Summer Movie Season: A Superhero Movie that's Embarrassed to be a Superhero Movie

I’ve seen a lot of superhero movies in my life. I love superhero movies. The truth is, we all love superhero movies in some way. Sure, they may not dress up in tights or the newest trend of dressing up in cooler looking pleather. They may not all have cool code names, or carry magic hammers. But we admire people that can do extraordinary things, even if we don’t affix the title of “Superhero” to them. Even Generic Buddy Cop Movie 7 would be boring if they spent all their time filling out paperwork. The Fast and the Furious Movies would get old if Dom wasn’t an expert driver or bank robber or whatever wacky situation he gets himself in and then makes himself an expert. So, yeah, I like Superhero movies, just like everyone else. And when it’s billed as a superhero movie, that’s even more incredible, it means we’re going to get a double dose of superhero antics. But what happens when you try to make a superhero movie but then don’t actually allow the superheroes to show up?

The newest version of Fantastic Four is essentially that: a superheroless superhero movie. And it fails. Miserably. 

(Spoilers, I guess? I feel this whole thing has been discussed and super discussed. I’m not going to ruin anything for you.) 

Fantastic Four tells the story that the previous for attempts at making a movie about the Fantastic Four tells: Four scientists build something extraordinary, get zapped with some dubious science sounding stuff, then turn into a superhero team known as the Fantastic Four. The stretchy Reed Richards (Miles Teller); The Invisible Woman Sue Storm (Kata Mara); The Thing Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell); The Human Torch Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan). Sometimes Victor Von Doom comes along. In this version he does. 

This version pull from Marvel’s Ultimate line, so instead of going into space and being zapped with cosmic rays (that would just be silly) they go to another dimension and get their powers via magic (I mean sciencey) green ooze.

The movie starts with an extended prologue, because when you’re doing a superhero movie the thing everyone wants is an extended prologue that stops us from getting to the action, where a young Reed Richards is mocked by his teacher and classmates in 2007 for wanting to build a device to teleport himself, because that’s what happened in 2007 when people wanted to dream big and the big news story (that he references) was that transporters were within reach. So naturally, he builds one, because a sixth grader that can do that will fly under the radar. He also makes friends with Ben Grimm, who lives in a junkyard. 

Quick note: this scene also reveals that The Thing’s catchphrase was first said by his “abusive brother who beats him while yelling it.” This is part of this summer’s apparent need to find controversy in everything. Yes. He yells it. No. He’s his brother who beats him up. The mere fact that someone says “this is abuse!” while Vacation featured the running gag of one of his brothers trying to kill the other (hilarious!) makes me wonder about the future of movies in general. 

Anyway, we fast forward another 7 years to another science fair when Ben and Reed are still building the teleporter, and they get it to work. Of course, no one believes them, except… Franklin Storm, and his daughter Sue who wants Reed to work on the real thing. I would say at this point that finally we’re getting there, but we also have to watch as Franklin recruits Victor Von Doom and his shaky accent to help finish the machine, and his son Johnny who was busy drag racing, complete with little Mario Fire plant decoration in his car, which caught on fire during the race, just in case you need to be reminded that one day he will be the Human Torch.

Several extended conversations and montages where they build the machine later (I’m getting bored typing this) it’s time to go into the other dimension. Of course they’re not allowed to go, so Reed concocts a plan for them to sneak into it late at night, along with his best friend who is not a scientist, and use the machine to go into the alternate dimension. Because that’s a great idea, right?

Look, I could get this buildup if this were a science fiction movie exploring the dangers of science and ego, which it does a great job of setting up during this time. But this isn’t a science fiction movie. It’s the Fantastic Four. The only recognizable part we’ve really seen is a dude yelling “It’s clobbering time” while beating up his younger brother, and that’s dubious at best. 

So, yes, Reed, Von Doom, Johnny, and Ben all go into the other world, Von Doom is lost to the green goo, and everyone who went was magically scientifically changed to their respected superpowers with an extended sequence that shows Ben getting hit with rocks, Johnny being set on fire, and Susan, who did not go on the trip, getting hit with the returning portal thingy and getting her powers of forcefield. 

What follows is a horror show of powers: Reed screams as he’s being pulled in all directions, Susan fading in and out, Ben begging for his life, and Johnny… well he’s sort of quite. It’s pretty clear out of cast members, Michael B. Jordan is probably Josh Trank’s favorite. 

