Between new looks at Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, franchise aficionados have already enjoyed a very jam-packed week, and now 20th Century Fox is throwing its hat in the ring with an extended trailer for this summer’s Fantastic Four reboot.
Josh Trank’s darker take on the iconic comic book quartet has attracted a strange amount of ire from fanboys, with many complaining that recent previews ape Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and sci-fi Interstellar, but the new trailer for the pic is revealing enough to quell some of those naysayers, at least for a little bit.
In the almost three-minute ad, we get an extended introduction to brainiac Reed Richards (Miles Teller), rough-and-tumble best friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) and daredevil Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), even if Susan Storm (Kate Mara) doesn’t get quite as much screen time as one might hope.
The preview also hints at the body-horror undertones and massive scale of this reboot, which seems set to spend a considerable amount of time exploring the alternate dimensions that Richards’ scientific work at the Baxter Building succeeds in opening up, and teases the film’s big bad – Doom (Toby Kebbell). How that supervillain comes into the picture is still unclear, but he seems that he has been transformed by interdimensional travel in a similar way to the core four.
So far, nothing in Fantastic Four is painting the film as an absolute must-see, but it certainly doesn’t look like the disaster many are predicting it to be. With its sturdy cast, blockbuster budget and serious tone, the movie may prove familiar while also avoiding failure. Fans will find out for sure when the pic opens on August 7th.
FANTASTIC FOUR, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.
