it. Then I heard all of the changes they made ..... until they created a movie with some of the character names .... and that was it.

Then I read the reviews about the movie .... and terms like "mind numbing", "boring", and basically 100 or so minutes of your life that you will never get back are the general consensus.

I wish that Fox would just let the rights to the FF revert back to Marvel, or work out a deal like Sony did with Marvel regarding Spider-Man.

I have never been a huge fan of the X-Men movies either, but at least some of them have been watchable, and they hit a home run in casting Jackman as Wolverine, Patrick Stewart as Professor X, and the actor who played Magneto.

The FF has to balance the humanity and family of the members of the group, with the massive wonder of exploring and facing universal sized problems. It is sad that the movies have been so completely uninspiring.

Evidently the new movie is also completely uninspiring, and boring to boot. I wonder if I will live long enough to see a great FF movie made?
'Fantastic Four' reviews are anything but - CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/07/entertainment/fantastic-four-reviews-verdict-feat/index.html

(CNN)"Fantastic Four"? Hardly.

More like "Pathetic Four."

Or maybe "4" is supposed to represent the approval rating on RottenTomatoes.com.

The big-budget film about the Marvel team, which stars Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell, is actually pulling a 9% rating on the review-aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes as of Friday morning, but that's not saying much. Critics have plenty to say, however -- and, perhaps surprisingly, so does director Josh Trank (whose luck is currently so dismal that he was misidentified as "Josh Trask" in a tweet).

But first, over to the critics:

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: "A self-destruct mode is apparently automatically included in any film adaptation of Marvel's 'First Family of Superheroes.' This is the third attempt at a movie franchise -- and the third lame result."

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: "The latest reboot of the Fantastic Four -- the cinematic equivalent of malware -- is worse than worthless. It not only scrapes the bottom of the Marvel-movie barrel; it knocks out the floor and sucks audiences into a black hole of soul-crushing, coma-inducing dullness."

A.O. Scott, The New York Times: "The human drama is meager. Once again, the only real pathos belongs to Bell's Ben, who finds himself trapped in a stony new body and weaponized by a ruthless government. Teller stretches, not as an actor but as a digitally enhanced body. Jordan burns in the same way, and Mara disappears. Her character also has the power to make other things vanish. I would say she should have exercised it on this movie, but in a week or two that should take care of itself."

Alan Scherstuhl, The Village Voice: "Counting Roger Corman's unreleased stab, this is the fourth Fantastic Four movie. It's also the fourth whose producers seem embarrassed at the thought of making a Fantastic Four movie."

Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter: "Near the end, Teller's Reed comments on the status of the group's actions by proclaiming, 'We opened this door, we're gonna close it.' The sooner the better."

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: "All-new, all-numbing."

The film does have a handful of supporters, though their praise can be considered lukewarm at best.

"Fans will be disappointed by the missed opportunity to establish continuity with Fox's other super-properties ('X-Men,' 'Deadpool,' etc.) -- and no post-credits scene? But they'll be happy to see the realistic, more grown-up tone of this film," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle's Michael Ordoña.

And Baret News' Kam Williams added, "(It's) a decent enough overhaul to recommend heartily as a pleasant escape from the hazy, hot, humid dog days of August." (As long as your movie theater is healthfully air-conditioned, we guess.)

But perhaps the most interesting assessment came from Trank himself, who struck back at the reviews by saying he had a "fantastic" version of "Four" in mind when he started. His tweet was quickly deleted but naturally had been captured for posterity.

(The tweets are at the link)

It hasn't been a good year for the 31-year-old director, who got good reviews and box office for his debut feature, 2012's "Chronicle." In May, he left the planned "Star Wars Episode VIII," saying he was "making a personal decision to move forward on a different path," though -- Hollywood being Hollywood -- others told a different story.

Regardless, "Fantastic Four" is now in the theaters. And if it doesn't do well, the Boston Globe's Russo does have a solution.

"Oh well," he wrote. "They can always reboot."

i dunno man. it seems like when it comes to FF, they just can not find the right people to play these roles.

I had high hopes for this one because the first two movies were so bad. Oh well, I never really liked the F4 all that much when I read comics as a kid/teen.

