Fantastic Four Discussion (SPOILERS)

[Username taken]

I finally got to watch this. The movie is just as bad as described.

In fact, it isn't as much of a bad movie as it is a broken one. The movie simply doesn't flow and a lot of things in the movie don't make sense. The movie was probably already a boring one that was edited into a complete mess.

I can see why it has only 8% or so on RT. The movie was dull, dour and had only one terribly arranged action sequence (the final scene looked like something from the sci-fi channel).

It's defintely THE worst movie of this year thus far and no one should see it in theatres. In fact, no one should see it, period.

P.S And what the F... was up with Ben Grimm killing dozens of enemy combatants?! That was pretty surprising and jarring. Tonally, the movie was all over the place.

[XPac]

They didn't need to cut scenes from act one, the movie needed an act two. The end of the movie didn't work because it wasn't earned. The Fantastic Four literally didn't get along for about 15 minutes of the movie, and considering how long the origin arc in act one was, that wasn't NEARLY enough time to establish any sensible conflict. Now, had that conflict been established along with act one, I could look past it. But by the time the four guys end up porting to the negative zone they seem like best buds. Any conflict that existed between the four was IMMEDIATELY forgiven by Johnny and Sue, and Ben apparently just needed Reed to punch someone with him to forgive the guy who TURNED HIM INTO A GIANT ROCK MONSTER.

There are all these little bits of character that never went anywhere and then get wrapped up in a nice little package by the end. It kind of felt like Fox KNEW this was the end of this version of the characters, so they didn't want to leave anything dangling.

Now personally, despite the massive, glaring flaws of the film, I think the critical response has been a little harsh. No, the movie wasn't good. Not in any sensible meaning of the word. However, despite how bad it was, the first act really carries the film enough to at least make it worth watching. Everything that happens after "1 year later" is absolute garbage. The character arcs? Garbage. The effects? Garbage. Sue's hair? Garbage. Doom? Total garbage.

Doom (which is his name, he was never called "Doctor" by anyone but sarcastic Sue) was a villain without a cause. His motivation was absent. His powers were not just poorly defined, but completely undefined. Where did he get a freakin' cape from? Also, the character design was awful. There was nothing about Doom that is redeeming. Nothing that worked or had any logic behind it. Doom felt like the deus ex machina to get the film to its conclusion and nothing more. An alien being might as well have come back through that portal. Actually, if an alien being had come back and was trying to destroy Earth to protect his actual home world, that would have made MORE sense than Doom doing for no damn reason. He has all that power (of some kind) and can clearly drastically effect his surroundings. Wouldn't it make more sense for him to want to recreate his actual home in a way that reflects what he wants instead of destroying to live alone on a dead rock that he spent 1/25th of his life on?

I wonder if it wouldn't have just made more sense to go with Annihilus for the movie. His powers are a little less defined anyways so they could get away with him doing whatever without a lot of explanation, and his motivation of wanting to destroy the earth and return home makes a bit more sense.

They could have saved Doom for later.

[XPac]

I finally got to watch this. The movie is just as bad as described.

In fact, it isn't as much of a bad movie as it is a broken one. The movie simply doesn't flow and a lot of things in the movie don't make sense. The movie was probably already a boring one that was edited into a complete mess.

I can see why it has only 8% or so on RT. The movie was dull, dour and had only one terribly arranged action sequence (the final scene looked like something from the sci-fi channel).

It's defintely THE worst movie of this year thus far and no one should see it in theatres. In fact, no one should see it, period.

P.S And what the F... was up with Ben Grimm killing dozens of enemy combatants?! That was pretty surprising and jarring. Tonally, the movie was all over the place.

I think Ben becoming an assasin or whatever for the military was especially a downer for me. Tweaking the character from the source material comes with the territory for this sort of thing, but that one in particular just strikes a cord since Ben is so often potrayed as the heart of the marvel universe. The down to earth lovable blue eyed thing is that lovably guy you wanna be friends with and have a few beers with down at the bar or whatever. There's supposed to be a certain irony in a guy with such a big heart becoming this big scary monster... but I think that irony was kinda lost.

[Username taken]

I think Ben becoming an assasin or whatever for the military was especially a downer for me. Tweaking the character from the source material comes with the territory for this sort of thing, but that one in particular just strikes a cord since Ben is so often potrayed as the heart of the marvel universe. The down to earth lovable blue eyed thing is that lovably guy you wanna be friends with and have a few beers with down at the bar or whatever. There's supposed to be a certain irony in a guy with such a big heart becoming this big scary monster... but I think that irony was kinda lost.

