After “Rise of the Silver Surfer” didn’t impress, a “Fantastic Four” reboot arrived in theaters in 2015… and flopped beyond wildest expectations.
The full story is clouded in gossip, but the accepted narrative is that director Josh Trank (who’d made a hit with 2012’s “Chronicle,” a found footage and American riff on “Akira”) didn’t handle the stress of making a blockbuster, and his creative disagreements with Fox, well. As a result, the second half of the movie is almost completely composed of reshot material that turns the film into the most generic, and laughable, superhero “epic” ever filmed.
“Fant4stic,” as it is often mockingly called, is based even more on “Ultimate Fantastic Four” than the 2005 film. Like in that comic, the Four aren’t astronauts. Instead, they’re teen geniuses who are part of the Baxter Building think tank — well, except Ben (Jamie Bell), who here is only Reed’s (Miles Teller) childhood friend. In addition, the Four aren’t working on a rocket ship, but a teleportation device that takes them to another realm called “Planet Zero.” It’s the substances there and the teleportation energy that give them powers.
Once more, Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell) is also part of the Four’s expedition. Meanwhile, the group itself is mentored by Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey), father of Sue (Kate Mara) and Johnny (Michael B. Jordan). In this version, Sue is Johnny’s adopted sister, apparently because Fox wouldn’t let Trank cast a Black actor as the Invisible Woman to match Jordan.
The hook for “Fant4stic” was that it was supposed to be darker and harder science-fiction than previous “Fantastic Four” films. For example, after the Four’s transformation, the U.S. military holds them and begins to use them as weapons (with the Four wearing cobbled-together black costumes rather than the blue skintight suits with “4” symbols from Story’s films).
Part of Trank’s pitch was to approach “Fantastic Four” as a body horror film in the vein of David Cronenberg’s “The Fly,” i.e focus on the horror of a science experiment gone wrong and how people’s bodies are changing out of their control. Usually, only the Thing’s transformation is treated as traumatizing, but seeing your limbs stretching unnaturally, your body catching on fire, or you yourself fading away uncontrollably? That could be scary! Then the film abandons that angle as soon as it begins.
When Doom returns from Planet Zero and decides to destroy Earth, the Four come together to defeat him… not that it feels earned. These Four do not feel like a family at all; Ben barely talks to the Storms, Sue has no reason to reciprocate Reed’s interest, etc.
But hey, it’s darkest before the dawn.