‘Fantastic Four’: MovieMantz Review

“Fantastic Four”? More like a “Fantastic” bore, says Access Hollywood’s Scott “Movie” Mantz…

• “Fantastic Four”
• Starring: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell
• Directed by: Josh Trank
• Rating: 1.5 stars out of 5

The summer of 2015 will go down in history as the season where every superhero movie defied expectations – and in most cases, for the wrong reasons.

The highly anticipated “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” which started the season in May, was a huge disappointment that was okay at best. Then came “Ant-Man” in July, which had every reason to be terrible, but turned out to be a pleasant surprise and one of the best movies yet from Marvel Studios.

‘Fantastic Four’ (Twentieth Century Fox)

That brings us to “Fantastic Four,” a reboot of the 2005 and 2007 Tim Story-directed versions which starred Chris Evans and Jessica Alba, among others. Truth be told, I actually didn’t mind those movies. That’s not to say that they were great (because let’s face it, they weren’t), but for anyone who was able to embrace the light-hearted, family-friendly tone, there was fun to be had.

The problem was that fans of the comic book series that first debuted in 1961 didn’t want a kid-friendly “Fantastic Four,” so Fox went back to the drawing board for a darker version of the material that took itself more seriously.

But directed by Josh Trank, who cut his superhero teeth with 2012’s critically-acclaimed cult favorite “Chronicle,” the rebooted “Four” takes itself too seriously and is about as far from “Fantastic” as a comic book-based movie can possibly get. The structure is choppy, disjointed and uneven. The conventional story takes way too long to kick into gear, and thanks to characters (and performances) that are bland and boring, getting to that point isn’t the least bit interesting. It’s all setup and no payoff, and it’s not fun. As a result, the “Fantastic Four” reboot is such a colossal disappointment that it makes the Evans-Alba version look like “The Avengers” by comparison. (And you know your Marvel-based movie is in trouble when even Stan “The Man” Lee doesn’t have a cameo.)

So between the new reboot, the two prior installments and the low-budget Roger Corman-produced version from 1994 that was never even released, one can’t help but wonder – why can’t anyone get this right? Maybe that great “Fantastic Four” movie just wasn’t meant to be – at least, not under the current regime.

But where there’s life, there’s hope, and that hope just might be Marvel Studios. Just like Marvel came to Spider-Man’s rescue and struck a deal with Sony to allow for Spidey crossovers in the Marvel movies and more involvement in the next stand-alone Spidey film, maybe Marvel should strike a deal with Fox to allow for more involvement in a bigger, better “Fantastic Four” movie.

Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm certainly deserve a better movie, since their comic book title basically launched the Marvel Universe 54 years ago.

If and when that does happen, here’s hoping that it will defy expectations – and for all the right reasons.

— Scott Mantz