#34 Fant4stic (Rage Issues 2 year anniversary)

It's Rage Issues' 2nd year anniversary!!!

And yeah, it’s been a while now, our last rage review was in January and you can blame Marvel for the onslaught of new comics I’ve been picking up and just the fact there’s TV to review. Last year I looked at something that came under an umbrella of things I’d been reviewing – the Avatar franchise had been one of biggest investments to review.

This year, we’re not doing that. This year, we’re looking at a movie so bad, so terrible that Rotten Tomatoes gives it a mere 9% rating. So bad that the director, Josh Trank tweeted out that there was a better version of the film, but the studio messed with his vision.

Sh*t. Yep, we’re back in studio interference territory. (And yes, it's sort of a continuation since I've reviewed the other 2 - see the hub page - link below) As Josh Trank, in a move that will likely kill his career for all time, if the movie didn’t already, tweeted that he had a better version before the studio touched it. Truth? Well, I’ve heard some disturbing stories about his behaviour on-set which indicate otherwise but let’s give the movie a chance. And by that I mean let’s rip this piece of sh*t a new one!

I’ll just point out the DVD looks sh*t, moving on

We open with Reed Richards giving a presentation on a future career. He states he wants to be the first person to teleport himself, to the amusement of everyone else and the ire of his teacher. I’m less than 2 minutes in people and we’ve got a list coming

1. That’s a desire, not a career!
2.  Easily fixed by claiming your career goal is to be a scientist, probably physicist given the nature of what you desire to do.
3. Teach, you clearly got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning
4.  No... I think I covered in the first 3, moving on

Anyway, he says he’s building a model version of a teleporter in his garage. At the Grimm Garage (it’s seriously called that – may as well have called it the sadness garage) Ben Grimm is bringing in a box of stuff, he drops it near his brother and heads into the house. His brother enters the house after him and begins to beat him whilst uttering the words ‘it’s clobberin’ time’

Are you f*cking kidding me! No, seriously, are you f*cking kidding me? WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA! 

1. What value does it add for Ben to have an abusive brother? – THIS IS HIS ONLY SCENE
2. ‘It’s Clobberin’ time’ is the Thing’s catchphrase and now I’m going to feel uncomfortable any time he says it because I’ll associate it with this moment.
3.  I know this rather mirrors my first point, but this scene is entirely pointless
4.  …. Alright, fine, 1^st 3 covered it, moving on!

Mother Grimm beats him off in a way that implies she’d been watching for some time before intervening – good parenting there. Not that by beating him off she’s setting any better of an example. Anyway, Ben is set to check on one of their dogs, who’s barking outside. Ben calls off the dogs and finds that they were barking at Reed, looking for a power-converter. He agrees to provide him with one in exchange for a look at the ‘teleporter.’

Reed heads into his garage where he flicks some switches and screws in a screw thanks to swiss army knife provided by Ben. He activates it, disrupting some TV for presumably Reed’s parents, they’re not seen again after this scene. He makes his model car disappear, bringing the entire district into darkness and there’s some sand and rocks where the car used to be.

So, I’m sure the power outage in an entire district would require some investigation, leading to…

Goddammit!

We cut to a science fair where Ben and Reed are demonstrating a new version of their teleporter to 2 unknowns and that teacher that taught him in 5^th grade. I dunno how the American system works but we he even be at the same school at that point? Also, why is a teacher that’s presumably not teaching science because what science teacher would do a session on careers, judging entries to a science fair!

Anyway, Reed asks Ben for the car but he doesn’t have it. You had one job, Ben, one job! Instead they steal a model air-plane from someone much younger than them. They successfully teleport the plane and manage to bring it but the judges dismiss it as magic. Are they f*cking serious?! Magic doesn’t create laser effects; it can’t make an object disappear whilst you can still see it. Magic can’t make a glass backboard shatter unless the backboard had been replaced in advance. If you can’t see real science here, you’re f*cking blind! Also, if it is magic, be impressed goddamn it! But then again, you’re not a f*cking science teacher either so your opinion means jack f*cking sh*t. Oh my god, we’re less than 10 minutes into the movie… Only 90 more to go?

