7 Reasons Why The Fantastic Four Reboot Deserves Another Chance

Never before has a film with so much potential bombed so hard. This reboot of the 2005 Tim Story movie of the same name was meant to attract a new generation of viewers by cashing in on the superhero craze brought about by The Avengers, whilst still telling an original tale. The idea was this: the original Fantastic Four had gotten the aesthetics right, but completely flopped with regards to everything else like tone and character motivations, especially as they were depicted in Jack Kirby's original run. As director Josh Trank, coming off of Chronicle, pointed out, the earlier issues of the Fantastic Four had elements of body horror to them, from the design of the Thing to Doctor Doom's imposing face plate. At the same time, it was clear that the original version of four people going into space and getting blasted by cosmic rays was an outdated take from the Cold War Space Race era, specifically in comparison to what we saw with the Ultimate comics wherein the Fantastic Four were mutated by exposure to a toxic atmosphere. Thus, the solution was to ground the story in a hard science fiction setting in order to synthesize two visions: Kirby's space opera take, and the more modern version of the characters from the Ultimate comics. Given everyone's love for Interstellar the year before, it seemed like a good idea. Trank's passion for the craft combined with Simon Kinberg's script (coming off of X-Men: Days of Future Past) also added a level of security to the project. Yet, the result was radically different, with the film officially being the lowest ranked superhero movie on Rotten Tomatoes since 1997’s Batman & Robin. However, does it truly deserve that place, or was it simply the result of a hate train running full course? The truth is neither: it was a mediocre pic with merits and hardly the worst movie ever, and to defend this, we've put together seven reasons why we feel that Fantastic Four is actually worth revisiting. Just hear us out... 1) The Cast The cast for Fantastic Four got a lot of heat from fans for not being exactly like their comic counterparts. Most notably attacked was Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, due to his skin color, even though Idris Elba (Heimdall in Thor) and Vondie Curtis-Hall (Ben Urich in Daredevil) were both race-changed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to no complaint. But the fact of the matter is this was actually a great choice of actors for the film. As stated before, Trank and Kinberg were basing this iteration of the property off of the Ultimate Fantastic Four line of comics, which depicted all four of them as young adults, as opposed to the older adults in the traditional comics. This meant that Reed Richards did not have the grey side burns, Sue Storm had no children, Ben Grimm was not an Air Force pilot, and Johnny Storm remained in high school. To add to this, these were not newbie actors taken fresh out of drama school. All four were well established, backed by a host of strong performances in films and television shows. In short, everyone brought their A-game to Fantastic Four, especially with the amount of pressure put on them. Not only that, but each actor fit the personality of their respective character so well: Miles Teller was withdrawn yet intelligent like Mr. Fantastic, Kate Mara was smart yet cautious like Invisible Woman, Jamie Bell tough yet full of heart like The Thing, and Michael B. Jordan hot-headed and wisecracking like the Human Torch. 2) The Score One of the more underrated aspects of the reboot was its securing of two of the top movie composers working today: Marco Beltrami of The Hurt Locker fame and Philip Glass, whose minimalist style was seen in Watchmen. Though many scenes in the movie are chopped up, there's no denying that both Beltrami and Glass put a lot of effort into the making of the score. You feel tension during the action sequences, scared during the transformations, and optimistic during the friendly banter between the characters. Compared to other superhero films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad which opted to cover up their scores with an annoying blast of pop music, we would say the Fantastic Four score is certainly worth listening to. 3) The Production Design As we all know, the film was plagued by numerous budget cuts and anyone who saw the first couple of trailers or the leaked B-roll footage and then watched the movie would have noticed many scenes cut out despite them looking interesting. There was Ben Grimm playing baseball, Johnny fixing up his car in a garage, The Thing airdropping from a jet onto a base and then facing machine gun fire, Thing getting ready to punch Doom, the four standing before a portal with an airplane in it and, of course, the Fantasticar. Many of these could simply be on the cutting room floor as a result of the film's re-edit, but it's also safe to say that scenes had to be cut due to there not being enough money for the VFX. This would make sense, especially when combined with Jon Schnepp's reveal that the head VFX artist was replaced halfway through production. However, with at least over $100 million invested into the pic, there's no denying that the art designers behind Fantastic Four managed to create some interesting set pieces. First and foremost was the junkyard that a young Reed Richards meets Ben Grimm in: it's a beautiful area that easily conveys the rough childhood Grimm's going through, whilst still serving as the perfect avenue for Reed to acquire the parts for his experiments. There were many other examples, too, such as the Planet Zero the team goes to with its oozing green (formerly red) energy, the Central American jungle where Reed escapes to when the government goes after him, and the Baxter Institute itself, which is full of the technology you would expect from an expensive think tank. All well made by a serious crew who were dedicated to their craft. 4) The Body Horror Scene One thing Josh Trank insisted on implementing, from the beginning, was a David Cronenberg-esque influence on the origin story. It made sense, too. Unlike the X-Men, who are born with their mutations, the Fantastic Four were forcibly changed. Having your bones become stretchy or getting set on fire or turning into a rock monster would certainly not be a pleasant experience, especially if you had to live with the condition for the rest of your life (as is the case with Grimm). Trank understood this, and in one of the movie’s best scenes, we see this at play as each character starts to have their physiology altered. Reed’s arms are crudely retracted amongst the crunching sound of bones merging, Johnny screams in pain as the fire engulfs his body, and Ben pleads for someone to help him as he tries to escape the rocky tomb he's become trapped in like Fortunato at the end of Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado. All of this is shot in a dark environment with sketchy lighting, dark blue hue and the aforementioned score by Beltrami and Glass adding to the tension and anxiety that the team's feeling. 5) The Thing Though Michael Chiklis gave it his all in the 2005 film, his foam costume has not quite aged well, which prevents him from being as intimidating as he should be. Thankfully, then, Trank and company decided to go with CGI for their take on the beloved character, and the result was actually pretty impressive. Jamie Bell looked exactly like his comic counterpart, with the rocks perfectly aligned to resemble a humanoid figure. The only problem was that no one behind the camera thought it would be smart to include pants... 6) Hidden Details The filmmakers, at least early on in the production when they had freedom, clearly had a lot of fun making the movie. Throughout, there are a lot of nice little details that viewers of all ages can enjoy. Some of the ones we personally noticed were the Nintendo 64 controllers used to make the first inter-dimensional portal, the fire flower decoration in Johnny’s car, and Reed’s teacher mentioning his attempts at building a flying car (i.e. the Fantasticar). 7) The Production Fiasco Sometimes the behind the scenes news of a movie ends up being more interesting/entertaining than the film itself, resulting in either a documentary being produced or an original film based on the production. We've seen this numerous times: Plan 9 from Outer Space gave rise to Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, Superman Lives gave us Schnepp’s The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened? and The Room is giving us The Disaster Artist. It doesn’t have to be said that Fantastic Four had severe problems during its production, with extensive reshoots plaguing it for months after it was technically done with principal photography. Josh Trank even took to Twitter a few days before its official release to denounce it as not being his film, though that Tweet was quickly deleted. Years from now, someone will revisit this mess and try and salvage a story from it. Whether you hated it, thought it was decent, or didn’t care for it at all, no one can deny that the mystery of what exactly transpired is intriguing, and would certainly make for a more fascinating viewing experience.