I have rarely if ever found myself agreeing with a movie critic, but who knows? I figured I'd wait to see Antman, but my daughters wanted to see Paper Towns on Monday night so I saw Antman-HILARIOUS! Kinda cheesy at times but a very good movie.

Parenting done right

For those of you who don't know, this is actually the 4th Fantastic Four movie.



The first one was apparently burned by the studio after they made it, but a copy survived. I'm curious to know which is worse.

I'm convinced not even Christopher Nolan could direct a decent Fantastic 4 film. However, he'd be the only chance that film has. "Dark and edgy" comic versions usually do well.

I dunno man... a blonde Jessica Alba in several hours of a skin tight suit... that certainly looked all right to me

I actually liked the casting of the last 2. I think what hurt the F4 franchise is that while its a Marvel movie, it was too stand alone. I think if you framed their story within the context of the other story lines, it would have helped.

The genius of the Avengers franchise is that each movie referenced another character/movie. There was something to look for that added that much more depth to the story you were watching at the time.

The comic book was good.

Completely forgot the guy that directed this film also did Chronicle. That was a pretty solid film.

I think that a Galactus story, of done right, could absolutely rock.

What could be better in a comic book movie than planets being blown up and sucked dry og all life by soem cosmic vampire>

I still remember that classic, 1st Galactus story from when I was a kid. There is no reason why that could not be a fantastic movie. Unfortunately, the producers, writers, and directors of these movies keep wanting to rewrite the FF, and make them into something they never were. At its core, the FF is a family, albeit one on a series of fantastic journeys. I have yet to see that dynamic really come across in any of the movies.

The very first comic book I ever bought was FF when I was 10 years old. I still have it today, even with the cover ripped off. I absolutely loved the characters. As I'm sure you guys have figured out Dr Doom is by far my favorite villain. From my understanding this is pretty much on Fox. They continue to put out a bad film just so the movie rights don't revert back to Marvel. That is why they along with Sony (Spider-Man) churn out so many bad movies. Marvels plan is to basically freeze Fox out by not giving them any support via the comic, by simply ending the comic. Even the director basically admitted the film was horrible. I just hope Marvel gets the rights back along with X-men sooner than later. Till then, I refuse to go watch these movies.

And that's what kills me about many of these movies. These franchises were popular for a reason, yet for some odd ball reasons these producers think they can 'make it better' by doing totally unnecessary things. I think what makes the Avengers franchise so successful is that they stay pretty close to who the characters are known to be and they don't stray too far from the original storyline.

Movies that disappointed me:

Transformers: In robot form they were visually didn't make much sense... too spiky. I think less would have been more

Ninja Turtles: It took FOREVER to get that movie made because people kept dropping out of the project. I heard at one point they were going to make the Turtles aliens instead of mutants... wtf???

G.I.Joe: I collected the comics growing up. In the second movie I think they blew it by wasting 99.99% of the Joes. I still don't get that for a plot but whatever.. the chick who played Lady Jaye...

But my pet peeve in the first one was the 'love affair' between Scarlet and Ripcord. It was always Scarlet and Snake Eyes!!

Anyway, I'm ranting...

Do yourselves a favor and save your time and money and put it towards Ant-Man. Excellent movie.

I think devildawg hit the nail on the head. The biggest reason FF movies are failures is because they change too much of what makes the comics so great.

FF is not a gritty, realistic, downbeat comic; it's about exploration, wonder, and family. It's not colorless and humorless; it's exploding with primary colors and full of zingers from Johnny and Ben.

Second, a comic is only as good as it's villains. FF has some of the best villains EVER. Why they make Dr. Doom some two-bit CEO that can shoot lightning from his fingers and make Galactus a cloud is beyond me. I actually didn't mind the two previous incarnations, except for the way they treated the bad guys. I thought the actors they had to fill in the Four's shoes were spot-on.

Like many, I'm purposely staying away from this, hoping Fox will let the rights go to Marvel Studios so they can be done right. It helps that it's being raked across the coals by critics and the public alike. I have no desire to see such a poorly reviewed movie.

Ant-man is a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier when I referenced context. Ant-man did just enough to tie it in to the Avenger storyline so you gained an understanding of its relevance, but was still focused on Ant-man enough that it didn't become an ad hoc Avengers movie.

I think if the Ant-man story took place in a vacuum like FF and even Spiderman, it wouldn't have been nearly as good as it was.