So, what are the odds? Renowned scientist Franklin Storm and his daughter Susan just happen to stumble upon such a work of genius which co-incidentally happens to be the same project they’re working on and what a f*cking co-incidence, Reed so happens to have figured out the solution to the one problem they were facing. Oh and one other thing, this is a high school science fair!

He mentions that the matter is actually going to another dimension, he knows this because the sand isn’t from earth. So rather than assuming another planet you jump immediately to another dimension. Yeah… That logic works. Dr Storm agrees to give Reed a full scholarship to the Baxter Institute. Question: Why not Ben? Sure we know that Ben did jack sh*t in this project, but they don’t.

So Ben helps drop Reed off at the Baxter Institute, he gives Reed his Swiss-Army Knife as a going away present. He’s been here two minutes and knows Reed belongs here. Oh yes, the fact that they wear lab-coats is a dead give away, that and a view of Manhattan, that’s all the evidence he needs to leave his ‘best friend’ and I use quotation marks because I’ve not seen much evidence of it.

Reed beings picking out some books in the Library and sits by Sue, beginning to talk to her despite the fact that she was obviously wearing headphones. Anyway, she’s an expert with pattern recognition, it’s her thing, that’s pretty much what the entire scene exists to establish. Definitely doesn’t do much to imply any romantic interest between the two. She tries psychoanalysis with Reed and gets it wrong – excellent work there, ‘master pattern recogniser.’

Dr Storm speaks to the board of directors or whatever. Telling them that the other dimension may hold unlimited energy or bring them a way to save the planet.

For some reason despite the fact that Reed had built a fully operational model that can do everything they wanted and all he needs is help and resources to build it on a larger scale, they need an expert in Victor Von Doom. No, seriously, they’ve stuck with that name. The weird part is they originally intended him to be called Victor Domashev but fan backlash caused that to be edited back in reshoots. 

You know what though, if you wanted to meet fans half-way and since you’re intent on adapting the Ultimate Universe Fantastic 4 anyway, why not use Doctor Doom’s name in that comic – Victor Van Damme? Add to that, he set fire to their data servers when he left the last time, why do they need him again?

Franklin pays him a visit. He initially refuses, not trusting the council but the power of boners is stronger and he agrees knowing Sue is going to be there. Reed enters the room where they’re building the matter shuttle and it’s a second scene with Sue. She kindly points out that if they’d up the power with their teleporter they’ve suck the planet into a black hole. Nice, I’m sure he needed to know that.

Sue’s job – making the environment suits. Yeah... I think someone was trying to keep her busy. Ordinary space suits would’ve probably done the trick. They follow Victor and good f*cking god, what happened to Sue’s hair! Actually, I can explain. Because Fox decided the material Josh Trank had directed was not the movie they wanted, they filmed additional scenes. This wig was meant to replicate her hair at time of shooting, which had changed in the mean while. They weren’t really trying with that wig.

Oh and the purpose of this scene, a Doctor Doom joke, I hope you’re proud, Fox. Oh, and they sent a probe, that totally proves that it’s another dimension and not just another planet, except of course for the fact that it doesn’t, at all. Once they manage to successfully test the device on organic matter Victor wants to be sent, with Reed and Sue. Yeah… No.

Meanwhile we cut to Johnny Storm. Excuse me for a moment! STOP THE PICTURE!

I’d best address the controversy around Johnny Storm. He’s Black in this version. My opinion: Michael B Jordan is a talented actor. There’s no issue with the Human Torch being Black, especially since, in case you didn’t notice, Franklin Storm is also black. You want an explanation for Sue being white, we’ll get a token line about it later. What I have more of an issue with is that he’s a black boy-racer stereotype. This happened on the Flash as well, what is with this?

OK, continue

So the race begins and… and… oh my god, I just don’t give a sh*t how this race turns out. He over-revs the engine causing an explosion which has him veering off into a tree. Do cars normally explode when you over-rev them like that? Seems like it’d be quite a safety hazard, Then again I suspect he modified the piece of junk. He ends up in the hospital with a broken arm and worse a severe telling off from his father.

Why is he a boy racer? F*ck if I know! At least with Wally West in the Flash they had the decency of actually giving us a decent reason. Franklin says he isn’t getting his car back until he earns it, by working with him at the Baxter Institute. With a broken arm, I can see this ending so well….

