'Fantastic'? Not Even Close... "Fantastic Four"

Fantastic Four (2015)

Rated PG-13

Starring Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey

Directed by Josh Trank

The Story:

Child genius Reed Richards (Teller) gets a scholarship to attend college so he can work on an experiment alongside Susan Storm (Mara) and Victor Von Doom (Kebbell). They get help from Johnny Storm (Jordan) when he has to pay off some debt to his father (Cathey). When the transporter shows that it works, the kids decide to send themselves to see what's on the other side. Reed invites his best friend, Ben Grimm (Bell) to tag along. When they arrive, things go horribly wrong, the teens are imbued with powers that change them into the team that would become...The Fantastic Four.

Oh. Dear. Heavens.

I believe this is a karmic payback for all who may have complained about the 2005 release of the Fantastic Four. That one is a cult classic at our house, we all loved it and shake our collective heads at the anger directed towards that film.  At least that movie got the majority of what made the Fantastic Four work, correct.

Evans and Chiklis made a dynamic duo of Torch and the Thing and much like the comics, that's my favorite part about the team.

Here, that banter and interplay is nonexistent and these characters are dull and uninteresting.

So too the dialogue.

Pedestrian acting by actors that can, and have, done better.

It's as if nobody wanted to be there, and for the audience, that relates to people that don't want to see the final effort.

Budget looking effects, a poor story where once again people feel the need to shoehorn Dr. Doom into the origin.

No.
No.
No!

He doesn't need to be there, and in fact, shouldn't be there.

And for heaven's sake, just put him in the armor and make him a despotic ruler of a small European country.

The Negative Zone. The Mole Man. ANYTHING but Doom at this point.

Or better yet, just give the rights back to Marvel and let them do things properly.

The Thing doesn't even wear shorts! How hard was putting CGI shorts on a model?

When Stan Lee won't do a cameo in your film, you need to realize: You're doing it wrong!

This is bad.

Not "oh my God, I can't watch" bad. Just wasted opportunity, and in the wave of amazing release after release from Marvel (and even Fox is finally on track with their X-Men franchise) this seems like a bargain basement offering for some small indie comic that should never have been made.

Not what you would expect, or deserve, from the comic that helped launch and keep Marvel Comics at the top for 60 years. 

Final Grade: D+  I'm feeling generous, and/or, bad for this franchise.   On second thought, the more I typed, the angrier I got about how they are failing us, and themselves with this franchise.

Revised Final Grade: F