Fant4stic The Grim & Gritty Fantastic Four Reboot

[Baltan II]

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

[klen7]

Lol. I think I've had a few conversations with him (the comics thread comes to mind). He might be a cyborg, but I'd bet he's not a complete robot.

[mr.negativity]

[Dr Kain]

Not sure if I am repeating myself here, but I can not wait to see this headline: "Fox returns rights to Fantastic Four back to Marvel. Disney announces Silver Surfer and Galactus will appear in Guardians of the Galaxy 2."

Secondly, after Disney gets the rights back, they need to do one of two things with the Fantastic Four. 1. Let Netflix turn it into a TV series. 2. Let the people who did The INcredibles do the movie.

[mr.negativity]

[jellydonut25]

I'm not implying any sort of CONSPIRACY or anything, I'm just saying (based on not having seen the movie by the way), that if you as a reviewer dislike the director due to his personality and actions of late, then if there are elements that sort of toe the line of working and maybe only kinda sorta work or anything that could go either way for you, you're much less likely to give the movie the benefit of the doubt. Like, if any character motivation seems a little out of place, you're much more likely to be think "That's stupidity" than you are to just shrug it off as a minor mistake or even an editing/directorial decision to aid the pace of the film.

So, like take any given movie that's about a 2.5/5 for you...if you don't know the director at all, you're probably pretty likely to call it that 2.5. If you really like the director, like, he's your FAVORITE, you might be inclined to give it a 3. And if you think the director is an idiot, you might lean 2/5.

The movie has a TERRIBLE tomatometer score, but if you actually read the reviews, and the tone, it's a much more "ho-hum" thing than a "THIS IS TERRIBLE!" outrage. I can't tell you how many reviews I've seen say it's got a lot of potential but fumbles in the final act, but it's gotta be about 80% of the reviews I've read.

This is where Rotten Tomatoes becomes a problem....likewise with movies that have a GREAT score, too, honestly...a Rotten Tomatoes score really doesn't mean anything other than the percentage of critics that did/did not like the movie. RT is much more a pass/fail thing than a qualitative grade of the film itself, but people treat it like it's the absolute quality of the movie "How did this movie get a 95%? It's not THAT good! Granted, it's good, but not 95% good!" is a phrase thrown at Rotten Tomatoes ALL. THE. TIME. The thing is, if you give a movie a "good" then you would be counting towards that 95% on RT...you might even be shifting it up towards a 96%.

So, when Fantastic Four gets a 9% (and dropping) score on RT, everyone is eventually gonna see it and go "Hm. It wasn't THAT bad." but if you look at the QUALITATIVE score, it seems like most people are giving it something like a 2/5...which is "bad" but not TERRIBLE.


Pretty much everything I'm reading says that the movie is actually not a bad setup for potential sequels, but everyone is just sick of seeing this origin without it going anywhere. Who knows if sequels will ever happen though?


And as for Fox selling FF back to Disney (which everyone just assumes is on the table because Sony did it with Spider-Man), I VERY much doubt it:
Fox isn't in the creative crisis that Sony was/is.
Fox is in a MUCH less amicable relationship with Disney/Marvel than Sony was/is.
Disney/Marvel doesn't really want FF...they want X-Men.
Disney/Marvel has done something with FF that they weren't willing to do for Spider-Man, namely, cancelling the book.
Fox has teased plans for a crossover with their X-Men franchise.
It's not going back to Disney any time soon.

[mr.negativity]

[jellydonut25]

He sounds like a PILL, at least in terms of working on with a major studio. Maybe this is just lesson-learned though for all involved, and he sticks to doing independent films where he can dictate the timetable and budget and such.

[Baltan II]

[Benjamin Haines]

I think the critical consensus of high-profile movies can sometimes become a bandwagon deal. Not to say that any particular reviewer is insincere in their expressed approval/disapproval but when the early reviews of a film are mostly in agreement that it's a turd, nobody wants to come across as the sucker critic who liked the crappy movie that everyone else hated. By that same token, nobody* wants to be the first voice in a crowd to rain on the parade when everyone else seems to agree that a film is terrific.