Johnny helps weld things and thanks to a montage of things happening they approach completion. Sue talks to Johnny… and it goes nowhere really. Ben is about to head off on his bike and sees a picture Reed sent to him. Reed is asleep until Sue wakes him up by flicking his ear. No offence, but aren’t there better ways to do that without causing them pain?

As they bond in the most awkward way possible, with the nice bit of intel that Sue was adopted. Victor calls Reed over and berates Reed for talking to Sue for 5 seconds but Reed points out that they’ve finished the design. Something you’d think Victor might’ve been aware of, just saying.

The board of directors arrive at the Baxter Institute to watch the device tested on a CGI monkey. Oh and Johnny’s arm is healed now, just a heads up. The test is successful and the board want to send some astronauts through it because they’re actually somewhat smart. Our ‘heroes’ are disappointed with this. The boys decide to drink out their sorrows whilst lamenting that whilst the Neil Armstrong is remembered, the guys who constructed the Apollo spacecraft are not. And yeah, much as I hate to admit it, it’s not an unreasonable point.

What is unreasonable is that there is no-one guarding the machine, at all. They decide to head off anyway because why wouldn’t they when there’s no security. Reed decides to call Ben to come along with them because… best friend? They let him in despite it being god knows how late at night.

They get in their environment suits which (what are the odds?) fit them perfectly. They head into the machine and somehow activate it internally. Sue notices and makes a call to his dad. They head to the ‘other dimension’ aka ‘Planet Zero’ or if you actually care at all about the source material, the Negative Zone. They plant their flag and doing so creates a pulse of green energy heading towards a source further afield. They decide to do quite possibly the dumbest thing possible and go investigate.

By the way, there’s still no reason why this couldn’t be another planet. They climb down to the green goo, with Victor deciding to touch the green goo. Because that’s totally a smart thing to do. Him doing so creates a violent reaction, the 4 of them race back to the pod, Victor is blasted off on his way up and eventually the goo cuts the wire, sending him falling. The others make it back to the pod but they’re having trouble activating re-entry.

Sue finally manages to make contact but she’s not having much luck at her end either. Ben’s door refuses to close and he’s pelted with rocks and Johnny is set on fire as Sue finally manages to bring them back and his herself hit with a wave of energy which turns her invisible. Anyone want to tell me what actually went wrong with the machine though? Or was it just plot convenience, yeah, I think it’s the latter.

Reed awakens in the debris, he begins searching for Ben and sees Johnny’s flaming body. His leg is stuck under a gurder but he’s able to push himself towards Ben, inside a rock pile. Reed looks around and sees his legs are still stuck, the shock knocks him unconscious.

In Area 57 Reed’s body is strapped down his arms and legs both enlargened from the last scene, they try and make him move his fingers and he does so successfully. Franklin is facing questioning by some military guys. He wants to know where is children are and he’s able to see them. Sue is fading in and out of visibility, whilst Johnny seems to be just waking up, panicking, he unleashes a wave of fire but afterwards he begins to stabilise, sort of. Reed hears Ben crying for help and sees an air vent he can use. He manages to shrink his arms and legs back down, oh and he looks considerably more clean-shaven than in the last shot. Pretty sure that’s more reshoot-itus than anything.

Reed finds Ben, who’s now a giant rock monster. He says he’ll figure it out but the alarm goes off. He says he’s going to come back. And decides to escape the only place where he has resources to do anything, to go alone. I’d get it if he didn’t trust the government but there’s no evidence they’re up to anything all that shady.

Franklin is asked where Reed could’ve gone. He doesn’t know. Thanks to this whole incident they have to play ball with the Government's desire to use them as weapons or else they’ll face far worse. Harvey (one of the board) confronts Ben. He convinces Ben that they can find a cure if he uses his abilities to help them in the meantime. Ben agrees.

Now, with such a dilemma faced with them, I’m sure they’ll take time to explore consequences and…

Son of a...

So, Harvey presents Ben Grimm to the government board. He’s been active in covert missions with a 100% hahahahahahahaha I’m sorry, I can’t finish that sentence.