Exactly.

Ben was always a tough guy but a tough guy with a very big heart. I recall around the time of Infinity Gauntlet/War and Johnny Storm was considering using lethal force, Ben was the person that spoke strongly against that line of reasoning.

The last thing Ben Grimm is is some horrific rock creature that has little regard for human life. I'm actually confused how the film makers thought it made any sense for the character to be depicted like that.

[Phil Clark]

They justified it as "This is a different/darker/grittier take on the characters". Which basically to me means "We have this idea for a film that we can shoehorn into the mold of FF so we can try to piggyback on someone else's success".

[Phil Clark]

Well, I finally watched the movie on Pay Per View... And as I had always suggested, it just wasn't a good Fantastic Four film. But then I also discovered it went beyond that. For whatever reasons, it just had no umph. No sense of Awe and Wonder. It was just something to watch if you didnt have anything else to watch. The characters weren't Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny, they were just characters with those names. The fact that Sue doesn't see there conditions as powers, but then suddenly does an about face and calls them powers... Ben being a government hit man. Reed completely abandoning his "friends". The meeting with the government where they SUDDENLY get everything they want with no giving the government anything... The whole freakin' movie just never made any sense. And Victor? Don't even get me started on why would he want to go back to planet hell and build a new civilization with NO OTHER PEOPLE. I just don't buy it. I would have better bought that he was going to destroy everyone that left him on Planet Hell to rot for a year. But does that ever come up? No.

It wasn't the worst movie ever made, but it was easily the most disappointing Fantastic Four film out of the 4 that have been made so far, and yes... that includes the Roger Corman film that was never meant to see the light of day. Bad as that was, it wasn't as meh as this film.

[PyroTwilight]

Ah Fantastic Four.

You weren't completely a bad movie but I did feel there were gaping holes in explanations that were likely meant to be in the movie somewhere. And given there was a bunch of editing I can believe that it's true.

Shame too. I can't help but feel I saw half of a movie. That this was all the set up of a first act of a movie.

[Da Boat]

I don't think it was that bad, it was just unremarkable. And the bad press made its own living thing that never stops where even before seeing it it was seen as the worst movie ever.

When I watched it I was like "OK this not the FF movie I want but I'm gonna buy what you're selling". The whole telling of this was pretty bleak but I don't mind bleak. I continued on watching it and the part I liked the most was after they got their powers, being taken by the government. It came off like a horror story with all these people suffering and reacting in horror by what was happening to them.

But as a whole it was a flawed execution and I'm not even gonna blame it on the rushed ending. I just think making everything this bleak was not the most compelling way to approach something like this. And the script was pretty "limited". It didn't expand our imagination or do anything original. This was more "horror" with the Doom scene reminded me of parts of the movie "Life Force". But "Life Force" had more life and originality. It plainly was a failed attempt and failed project that should never have been done. I also don't buy the whole "the best parts were cut off" cause the execution didn't have enough merit to even greenlight this.

[simbob4000]

I watched this a few weeks ago and I really don't get the outrage after having seen it. Is it great? No. Is it terrible? No. Its biggest problem is really the lack of action, (I wonder what the cut action scene was, and why it was cut) and how they're in the lab the majority of the movie. It's other big problem is this take is so clearly the Fantastic Four as a take on The Fly, and The Fly is so much better than it, that I'm really not sure why I wouldn't just watch The Fly any time after seeing it once.

That being said it's got nice moments. Doom's Akira scene is really good; it's too bad Josh Trank isn't doing that Star Wars movies, because I would like to see the guy that did that and Chronicle play around with Jedi. The scene when they're all in the lab, and you see all their powers for the first time was also nice. As was a lot of the interaction between characters while they're all working together before getting powers. It at least was far better than the two Fantastic Four movies Fox made before it; that isn't saying much, but hey, it's something. I think the real failure of this movie hit me like two weeks ago though when I watched those new Planet of the Apes movies Fox is doing for the first time. Those are doing the same kind of "serious" thing, well, not the same thing, but they're a serious take too...only those are so damn good. It feels crazy a studio put the kind of money Fox did into a talking apes movie that they did with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and that's the kind of movie they let them do.

[Doctor Know]

This movie wrapped up in one gif.

[simbob4000]

This movie wrapped up in one gif.

But the movie didn't break the box office, this gif is a lie.