To point out: We have had almost an hour and fifteen minutes of exposition, a trip to another world and everything sucks. That’s an hour and fifteen minutes where there’s a setup to a group getting their powers when just about everyone in the theater knows they’re going to get their powers. It’s not a secret or a surprise. It’s in the title, on all the marketing. Why do we have to wait so long to see it?

Then there’s another time jump of a year: Ben’s being used as a weapon by the military, Johnny and Sue are being trained to be weapons, and Reed is in hiding trying to find a cure. You might think that this would lead to some cool action sequences where Ben is fighting, maybe has some moral quandaries about it. Maybe a training montage with Sue and Johnny. Don’t worry, the director spares you from that and just has some grainy footage of Ben fighting and a few minutes of Sue and Johnny doing… stuff… so we can get to the real action: Reed and his deep emotional turmoil while wearing a goofy suit that can expand with him. 

I could keep going. Yes, they eventually fight Von Doom, finding him in the other world, in a mishmash end sequence that features Reed  giving an inspirational speech, and the least convincing “Hey, what should we call ourselves” moment that would be even worse had Avengers 2: Age of Ultron hadn’t pulled the EXACT SAME JOKE earlier this year. 

For all it’s faults, let’s face it: Man of Steel at least got Superman in that costume with as little set up as possible, and let him run out and do stuff. Even lauded superhero show that tried to pretend it wasn’t a superhero show Daredevil still got Matt Murdock into a costume soon, even if it wasn’t the familiar red costume. This movie actively avoids setting these people up as heroes for as long as possible, and even when it does it takes the literal destruction of the Earth to start to get them to try to do anything about it. Even then they’re not a team so much as a group of scientists doing science stuff for science. 

This movie suffers the similar problems of the Hulk movies, (and why he subsequently worked with the Avengers) is because most of the focus is on the curse of being the Hulk. You know that cheering that happened when Mark Ruffalo turned into the Hulk and then smashed the giant lizard thing in the Avengers? Yeah, that’s because we don’t want a tortured Bruce Banner for two hours, we want The Hulk, smashing. We don’t want an hour of setup to a team getting their powers, then all wanting to be rid of them because they’re some kind of curse. Really the only one who should be mad is Ben (and he is, until he isn’t.) But instead everyone (except Johnny) is mopey about it. 

There’s a lot of talk about behind the scenes turmoil, particularly with Josh Trank has disavowed it and blames the studio, the studio blames him… it’s all a mess. I don’t really know who’s telling the truth, and quite frankly, I don’t care. Trank claims “This isn’t his vision.” And? Other than complaining at every step of the process, we haven’t seen his vision. The thing is, this isn’t anyone’s vision of the Fantastic Four. It’s a science fiction movie, and not even a good one at that. It’s a long, slow, slog through a superhero origin story and a vision on how not to make a movie, period.  It’s a superhero movie that’s embarrassed to be a superhero movie. The Fantastic Four deserves better than this. By the second lab montage or the second inexplicable time jump, someone needed to point out that this isn’t a Fantastic Four movie. 

4 out of 10. 

Casting Doubt

Kids, ask your parents. Or Google. Trust me, this picture is hilarious.

Recently, they announced the new cast for the third reboot of the Fantastic Four movie, hitting movie screens sometime between the sequel to the reboot for the new Superman movie franchise, and the original version of the Avengers that hasn’t yet been rebooted but features a rebooted Hulk. I shouldn’t say “they announced” so much as I probably should have said “they confirmed rumors that were leaked months ago” which is more accurate, probably by people who, if not authorized to leak such information, were probably rebooted themselves into new jobs.

Naturally, since it was announced, everyone on the internet was completely happy with the casting, there was no controversy, and everyone is eagerly awaiting the next big screen adventure of Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and the Storm siblings, Johnny and Sue. The internet community came together to give the movie a big thumbs up and let them know that they were on the side of the actors, who all proved themselves. 

Naw. I’m kidding. This is the internet. 

I’ll skip most of the casting made up controversies that were extremely minor during this time, and mostly due to lack of research, and cut right to the big one, the casting of Michael B. Jordan as the Human Torch. Because he’s a different skin color than the guy in the comics. Of course, the guy in the comics can also shoot fire out of his hands, hangs out with a guy who can climb on walls, and died recently. (But got better, so it’s ok.) Also, he was once played by Captain America, fully confusing people that can’t tell the difference.

