Fantastic Four 2015 Review: A lifeless and misguided reboot

Fantastic Four 2015 has quite the reputation, being one of the most hated films of all-time. In this review, I, Brighton Nelson of The Reel Ranker present unto you my take regarding this mess of a film. While I have a plethora of hot takes, I'll have to side with the majority about this film and say that, yes, it is awful. But why? Let's dive right into that in today's article: a Fantastic Four 2015 Review: A lifeless and misguided reboot.

First off, let's cover the deep-rooted flaws at the heart of this movie. As rather publicly known, this film went through a severe case of development hell, erupting into a domino effect that cankered the very roots of the project. With tons of mumbo-jumbo behind the scenes, the pacing of this film feels like when your parents hyped up a vacation when you were a kid, and every moment felt like a sluggish slog. And then, as soon as your parents take you somewhere interesting, they decide it is time to hitch a flight back home. The first seven-eighths or so of this movie is a slow-burn origin story where, through scientific innovation, the eponymous team suits up and takes on a villain in the last couple minutes of the film, with almost no action or fun until seconds before the credits roll. While it is well documented that Josh Trank's original vision was thrown aside for a committee-driven awful-palooza, and I'm sure there was a decent version of this movie pre-production or in an alternate universe, there's simply nothing here that hooked me in.

While some critics in the minority argue that the origin-dominated subversion of storytelling that this movie attempted was refreshing or harkened back to superhero films before the time that X-Men and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy fundamentally shifted the norms of the comic book movie genre, I simply can't agree. When your movie draws from a cosmic-scaled source material and tries to cram it into an unnecessarily narrow looking-glass, you've got an inevitable recipe for disaster on a galactic scale. While some experimental comic book movies were able to pull off origin stories that dominated most of the film's run time (namely, the original Guardians of the Galaxy and Joker), this movie lacked any semblance of emotional gravitas that those films so gracefully flaunted.

Speaking of emotional gravitas, this film has bafflingly bad character work. Say what you will about the quality of the two Fantastic Four movies directed by Tim Story, but they were at least able to do one fundamental thing: make memorable characters that are discussed decades later. When Chris Evans burst into flames as the Human Torch when I went to see Deadpool & Wolverine, my theater erupted in applause and hollers of joy. Juxtapose such iconicness with the forgettable acting of this adaptation, and you've lost any emotional core to drive the narrative. The acting reeks of self-aware defeat and somberness, and the character work can't even be redeemed by superhuman abilities, as no superpowers are displayed until so far into the movie that anybody watching on streaming services has likely already found something better to watch than this inferior film. Without a compelling narrative or likable characters for the film to yoke onto, the whole cinematic affair is a colossal test of patience that ends in utter disappointment. The only thing that saddens me more than the atrocity that this film is? It ruined the promising career of Josh Trank after his movie "Chronicle", an actually well-done subversive superhero story and fantastically fresh found-footage flick. So much for superhero movies that are not directed by committees. What a rarity in the modern day, am I right?

The Reel Ranker Verdict

Reel or Unreel? - Unreel
The Reel Ranker Score: 6%
Letter Score: F-
Star Ranking: 0.5 out of 5

While I'm not the first or the last who will say this by any means, Fantastic Four (2015) is devoid of life, character, or intrigue. Simply put? This is the least entertaining superhero film I've had the displeasure to watch. Don't harm your eyes by watching this unless you are dead-set on experiencing every Marvel film like yours truly. You'll thank me later.

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