Pre-release buzz can absolutely influence critics' perception of a new film, definitely moreso than it influences general audiences. Many critics who live and work in L.A. are actively immersed in the film industry, so when the behavior of a filmmaker comes across as impolitic, many professional reviews will make note of it even as they insist that it didn't affect their opinion of the film itself. When Kevin Smith screened his movie Red State at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, he promoted it for months beforehand with the promise that the distribution rights would be auctioned off after the screening. When he wasn't satisfied with how the audience reacted to the film, he subsequently announced that he was selling the rights to himself for $20 and planning to self-distribute the movie instead. By luring an audience of film distributors to watch his movie and then taking away their reason for coming out in the first place, he basically made enemies out of 90 percent of the film industry on that day, and when Red State finally became available there was no shortage of negative reviews harping on Smith's behavior.

The gossip surrounding The Fantastic Four, from Josh Trank's alleged behavior on- and off-set to the obligatory creative clashes between him and the studio leading to hefty reshoots in place of the planned 3-D post-conversion, has all been prevalent online for months now. I haven't seen the movie yet so for all I know the 91 percent of critics who've given it a "rotten" review are right on the money, but I don't doubt for a second that every professional critic was aware of just how troubled a production this was well before anybody saw the finished film. That kind of knowledge can influence whether people are more forgiving or particularly dismissive when they judge a movie on first viewing.


*No professional critic would desire to be the one to piss in people's punchbowl, I should say. The internet is filled with amateur critics who love to do just that.

[jellydonut25]

Whether or not you're doing it consciously, I think you're going to give the mental benefit of the doubt on iffy moments and plot points and character motivations to a director you like and respect and come down harsh on a guy you don't.

I can't speak to the movie itself or its quality, but this thing was dead in the water. It had so much negative press swirling around it, there was never much chance of it being well received.

[mr.negativity]

[Rodanex]

Saw it today, it's pretty bad. Serious Fantastic Four just doesn't work for me. The scenes where they're discovering their powers....it's honestly kind of terrifying and depressing. I mean, I get that's pretty much how you would feel in the real world if you discovered you'd been turned into a rock monster, or your limbs were stretched and distorted...but I feel the comics and even the first FF movie managed to convey that idea but in a way that wasn't this much of a downer. Due to the very nature of the source material, I feel like Fantastic Four needs to be at least somewhat light-hearted in order to work.

Everything about this movie just feels sort of awkward and forced...the dialogue is awkward and clunky, everything just feels too serious. It somehow manages to take Fantastic Four and suck all the fun out of it.

The one positive thing I have to say, is that I did kinda Dr. Doom in this. Well, at least his origin and his appearance. Unfortunately, his motivations and his evil plan don't really make a whole lot of sense and everything about him is pretty much wrapped up in about 15 minutes.

[O.Supreme]

[tbeasley]

I don't think it's anywhere as bad as people are making it out to be, it's certainly better than the previous films, although that's not saying much. The tone is just so off. I don't understand why you'd make a FF film this way. The first half of the film is quite good, then when the team gets their powers the story takes a nosedive. It's like David Cronenberg poorly directed a superhero movie. Dr. Doom escaping from the military hospital is straight out of Akira, and it's just as violent. The FF should have a bright, cosmic sense of wonder to it. It should be Star Trek meets The Incredibles. Guardians of the Galaxy set on earth.

Still, I was going to say it's no better or worse than Ant-Man, but at least that movie had fun, inventive action scenes. Fantastic Four 2015 is the most joyless action movie I've seen since the RoboCop ReMake. It goes from a first act to a third with nothing in the middle, nothing satisfying earned.

I wish Matthew Vaughn had just directed this.

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]

[XvGojira]

And in a few months we'll hear about who's writing the script for the NEW reboot, or how certain characters will appear in the next X-Men movie.

[O.Supreme]

I thought Marvel got the movie rights back to F4, in exchange for allowing FOX to produce two X-Men TV series?

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]