Fantastic Four (2015)

[Darkstream]

Originally Posted by SethRex

You know, he makes an interesting point. I don't recall a lot of people complaining about Alba's casting as Sue, considering she's Mexican American, other than the fact they all 'claimed' she couldn't act....for all I recall. But they sure did ***** and moan about the fact Johnny's black in this.

Big friggin' difference, man! Alba's ethnicity is not obvious. She was playing a white girl and she looked like a white girl.

[Pounder]

Originally Posted by mwynn

http://comicbook.com/2015/08/04/firs...iews-released/

So the question will now be will Fox reboot again, or will they just let the rights lapse.


The first reviews for Fantastic Four are beginning to show up online, and so far it’s not looking good for Fox’s reboot.

Todd McCarthy at The Hollywood Reporter was so unimpressed with the film that he summed it up with a halfhearted pun, saying “More like the Unfantastic Four.”

Brian Lowry of Variety says the film simply can’t compete with modern superhero fare, saying, “Fox's attempt to revive an inherited Marvel property feels like an also-ran in the comicbook-adaptation sweepstakes.”

The Wrap’s Alonso Duralde believes the film was hamstrung by having to retell the characters’ origin story, saying “With all this tedious Tinkertoy origin-story business out of the way, there could certainly be some entertaining ‘Fantastic Four’ adventures in the future with this ensemble. Whether or not audiences will want to gamble another 100 minutes of their lives on subsequent chapters, however, is another matter entirely.”

Emma Dibdin of Digital Spy thinks the dark tone simply didn’t fit the film’s source material, saying, “The biggest mistake here seems to have been trying to marry a dark and realistic tone with the story of four teenagers whose superpowers include transforming into rock, generating force fields and becoming very stretchy. While far from the unmitigated disaster some had predicted, Fantastic Four feels unlikely to kick-start a new franchise, barely sustaining the narrative steam to power itself through its modest 90-minute running time.”

Chris

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by Underworld54

Early reviews are saying it's terrible.

Early reviews are saying it's mediocre, not terrible.

If this keeps up though, I might be rethinking my opening weekend excursion.

[Mandalorian]

Originally Posted by SethRex

You know, he makes an interesting point. I don't recall a lot of people complaining about Alba's casting as Sue, considering she's Mexican American, other than the fact they all 'claimed' she couldn't act....for all I recall. But they sure did ***** and moan about the fact Johnny's black in this.

Also, Alicia was white in the comics, but played by Kerry Washington in the films.

[Darkstream]

Originally Posted by Mandalorian

Also, Alicia was white in the comics, but played by Kerry Washington in the films.

But Alicia is a minor character ... and she didn't have a brother from another father and/or mother. At least as far as we saw.

[mrr1]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

Early reviews are saying it's mediocre, not terrible.

Which, in a way, is worse.

If a movie is reportedly "terrible", people will often be curious enough to go see why for themselves. But if it's just "mediocre", then it can quickly be forgotten.

[Underworld54]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

Early reviews are saying it's mediocre, not terrible.

If this keeps up though, I might be rethinking my opening weekend excursion.

A mediocre cbm is as good as terrible in the audiences mind.

[Mandalorian]

Originally Posted by Darkstream

But Alicia is a minor character ... and she didn't have a brother from another father and/or mother. At least as far as we saw.

I don't care, one way or the other. I was just adding another changed character.

[GC Riot]

Careful guys. Getting any deeper into the race debate typically ends with a mod coming in here being all

[Infernal King]

Guys, stfu about race. We're sick and tired of it.

Originally Posted by mrr1

Which, in a way, is worse.

If a movie is reportedly "terrible", people will often be curious enough to go see why for themselves. But if it's just "mediocre", then it can quickly be forgotten.

Originally Posted by Underworld54

A mediocre cbm is as good as terrible in the audiences mind.

Building off what Underworld54 said, I can't think of any examples of a movie where a significant number of people see it theatrically solely because of how terrible it is, so I don't see why that's any better than being mediocre, at least in terms of box office.

[Mandalorian]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

Guys, stfu about race. We're sick and tired of it.

Don't tell me to stfu about anything. I wasn't complaining about it, was I?

Anyway, from what I've read, this has been edited to hell. Hopefully some sort of longer cut can makes its way to Blu-ray.

[Darkstream]

Race isn't an issue anymore.

The fact that this isn't a faithful comic movie adaptation isn't an issue anymore.

This movie sounds as if it sucks just based on the fact that it's a bad movie.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by Mandalorian

Don't tell me to stfu about anything. I wasn't complaining about it, was I?

I already did, though.

[Doctor Jack]

[chris_sc77]

I just hope Trank never works in film again unless he is like in charge of loading props onto the set or something.

Very happy he will get nowhere near Star Wars

[DisneyBlu]

This thread went from some "wait and sees" to a lot of people dumping on the movie. People online and official reviews are mostly either completely unimpressed or saying its outright bad.

If even the defenders are giving up White Knighting for Fantastic Four, the movie will be DOA. Good reviews/good word of mouth maybe could have helped the movie, but it's telling that the closer we've gotten to release, more and more people turned on this movie.

