Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Fantastic Four (2015)

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Posted by Matt Russell (Member # 8989) on 08-06-2015, 11:35 PM:

I grew up loving the Fantastic Four comics, and although the 2005 movie wasn't that great and neither was it's sequel, they both had some charm. This new one, however, has no charm whatsoever. The casting felt spot on, even though a lot of people have complained about Micheal B. Jorden's casting as the Human Torch, which I didn't really mind but I can see how some people might be turned off that Kate Mara's Invisible Woman is supposed to be his adoptive sister, even though it feels like the two has nothing in common. But the thing is, it feels like no one is engaging or even really likable. Almost like they were just doing it for the extra dough (which probably was true) I had a big concern with the villain, who was Doctor Doom, who was made completely into this 21st century blogger doofus, and lacked just about all the complicity of Doom that's shown in the comics. The plot takes A LOT of time for exposition, and it could have been so much stronger. Watch it on HBO if you must, don't waste your money on this.

Saw it at the Cinemark XD at Century 12, which is also an Cinearts theater too which is nice. Sound was pretty good. It's not an Atmos theater, but it does support Auro 5.1. The screen, however, had lots of grains making it look almost like it was running off of a 35 MM projector [Roll Eyes]

. Disappointing considering they are charging close to an IMAX-price for the tickets. Besides that, the screen's big enough and the seats are always comfortable there, so I recommend it.
Presentation: 2 and a half/4 stars
Film: 1/4 stars

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 08-08-2015, 06:24 PM:

The last cinematic versions of Fantastic Four were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively and both were very pedestrian affairs. Since then we've had numerous very successful (and very good) Marvel adaptations in Iron Man, Captain America, X-Men, The Avengers, The Wolverine, Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy. So surely the time is ripe for a decent production of Reed Richard's crew?

Apparently not.

Despite it's incredibly successful Marvel brethren, this Fantastic Four is yet another dud, albeit a dud with a $200M budget.

The story is fantastically linear: we follow genius, Reed Richards, from childhood as he meets each of the characters who we know will become part of the Four as well as the guy we know is destined to be the villain, Victor von Doom (with a name like that, how could he not turn bad?).

Usually in an instance like this the structure of the film would be mixed up, moving the action forward and telling the preceding events in flashback but not here; we're left to suffer the events in strict, dull, consecutive order. The result being a good hour of plodding character development before we get any glimpse at our pending heroes' super powers. We're then pushing an hour and a half before we get to the inevitable battle with Dr Doom - the first (and only) real action set piece. This is a long time to wait for something to happen!

CG is mostly on par with what we'd expect these days though Mr Fantastic's stretchy limbs still don't seem right somehow. The most noticeable improvement in this incarnation of the franchise is that Thing now looks and sounds like he's made of rock rather than rubber.

That Fantastic Four was released within weeks of Ant Man suggests a throw-away attitude towards this film from Marvel. An attitude reinforced by a lack of any post credit sequence or Stan Lee cameo (that I could see anyway).

Despite high hopes for this reboot, this remains at the low rent end of the franchise.

4 out of 10

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 08-09-2015, 12:18 AM:

reading the wretched reviews of this have been more fun than probably watching..er enduring this movie.

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 08-11-2015, 07:24 AM:

AMC Barrywoods 24 Kansas City MO
Dolby Cinema(laser, Atmos)
8/10/15 J11 10:ooPm

I liked it, but I have pretty low standards.

I could tell though that they all kinda just seemed to phone it in, wasn't as lively or funny as the other Marvel movies...

I enjoyed the visuals and sound though.