Covert missions? Covert missions?! The Thing is about as covert as fleet of tanks. We even see him fighting (on camera no less), something you don’t do much of in a covert-op. I suppose the American government don’t have to associate themselves with him but… Oh and he’s protecting their men and women in battle, thereby making direct association with the American Government, thereby negating the idea that he isn’t associated with them.

Here’s the thing, we’re at the half-way point of the movie now, do you know what I haven’t seen any of yet, action! This superhero movie is so bogged down by the origin story they barely bother with any action. There were even scenes in the trailer tempting action scenes that likely would’ve taken place during that one-year time skip. As it is, the closest thing we’ve had to an action scene is a projection during a board meeting and a street race. Those don’t count!

Also, this is second time I’ve noticed a character clearly chewing on something. Harvey, you’re giving a speech to a massive government body here, spit out the gum! I thought I saw Victor doing it earlier, but he’s openly rebellious. Oh and there’s one other thing I should mention before I return to the plot. Why isn’t the Thing wearing trousers? Where the Thing’s thing? Oh my God, this movie (and the Blockbuster Buster) has made me think about the Thing’s thing, moving right along

They’ve developed generic black suits to help the trio control their powers. Johnny has been promising with his. Sue, back in her reshoot wig by the look of it, is able to render objects invisible and produce force-fields. They want to return to the negative zone (I’m not calling it Planet Zero or whatever else they want to call it, besides it’s either another planet or another dimension, make up your mind, also Planet Zero is so generic) using a new quantum gate.

The board head to Area 57 by plane, watching the Human Torch blow up some drones and seriously Harvey, spit out the gum, you’re on set! Johnny’s getting competitive about his take off times. He goes to see Sue, telling her he’s to be sent on an assignment and the conversation goeth thusly

“We should use our powers to do something”

“They’re not powers, they’re aggressively abnormal physical conditions”

Sue, they mean the same damn thing! Get over yourself! Harvey takes them to see Ben, he’s watching his own performances on a screen. He then takes them back to the quantum gate project and to Franklin. The military agree to provide funding to do so and agree to put Johnny in the field. Franklin goes to see Sue back her reshoot wig. The only way to stop Johnny is to cure him, the only way to do that is to find Reed.

They’ve been able to find blips of Reed with their vast numbers and knowledge but can’t seem to find the pattern, and this is why pattern recognition became Sue’s ‘thing’ in this *sigh* of course we all know the last time she’s tried to work out a pattern with Reed, she failed.

A man buys a part from a store, offering to fix their cash register as compensation. It’s Reed, using his abilities to disguise his face. He heads back to his shanty where he’s using the parts to create a single-person version of the shuttle. Sue finds a relay named cpt_n3m0, a reference to his favourite book. You know, best not to use something that obvious when there’s a self-proclaimed master of pattern recognition running against you, not to mention a considerable number of other people.

They find him and Harvey sends Ben after him. And finally, an hour and 2 minutes into the movie we finally get an action scene. Reed easily handles the soldiers but when Ben attacks rather than explaining exactly what he was up to and why, he goes off on a rant that he’s no good to anyone and gets knocked out. Well, that action scene lasted less than a minute. Seriously, Reed, is it that f*cking hard to say ‘I don’t trust these guys – look what they did to you – I’ve been trying to build a shuttle on my own so I can find a cure?’ By the way, that's what he's been doing for the last year. It's never going to come into play either.

Reed is finally returned to Area 51. Sue goes in to see him first and he says the exact things he should’ve told Ben and still refuses to mention that he was working on a 1-person shuttle for that exact purpose. 

What? I had to change up from the old meme at some point. So, Sue convinces Reed to resume work and my god his facial hair has magically disappeared again. And seriously, Harvey, stop chewing in every f*cking scene! Reed gets to work fixing their machine as Franklin goes to talk to Johnny, try to stop him from going. You know they make it out like the government are manipulating them but I’ve yet to see any evidence of that.

So, shuttle repaired and actual trained astronauts head in this time, this time they can send more than 4 people apparently. And what dastardly thing do they do upon arrival? They begin taking samples and running analysis, those fiends! Reed notices (via camera) the landscape has completely changed. One of the astronauts picks up a heat signature and goes to investigate.

It’s Victor, whose suit has fused to him and is wearing a green cloak he pulled out of his ass I think. He collapses and the idiots decide to bring him back. Guys, he’s been living on that world for over a year, he could be carrying contagions, he could have gained plot convenient powers and be mentally unstable. There is no way this is going to end well.