My one and only problem with Michael B. Jordan is that he didn’t think to take a stage name. Michael Keaton’s real name: Michael J. Douglas. He took the last name “Keaton” as a stage name because there already was a Michael Douglas in Hollywood. I wish that Michael B. Jordan had respected this, and changed his last name, too, as to not confuse him with underwear selling legend Michael (No B.) Jordan. End of problems with him.

Michael B. Jordan is actually a really good actor, having been in the Wire, Fruitvale Station, and Chronicle. I liked him in the parts of Chronicle I’ve seen, and I really don’t have a problem with casting him. He’s young, he’s charismatic, he’s pretty much what I might envision the Human Torch as being, had the Human Torch been first written today and not back in 1961, back when Michael B. Jordan wouldn’t have been allowed in certain restaurants, much less in space to be hit with Cosmic Rays. He’s young, he fits the part in most ways, but I would have been a little happier if they had gotten an actor that could also control fire by yelling “Flame on.” But hey... nobody’s perfect, right?

Naturally there are complaints because he doesn’t fit the traditional (re: white) model of the Human Torch. I can understand these complaints a little bit more because the Human Torch comes from a more visual based medium of comics, where he’s drawn and pretty much storyboarded out for the audience. Keep in mind I said I can understand it, doesn’t mean I agree that much. At the end of the day, the Fantastic Four are a fictional group of people that don’t really exist in the real world, so as long as an actor can pull off “FLAME ON!” with a straight face or “It’s Clobbering Time!” without breaking character, that’s really the pre-requisite for being able to play a character.

Thanks to the internet, there have been a lot of made up controversies over casting lately. We talked about Ben Affleck doing his best to not Ben Affleck-up the new Superman movie with is Batman impersonation. There was the brief dust up over people who couldn’t read, being mad about the skin color of Rue in the first Hunger Games movie, forgetting of course that despite the fact that she reminded Katniss of her blonde-haired, blue eyed sister, the character was in fact, black in the book. Back when Glee was first starting to Glee, people were mad that a REAL disabled actor wasn’t cast for the role of the one guy who’s in the wheel chair. And of course trans* people are mad that Jared Leto won his Oscar, and they didn’t cast a real trans* actor in the role.

I’m torn, because there are two points I’d like to make here. First being, all of those people were mad a few years ago back when they cast a certain actor in the role of a villain. Everyone was angry... how could they? How could they cast this actor in this iconic role, how badly will Heath Ledger screw up the next Batman movie in the role of the Joker. We all saw how that turned out.

The second being that people tend to forget that these are actors, playing parts. When you watch the next episode of Supernatural, I’d like to remind you that Mischa Collins, despite being an angel for his charity work, is not actually a fallen angel who has defied heaven. Sandra Bullock is definitely not an astronaut. (Thank God.) Jennifer Lawrence isn’t a shapeshifting, manically depressed dancer, who occasionally fights teenagers in a reality show. They’re actors. Michael B. Jordan’s one job is to look good long enough for the CGI Team to cover him in flames, then he can sip a nice cup of tea while yelling out his action lines. If he pulls that off, it will be a rousing success. Provided they don’t just put another rubber suit on a guy for the Thing. That looked bad.

I understand being protective of fictional characters, I really do. I understand having a certain look in your head for characters, and having that ruined. I understand it even more that this character is already drawn, and thus has a certain look that people already have in their heads. But the Human Torch isn’t real. Which actor would really be good for this role if you took look out of it? Basically, someone who’s a bit of a smartass, is able to look heroic, and is pretty charismatic. I think people tend to forget that Sue and Reed are the scientist, Ben is the working class guy meant to heave stuff around, and Johnny is the cocky pilot, who in the comics butts heads with Spider-man constantly and was so unimportant to the team he’s been replaced by a floating, talking robot, and, well... Spider-man. 

I’m just saying once again, let’s wait and see. I know this post hasn’t talked much about the fact that he’s supposed to be Sue Storm’s brother. I hope they don’t even acknowledge that he’s black and she’s white. It would blow everyone’s mind. The problem is, I really don’t see any of this as that big a deal. As I said, the comic was written in 1961. Of course the guy going into space would have been white. It’s 2014. It’s time to move on from this, and just see how the actor is going to do in the role.