[DisneyBlu]

Yahoo review:

Here’s the Thing About ‘Fantastic Four’: It’s Pretty Terrible (Review)

Fantastic Four feels like a 100-minute trailer for a movie that never happens. At this point in the ever-expanding cinematic superhero game, it behooves any filmmakers who get involved to have at least a mildly fresh take on their characters and material, but this third attempt to create a worthy cinematic franchise from the first of Stan Lee’s and Jack Kirby’s iconic comic book creations, which can genuinely claim to have launched the Age of Marvel, proves maddeningly lame and unimaginative. Die-hard fans will undoubtedly show up but box-office results for this Fox release will fall far short of what Marvel achieves with its own in-house productions.

Here’s the Thing About ‘Fantastic Four’: It’s Pretty Terrible (Review)

by Todd McCarthy

Fantastic Four feels like a 100-minute trailer for a movie that never happens. At this point in the ever-expanding cinematic superhero game, it behooves any filmmakers who get involved to have at least a mildly fresh take on their characters and material, but this third attempt to create a worthy cinematic franchise from the first of Stan Lee’s and Jack Kirby’s iconic comic book creations, which can genuinely claim to have launched the Age of Marvel, proves maddeningly lame and unimaginative. Die-hard fans will undoubtedly show up but box-office results for this Fox release will fall far short of what Marvel achieves with its own in-house productions.

The stakes are rather higher now than when other hands grappled with these characters in the past. A 1994 feature produced by Bernd Eichinger and Roger Corman and directed by Oley Sassone was so cheesy that it never officially saw the light of day, while the two films directed by Tim Story in 2005 and 2007 did well enough but are remembered, if at all, for Jessica Alba.

This time, the reins have been handed to director and co-writer Josh Trank, whose one previous feature was the 2012 “found-footage” thriller Chronicle. Unfortunately, there is no youthful enthusiasm or sense of reinvention evident in this outing, the timing of which comes so soon after the most recent attempts; the new film’s prologue is actually set in the year the most recent Story film came out.

Nothing that Trank and his co-writers Jeremy Slater and Simon Kinberg have come up with do anything to alleviate the feeling that the titular quartet simply don’t constitute very interesting superheroes. Oyster Bay schoolkid Reed Richards is introduced as a nerdy genius who has essentially built a teleporter in his home out of common equipment, a “bio-matter shuttle” that can transport matter through space. Helping him procure parts is tough guy neighbor Ben Grimm.

His science teacher never appreciates him, but seven years later Reed (Miles Teller, slumming for the first time in his sterling young career) receives foundation backing to perfect his creation. One waits patiently as more exposition is laid out and further characters are shuffled in; there’s deep-voiced project overseer Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey), his hot car-happy son Johnny (Michael B. Jordan), who looks like he’d be happier in a Fast and Furious installment; Storm’s adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara), a master technician who spends most of her time in front of a screen; grown-up Ben (Jamie Bell), moody malcontent science genius Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) and agency boss Dr. Allen (Tim Blake Nelson), who backs the construction of a machine designed to zap them all to another dimension and allows a multi-manned mission after just one test run involving a chimpanze.

The chimp, in fact, comes back in fine shape, but such is not the luck for the human zone-challenging pioneers, who make it to a barren, rocky land of unknown location or identity, plant the U.S. flag and then proceed to be engulfed by a green energy field that gives them all strange powers, or at least distinct new characteristics: Reed develops elastic, ever-stretchable limbs and Johnny can turn into a flaming meteor, so count them lucky compared to Ben, whose new rocky body mass makes him a cousin of The Hulk with a more mottled complexion. And then there’s Victor Von Doom, who must live up to his name by going over to the dark side. Sue is forced to stay home and must ultimately move among the other characters in a large transparent bubble out of The Wizard of Oz.

All of this takes at least an hour and it’s build-up to…nothing at all. A sense of heaviness, gloom and complete disappointment settles in during the second half, as the mundane set-up results in no dramatic or sensory dividends whatsoever. Even if lip-service is paid to some great threat to life on Earth as we know it, the filmmakers bring nothing new to the formula, resulting in a film that’s all wind-up and no delivery. If the writers couldn’t think of anything interesting to do with these characters in this first series reboot, they do nothing to inspire the viewer to expect they could do something exciting with a sequel.

Beginning with Teller and Jordan, who have done such promising early work, the cast is utterly wasted here with mostly rote explanatory dialogue and little conflict or nuance to work on a dramatic level. And the visual style is in a dark, unattractive gloomy mode that infects every aspect of the film.

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.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by DisneyBlu

Yahoo review:

I've always hated Todd McCarthy.

edit: This is not because he gave Fantastic Four a negative review because I don't care about that. I think he's intellectually lazy. His reviews are surface-level and pedestrian. One of the worst or at least most overrated mainstream critics, in my opinion. At least Rex Reed's cranky old man ranting can be funny.

[Darkstream]

Man, I really hope this means Marvel will get the rights to the Fantastic Four back!


Fox...





You still got the X-Men!

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by Darkstream

Man, I really hope this means Marvel will get the rights to the Fantastic Four back!


Fox...





You still got the X-Men!

I don't think Fox will give up the rights to this unless it's a mega-bomb, which it could be. They're certainly not Sony.