Victor is asked about the Negative Zone, he reveals that place kept him alive and granted him strength and power, the power that no-one else should ever have. He then kills all of the people in the room except Harvey. He then makes Harvey’s head explode. Oh no! No more scenes with him clearly chewing gum in them! I’ll miss him so much! He escapes and easily takes care of the military, I mean too easily really. Our 4 ‘heroes’ go investigating, finding many corpses.

Victor makes his way to the shuttle, Franklin stands in his way. Victor kills him and what clearly is ripping off Coulson’s death in the Avengers. No magical super-blood to cure him here though. You know what else is significant about this scene though? This is the first time all 4 of them have been conscious in the same place at the same time. 1 HOUR 17.5 MINUTES into the film. That is a f*cking joke!

Victor heads back to the Negative Zone and uses plot convenience powers to overload the system to create a black hole. Fortunately, that thing also creates a convenient portal into the Negative zone the 4 use to confront him. They try and attack him individually but erm… Doom’s powers are dependent on the plot, he’s invincible until he isn’t.

Sue manages to hold her force-field long enough for Reed to gain a second wind and escape whatever it was that Doom did to him. He lays a few hits on Doom, freeing the others. Reed rallies the troops, saying they may be able to do alone what they couldn’t do together. Reed serves as their distraction whilst Sue makes Ben invisible long enough to sneak attack Doom, whilst uttering the line ‘it’s Clobberin’ Time’ (*shudders*) he punches Victor into the black hole beam as the Human Torch destroys the rock formations surrounding it, with the end result killing him… Right, I have no idea what just happened. Anyway, they escape as the portal shuts.

The military congratulate them and say they want to continue their existing relationship with them. They’re not so happy about that and use them to bully the military into giving them a new premises for them to work. Our heroes, everyone. Anyway, they have a new building and the movie ends with them coming up with a name for some reason.

WHAT A F*CKING JOKE! THIS MOVIE! ARRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

This movie is 90 minutes long; we have a villain for about 15 minutes of that time. That’s ridiculous pacing. And when they finally do get a villain. Oh Victor, what did they do to you? He’s overpowered as f*ck, possessing none of the traits of his comic book counterparts, even from the Ultimate Universe and yes, I’ve read the Ultimate Universe comic in preparation for this review.

Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Miller’s Ultimate Fantastic 4 is not perfect, far from it actually but it did a few things right the movie didn’t. First and most important they established the Mole Man as a villain early on so the FF had someone to fight after their transformation before Doctor Doom could show up.

Second they made the plot make sense, for the most part. For starters, Reed was selected by a military guy who specifically had the job of going around schools, Ben wasn’t invited to a test whilst drunk, the test was open to the public, or at least not closed to them. Ben came of his own volition. There was a miscalculation that caused the accidents, either Reed's or Victor's, giving a valid reason why Ben would blame him. Oh and the test was in a desert, where the populace wouldn’t be harmed.

This movie has so little character to it, the characters are SOOOOOOOOO bland! The dialogue is delivered so slowly, so flatly and did I mention Harvey looking like he’s chewing gum in every other scene, that’s f*cking distracting, not that I really wanted to pay attention to the original material

This shows an astonishing lack of respect to the original source material, from their butchering of Doctor Doom, to the original use of ‘it’s Clobberin’ time’ to the fact that none of our ‘heroes’ are referred to by their alter-egos or collectively as the Fantastic 4, not to mention the team shares screen time for less than 15 minutes!

There’s evidence that this was a rushed production so that Fox wouldn’t lose the rights to this franchise. Blame divides equally between all behind the scenes parties here. The writing is atrocious, it’s poorly directed, the editing is choppy (although effects wise it’s fine) and the reshoots have blatant continuity errors.

So, no, I don’t for a second believe that Josh Trank had a good version of this before the studio did their thing. Might’ve been better, but it wouldn’t have been good.

THIS MOVIE GIVES ME RAGE ISSUES

Rating 100,000%

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Images/clips used in this review are from Fantastic 4/Fant4stic (2015), Ratchet and Clank, Toy Story and Lion King and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use