Is this the first sign of the Superhero film business bubble bursting? That at last, after Hugh Jackman's rise to fame and fortune as the immortal Wolverine, a character so unkillable that in order to finish him off in print they had to encase him in the same unbreakable metal bonded to his very bones (blah blah) (but for how long?) the dream is over? To be honest... Probably not. It might be the end to anything not produced by either Warner Brothers or Disney though, except perhaps for the ever-rolling tide of X-Men sequels and spin-offs. Let's get things straight, I don't actually think this film is as bad as a lot of other reviews have suggested; I didn't at any point consider walking out and asking for a refund, for example... But I wouldn't blame anybody else if they chose to.
Vox's incredible assault on the film is a worthwhile and illuminating read, alongside Wired's short list that reads like a first draft for one of my favourite YouTube channels, Cinema Sins (and I seriously can't wait for his assessment of this sad waste of opportunity). A common thread through even the most damning of pieces is that it shouldn't have been this bad. Opening reports were terrible enough, with people somehow flipping their lids over the fact that Johnny Storm is NOW A BLACK MAN I mean come on guys how many of you cared that the only evidence I could see in the film for Ben Grimm's Jewishness is a single menorah on a bookcase in his family home (the self animated Golem?), and the strange reports that their infamous antagonist would start his fictional life out as a hacker... Right. So this is going to be different off the bat (naturally, everything is ruined forever), but fingers crossed, yeah? No.
It's unfair to call this film a trainwreck, but only because it doesn't actually build any momentum. Like an ancient train engine struggling up the side of a mountain, it stuggles inch by inch before at last the traction fails and it slips, leaving us thankful that it hadn't got high enough to cause any damage. The opening sequences show some muted promise, and the first of several bad Star Wars references rears its ugly and impossible-to-tell-if-intentional head, with the young Luke Skywalker finally getting to Tosche Station for that power converter, uhhhh, I mean Reed Richards at the Grimm family junkyard looking for a... Oh. A power converter. By this point, we have already met our first major villain - the class teacher, whose disbelief in the accomplishments of Richards (and subsequently Grimm) border on cartoonish, decrying their device at a School Science Fair as nothing more or less than a cheap magic trick. Victory by demoralisation! Hurrah! We eventually meet the rest of the main players, Franklin and Susan Storm, the latter this time adopted and toting the now-ubiquitous Samsung cell phone. There's plenty of hefty stereotyping being thrown about: Richards is the nerd, Grimm the silent but strong type, Johnny as the hot headed rebel (foreshadowing!), and Sue as the girl... I want to say something clever about her being quiet enough to go unnoticed here (more foreshadowing lololol), but can't seem to work up the required effort (much like the film itself). Then we meet Victor von Doom (von dooooooooooom), a bearded loner who has some kind of shady past including sabotaging data servers, a stalker-esque attraction to Sue, who lives in an orgy of evidence that he is in fact a computer genius, and seems to be controlling everything with his eye. Skip!
Amazingly, this is all still the 'good bit', and we gradually uncover that the government want to use the dimesion hopping research to find new energy sources blah blah blah some kind of soft environmental message is shoehorned in here. When the suits come down and tell the gang that their taking over after sending the worst CGI chimpanzee test subject I have ever seen (seriously, they could have just filmed a fucking chimp's face for the screen, and then have like a hairy cushion or something for the two seconds we see them carry it back and forth to the pod HONESTLY) as an "organic matter test", the male main characters get drunk and decide to automate a run so they can be first, following an interesting little speech from Doom (doooooooom) about how we all know Neil Armstrong's name, but not the names of the people that actually were responsible in getting him to the Moon. Spoiler alert, everything starts out okay and then it all goes wrong, as Doom (doooooooooooooooom) dips his hand into glowing green goop on the alien planet/dimension and ultimately gets sucked in (by like, a thing? Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within has much to answer for), and bizarrely specific accidents happen to the others, and a wave passes through Sue upon the capsule's return (who saw that coming?). The aftermath of this crash is possibly the best part of the film, with some deftly handled body horror: Terrifying limbs, a pile of rocks mewling for help and a man on fire.
Rather than spend time exploring this in any detail, the film serves us a "1 year later" placeholder, where we fast forward to a few training montages, and the unsurprising sight that Ben Grimm has become the darling of the US Armed Forces. Notably one of these scenes from the trailer is missing, alongside several more no doubt, that one where the air-drop The Thing ("How long until he's in?"), but I digress. They obviously cut that one because Reed and Sue are smiling, and SMILING IS NOT ALLOWED IN THIS MOVIE. Another classic example of the film being dark and brooding merely through being shot in low light (Batman I'm looking at you). I honestly found it difficult to pay attention to the rest of the film, really. There was a cool moment when Reed used his rubber powers to change his face, but then there's a hilariously terrible bit with stretchy limbs after - I mean, just how practical are these powers in reality? Being a rock monster is pretty obvious, as is being able to set yourself on fire and fly, and be invisible... But stretching? Whatever. Some badly artificed drama about Ben not forgiving Reed for leaving is stuffed in but then completely forgotten by the end "battle" and final scenes.
At some point they bring Doom (doooooooooooooooom) back for the seemingly pre-requisite final battle, and Jesus Christ the effects are dreadful. Having fused to his spaceman-container suit, he also glows with green energy, and glowing green eyes (which barely ever match up to where his eyes should be, looking vaguely disturbing but mostly crap), he goes on a murder rampage blowing up heads like Tetsuo Shima (Tetsuooooo! Kanedaaaaa!), eventually causing the death of old Franklin Richards, whose last words might as well be "There is... another... Skywalker" (jeez seriously), and then they troll off for the showdown on 'Planet Zero', against a Doom (dooooooooooooooooooooooom) who looks more like a cheap knock-off Stormtrooper figure than ever (you know those really big ones made out of shitey plastic at Pound shops), throwing out cliched dialogue and random phrases. Even Ben's "It's clobberin' time!" is robbed of any power due to the zero character development (we hear his bullying older brother use it at the start of the film once. That's it), as the assembled heroes win the day and save Baton Rouge errrrr the World from further destruction. Poor Louisiana. Roll credits.
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I think I've enjoyed recalling the plot to kick it about more than actually having watched it. The film's greatest sin is that it's actually just simply very boring. Thick with cliche, badly paced and lacklustre effects, almost zero excitement past a few opening flourishes, where characters showed chance of becoming fully formed... But no. No, no, no. We may never know what weird horror-character piece the director had in mind initially, as it seems obvious there's been more hands to this than perhaps there should be (reshoots by different directors is a persistent rumour), missing scenes from trailers, and also the fact that it's only 92 minutes lending credence to the idea that an entire act's worth of material is missing from somewhere... Oh I don't know.
However, the most memorable episode of my entire visit was... this. I missed the first twenty or so seconds of it, so just sat down thinking this was a car becoming a bigger car... But no. No. No no no no no. If you've ever wondered where Transformers come from, well, this isn't a good start. The advert left me feeling strange, a state of total unease that doubtless coloured my interpretation of the film... Or something. But seriously guys... *shudder*
However, the most memorable episode of my entire visit was... this. I missed the first twenty or so seconds of it, so just sat down thinking this was a car becoming a bigger car... But no. No. No no no no no. If you've ever wondered where Transformers come from, well, this isn't a good start. The advert left me feeling strange, a state of total unease that doubtless coloured my interpretation of the film... Or something. But seriously guys... *shudder*
