With all of its flaws, and let’s be honest… there are a few, the Fantastic Four is a good reimagining of Marvel’s first family’s origin. Is it my FF? No. Is it the worst thing ever? No, again. I like it. It’s so far out of the confines of the nerd box that it is a great science fiction story that doesn’t feel like it is weighed down by my years of continuity expectations.
It’s pretty amusing how spoiled fans seem to be the only voices we focus on. I used to be one of those voices, but you know what… it’s way more fun to allow creators to craft and tell you a tale than it is to run through life with preconceived notions of how things “ought to be”. Boohoo, somebody did something marginally original with a story that has been told and re-told for fifty (plus) years. Stop throwing a tantrum, and come up with something better. If Josh Trank gave everybody the same story that they all said they wanted, then he’d be lambasted for being unoriginal. My people have turned into nothing but spoiled brats, and it’s time we all grew up. It’s all made up shit… you know… for 👉E N T E R T A I N M E N T.
My favorite character is Johnny Storm in this one, and in the two before it actually. Michael B. Jordan knocked it out of the park, and while I loved him in the Black Panther, I would have loved for him to be the Human Torch after the Disney buy-out of Fox is finalized.
Was this movie a failure? Yep. It made $168,000,000 at the box-office, but spent $155,000,000 to produce. It still made a profit just not by today’s standards, or even 2015 standards. I still like it, and can appreciate it for what it is. It is a good Sci-Fi action story, and if the characters were different with new abilities, without the FF bagage, I think that it would have done a lot better.
Having said all of that, I cannot wait until the Disney / Fox merger happens, and we finally get a proper Fantastic Four. One that exists in the same universe as Spider-Man, the Avengers, and the X-Men. The eleven year old me, from 1981 (beginning of John Byrne’s run on the FF), is very excited for that eventuality.
Doctor Multiverse 