Would it spoil anything if someone would tell me what that scene in the promos is about? The one where the Thing lets go from something (a helicopter?) and falls through the air. Does he crash through a roof and make a dramatic entrance?
Still haven’t seen it, but apparently that scene isn’t even in the movie. Whole thing seems like one big director/studio clusterfuck.
I saw the movie last week (won free tickets). That scene is not in the movie.
Part of the plot has the US Military trying to co-opt the FF for their own purposes under the guise of trying to find a cure for their mutations, and we see the military brass watching a film clip of Thing tossing tanks around, but that’s as close as they get.
I like the FF, and there were elements of a good movie in here, but it really feels like the producers found some good scenes lying around, tried to stitch them together in a logical sequence, and had a bunch of 10-year olds fill in the gaps.
An example of poor filmmaking: not once, but TWICE during the movie scenes begin with the on-screen exposition" YEARS LATER".
The problem is that the origin story of the FF, in any form, just isn’t that interesting - especially not with how current films are handling things -
My wife really liked it - I found it reasonable given the source material - there was just no humor or life in it. It really seemed like a cardboard cutout of a movie.
Contrast that with the last origin movie - with Cap’n Torch - and they atleast tried to do humor as they came to terms with the powers.
They got awful comfortable with Sue’s ability to wrap them in a bubble and travel them accross a wormhole really fast in this one - not to mention a ton of other issues if I decided to think on it to much.
There is a scene where you see footage of the Thing doing missions on a computer screen screen. I suspect this scene was from that footage but presented in the Promo as “full screen”.
With regard to Marvel getting the rights back. My understanding is Fox leases the rights from the actual owner (who is not Marvel) so any deal would be more complicated than the Sony-Spider-Man deal was.
ETA: I would agree that calling the movie bland is fair and accurate but it isn’t complete trash like the buzz is saying.
I heard a review for this on Friday. This reviewer is likely the biggest comic & superhero nerd who has never been to a Comic-Con and even he couldn’t figure out what was going on in many scenes.
That this guy went to see a comic book superhero movie and lost the plot in places does not bode well.
ETA: he gave it a three out of 10, IIRC.
Can someone explain how this movie’s origin is closer to the comics?
I know of the FF only tangentially, I think there was a 90’s cartoon about it and I’ve heard and seen snippets here and there. From what I know, Reed is a super genius who takes his largely untrained family (wife and brother in law) and pilot friend Ben up to space for some reason where they are hit with gamma radiation and get powers. I don’t know how Doom ties in with FF, I think maybe he and Reed were intellectual rivals or something. That’s all I know of their origins. I can accept that, but watching barely-teenager Reed in the trailers just turns me off to the movies because I have a personal pet peeve about how entertainment has increasingly been skewing younger and younger in the last generation. Genius Reed who somehow ends up owning a building and inventing all sorts of gadgets should be at least middle-aged
You’ve basically got the origin story as created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby correct, except that it was “cosmic rays,” not gamma radiation, that gave them their powers. Dr. Doom and Reed Richards were in college together. An experiment by Doom went awry and horribly scarred him, and he blamed Richards for the accident. His iconic metal faceplate is meant to cover up the scars.
About fifteen years ago, Marvel rebooted a bunch of their bigger titles, setting them in their own alternate universe (The “Ultimate” universe) separate from the main Marvel titles. The idea was to give new readers a chance to get into these characters without having to worry about decades of backstory. In this version of the Fantastic Four, Reed is a child prodigy who discovers how to open a portal into the Negative Zone while working with spare parts in his garage. As a teenager, he gets recruited by a government think tank to build teleporter big enough for human use, but the first attempt goes wrong, and Reed and the rest of the soon-to-be-Fantastic Four are transformed - as is fellow think tank student Victor von Doom. In this universe, Doom isn’t wearing armor, he’s been physically transformed into a living metal creature. And, of course, he blames Reed for it.
I haven’t seen the movie, but the scene in the commercials of a very young Reed showing a very young Ben Grimm his garage teleporter is pretty much straight out of the first issue of Ultimate Fantastic Four, right down to the pyramid shape of the teleporter and the use of a toy car as a first test.
In 2000, instead of rebooting their main universe, Marvel started a separate line of comics called Ultimate Marvel in which they… rebooted their universe. There was Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Spider-Man, The Ultimates (Avengers). That’s where Sam L Jackson’s Nick Fury comes from and a bunch of other elements Marvel has been using in their movies.
Sony has borrowed from the Ultimate universe too for their Spider-Man movies.
Fantastic Four was among the titles that Ultimate Marvel eventually rebooted. It featured them as teenagers recruited to a young genius think tank, exploring interdimensional travel, etc. That’s what the origin in this movie was based on.
But old school FF fans have clearly never heard of UFF. Which had them angry about ‘changes’ that the filmmakers never actually made.
I haven’t actually seen anyone blaming the film for “changing” the origin story. I’ve seen a few people complaining that they used the Ultimate origin instead of the Lee/Kirby origin, but they’re clearly aware of where it came from.
Finally saw this. The first two thirds were decent. The last third was a whole mess. Even the dialogue got observably worse. The plot became aimless. The action was mostly restricted to one building. The big showdown with Doom was totally unearned.
No idea if Trank’s vision would’ve been any better, but his part of the movie is the part with most of the merit.
Better than you’re being told, but no loss if you skip it.
And it only ran from 2004-2009. It seems like younger comics readers didn’t find it very interesting, either.
OK - I totally missed the UFF angle. Missed that whole re-boot clearly.
Some things work better to more contemporary audiences I think - the transporter versus the cosmic rays. A transporter to another dimension feels more logical than “cosmic rays”.
Some things clearly don’t translate well to a current movie audience - making the characters all appear to be about 12 risks being flat out annoying to anyone who isn’t a teen. Unless they thought that demographic was going to carry the show, they flailed badly on that.
Sense of humor also missing, as others have noted. Part of why we read the comics is the bravado and wit. Script fell short.
And the ending. fuggedaboutit. So many plot holes I wouldn’t know where to start. Oh wait, here’s one:
How can they suddenly breath in the other dimension without suits? Until the end everyone except Doom, who presumably morphed, needs a full mask and breathing equipment. For the grand finale, no suits.
And I think that humor and wit have been a hallmark of the best-received MCU films (Avengers 1, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man 1, etc.) If it’s missing, it’s even more obvious as a contrast to the viewer.
Even Nolan’s Batman films, with all their darkness, had tons of humor in them.
To be fair, the entire Ultimate Marvel universe was living on borrowed time after the Ultimatum event ruined everything in 2008.
Funny or Die’s one line movie review on Instagram included the caption, “Critics unanimously agree it’s the best ‘Fantastic Four’ movie of the year.”
Ditto Thor, Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Haha, that made me think of the old Kevin Meaney bit about Jack Sauce. Sadly I can’t find any videos of it.
Just saw it, didn’t like it. I have no familiarity with the Ultimate storyline. This movie was just tedious and joyless, as well as both Stanless and post-credit-sceneless. Unforgivable.