Sony’s
Spider-Man is now apart of the
Marvel Cinematic Universe and will premiere next year in Captain America: Civil War. Both Fox Studios franchises X-Men and Fantastic Four are not. Currently the X-Men movies have been going down in quality since the return of
Bryan Singer. Now the Fantastic Four
arrives ten years after the original with a white Susan Storm and African-American
Johnny Storm. It would have been brave if they were both African-American
instead of creating diversity for diversity’s sake. Susan Storm is adopted by Dr. Franklin Richards. The
trailers of the Fantastic Four sound
if they were from the nineties with excessive exposition on describing
situations instead of situations forcing the characters into action. Dialogue
like “We should use these powers to help people” just gives us a glimpse of how
bad this version of the Fantastic Four
will be. Then we have a naked Thing. The movie begins Reed Richards and his best friend Ben Grimm create a teleporter using spare parts from his family's junkyard. During a school science fair they repeat the experiment which gets them recruited by the Baxter Foundation by Dr. Franklin Storm to help create a teleporter to a new dimension to exploit the resources. They are joined by Victor Von Doom, Johnny and Susan Storm. When Dr. Allen of the Baxter Foundation decides to hand over the tech to NASA after the successful first test launch, Reed, Victor, and Johnny decide they should be the first to take the leap into the teleporter to Planet Zero with Ben Grimm in tow.
Each of the Fantastic Four’s powers evolved through circumstances of contacting with some goo on Planet Zero. Doom’s suit is melted onto him, Ben’s capsule is filled with rocks, Johnny’s by fire, Sue protects herself while returning the men home, and Reed stretches after having his leg caught in debris.
The Thing is used as a weapon for covert operations and they use him to track and trap Reed Richards. They want him to reopen the portal back to Planet Zero so they can find answers on how they can cure themselves. Meanwhile Victor was left for dead on Planet Zero and he created the teleporter at the Baxter Foundation. He believes Earth doesn’t need saving because people are running it into the ground but later he worked with Reed to develop a working teleporter. However it was Reed and Susan who finished the project that Victor started.
One year later the team that was sent back to Planet Zero, discover Victor is still alive and transformed so they bring him back. Now he psychic powers and kills Dr. Franklin Storm before heading back home. However the portal created a black hole which will destroy the Earth leading the battle between Doom and the Fantastic Four. If you didn’t know anything about the Fantastic Four then this would have been a great movie. However in the age of the internet the audience expected a lot more from the new Fantastic Four than the one that premiered ten years ago.
NEEDS IMPROVEMENT –
3 OUT OF 5
