It's 6 o'clock in the morning, I haven't slept yet. But this damn move got me so angry I had to write this down. Either that or I have to continuing throwing a fit at my wife, and she is not having it.
I was warned away from watching the remake of Fantastic Four from a friend of mine whose opinion I fully planned on following. I love my sci fi, but because bro said it sucked, I didn't even bother with it. Turn to today and the wife wants to watch this movie, and I get the worse end of a bargain where I agree to watch it with her. I regret this decision, and this just goes to show why you shouldn't negotiate with terrorists.
What pissed me off about Fantastic Four is not that it's a bad movie. To be clear, it is a bad movie. Within the first 30 minutes, after my wife wheeling and dealing to get me to watch this damn movie, she wanted to turn it off and watch something else. And Mrs. Alone In The Dark is not a movie snob. She will watch some terrible movies, and enjoy them. She will embarrassedly ask me to get crappy movies for her, even though she knows they will suck. She couldn't take Fantastic Four even at the expense of ending up at the bad end of our deal (and any of you that are married, know that is a big deal). I refused her request though, and forced us through the rest of the movie. I am definitely the type of guy to cut off my nose to spite my face, so we are going to burn together baby.
But just being a bad movie is acceptable. Sometimes even commendable. But Fantastic Four couldn't even do that. This damn movie had some of the worst casting I've ever seen. Really? The asshole from Divergent is supposed to make me believe he is a boy genius? Kate Mara is beautiful and all, but no one is buying that she is a goddamn teenager. Even by Hollywood standards she doesn't look a day under 30. Some people are going to take that like I care that she looks over 30. If she was playing a grown woman I would totally love to have her in the movie, she's been great in everything I've seen her in. The only reason I care is because her character is a damn teenager. They put an $18 wig on this broad and called her an 18 year old. Did the producer start out as a cheap "teen" porno director? Having her play teenaged Sue Storm is like having Chris Pratt get a tan and play Ray Charles. I don't care if you're a enjoyable actor, that is still a terrible part to play.
Now we all know movie cliches. This one tried to avoid them... by going meta about them. At one point Important Old Dude is obviously about to give them an encouraging speech. We all know it's coming like the most telegraphed punch in the world. Instead of doing something different so as to not fall in that cliche, the movie instead has the other characters chanting that IOD is going to do the speech. Instead of just going through the cliche and calling it a day, they thought it'd look better if they made sure we knew they did it on purpose. It did not work well. This trope can be found in some measure in about all of the dialog throughout the movie.
Whatever, though. It's a bad movie. Let it be bad. BUT THEN stuff happens and they get their powers. Out of the blue the movie goes with a somewhat original idea. Instead of portraying the getting of supernatural powers as a couple moments of silly awkwardness then outright joy, the movie actually goes through showing this ruining their loves for a significant amount of time. The pain and confusion of them as they try and just survive. Slow progress toward mastering their powers. Especially sweet was Reid's rightful guilt over what happened. Most times movies will make the heroes either not to blame, or if they are to blame and feeling guilty, surprise! Sudden revelation shows that it wasn't the hero's fault after all! That doesn't happen here. It is Reid's fault. He should feel like shit. He risked his friends' lives (especially Ben who couldn't have known what the risks were) and got them permanently injured and disfigured. The bad guys didn't do it to them. Reid did. These blows weren't pulled or even softened. We just got to see the destruction they caused.
Afterwards, the movie had some interesting things, but mostly reverted to the idioticness of the beginning. But that short bit in the middle was like seeing for a moment what potential the entire movie had. It's like looking at an old, beat up car and opening the door or trunk and seeing one part of the paint and body that have been protected from time. You see the paint looking like it did when it was new and no damage and you imagine what that old car would look like with that paint all over. Seeing that little bit of actual deep, emotional dialog in the middle of that garbage movie just made the entire thing worse than it was before. You had a good story! You had a great situation! And you ruined it and made one of the worst movies I have seen this decade. Shame on you.
