Fantastic Four

Released:  August 7^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  Twentieth Century Fox

Starring:  Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey

Directed by:  Josh Trank

Written by:  Simon Kinberg, Jeremy Slater, Josh Trank

Personal Bias Alert:  haven’t seen any previous Fantastic Four movies, likes the cast

4 of 10

            It’s not often that this big of a film completely lacks a purpose.  Many things have to go wrong to get such a product (a wobbly script, a director failing to impart his vision, misguided studio intervention, etc.), and it’s bold of Fox to so brazenly try to pass Fantastic Four as a decent movie.  Then again, a big-budget superhero flick can’t be buried with a pushed release date and minimal marketing like Sony Pictures did with Aloha, this year’s other conglomeration of scenes that was allegedly a movie.  Of course, Fantastic Four isn’t as big of a mess as Aloha; the individual scenes do make sense, they just never really go anywhere.

            The truly frustrating thing about this film is how great we all hoped it would be.  The cast for the superheroes and villain is a delectable slate of youngish talent that’ve had integral parts in many massively successful film and television projects, and the writer/director (who’s younger than some of his cast) was coming off a small-budget flick that impressed critics and viewers alike.  But alas, young talent can be unstable, and while the cast holds up their end, Josh Trank dropped the ball in nearly every way.  There’s reports of poor behavior and squabbles with the studio, but the finished product shows flaws that can be traced directly back to his pre-production decisions.

            The storyline that Trank seemed to be going for is depressingly familiar, almost an exact rehash of what he did in Chronicle.  Some young people discover their power (here, it’s science), their powers build until they become abusive and start harming themselves and others, then one of them becomes a bad guy that must be stopped by the rest of the group.  The fun that set apart Chronicle, though, was the comradery between the boys and a well-plotted descent that drew from each character’s background.  Trank, who didn’t write the actual screenplay for Chronicle, fails to bring this plotting and character development to Fantastic Four, leaving us with a bigger but lesser film.

            What Trank does manage to get right, at least for a while, is the young characters’ naive enthusiasm.  To start Fantastic Four, the brilliant team works together to design and build an interdimensional teleporter.  There’s joy in these scenes, a sense of bonding, and even if this section does drags on too long and is hampered by poor dialogue, it’s still the section where the cast and the film shines the brightest.  Eventually, the group actually gets to the other planet, and that’s when the movie loses what little it had going for it.  It succumbs to Franklin Storm’s (Reg E. Cathy) moralistic grandstanding, and any sense of character, fun, or even narrative purpose is lost.  In fact, Cathy is so shrill in his terribly written speeches that his eventual fate made me cheer instead of sniffle, and that level of unintentional hatred is glaring evidence of just how bad this movie becomes.

            But hey, it’s a superhero movie, so at least there will be dizzying CGI action that sustains its clunky plot, right?  No, Trank doesn’t even give us that.  There’s only one small, poorly conceived, flabergastingly simple ‘battle’ in Fantastic Four, the failure of which seems to stem from Trank being unable to grasp the character’s new, superhuman powers.  Granted, several of the powers in this group are quite silly (one’s stretchy and another is literally a rock), but not only does Trank fail to come up with an interesting way to use these powers in a battle, he doesn’t even come up with a way to shoot them so that they look cool.  The Human Torch and Invisible Woman become distorted when they use their powers, losing all sense of facial and bodily expression.  They are reduced to blobs moving around onscreen, which Trank failed to realize and hence tried to sell a dramatic moment between Invisible Woman and Dr. Doom (whose stiff design is equally hampering) that ends up as one of the most emotionally inert moments on film in 2015.  As for everyone else, stretchy Mr. Fantastic just looks silly, and The Thing is never more than a side thought in the entire film.  Getting the superheroes right is key to any superhero flick, making Fantastic Four’s belly flop in this area one of its most glaring failures.

            All this being said, Fantastic Four isn’t quite as bad as everyone is saying it is.  It’s certainly not good, but its plot is coherent and the actors occasionally find some fun in the script.  My suggestion?  Keep the actors, but get a team that will make the script and visuals match their abilities.  Maybe then we’ll get a good Fantastic Four movie.

Other Notes (Ridiculous Superhero Version):

Ø  Why did Invisible Woman struggle so much with her powers while at the facility but seem to have incredible control once they started fighting?

Ø  Why did Dr. Doom run away from the world in the first place?  Is he just a jerk?

Ø  Where did the cloth for Dr. Doom’s hood thing come from?

Ø  Why is The Thing so powerful?  Rocks aren’t actually indestructible.

Other Notes (Regular Version):

Ø  Why did the boys not invite Sue when they went to the other dimension?  She helped build the teleporter too!

Ø  Like all good scientists, they immediately touched the thing they’ve never seen before.

Ø  Funny that this movie was made so that a company (Fox) could keep the rights to Fantastic Four when the movie rails against corporate meddling.

Ø  Boy was that ending line (or lack of line) gratingly obvious.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Released:  July 11th, 2014

Rated:  PG-13

Studio:  20^th Century Fox

Staring: Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Directed by:  Matt Reeves 

Written by:  Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver

Personal Bias Alert:  grew up on original series, not a fan of CGI-fests

8.2 of 10

            All hail the summer movie season of 2014.  It’s not often we get treated to this many great blockbusters, and I’m far from the first one to point this out.  Still, there’s been a slew of thrilling, well-written, big-budget films that are respectful of their audience, which is something that is, sadly, not often produced.  “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” joins this year’s standouts and will be touted not only as an example of this summer’s greatness, but also as a high point in an eight-film franchise.

            “Dawn” focuses on Caesar (Andy Serkis), the super smart ape leader with a healthy respect for humanity’s diametric nature, and his struggles to lead his group through their early encounters with a decimated human civilization.  The plot follows a familiar pattern, drawing the basics from 1973’s “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” and structuring it as a straightforward blockbuster.  That’s never detrimental, though.  The story of civilization clashes are as old as storytelling itself, and the entertaining plot finds a heart in Caesar’s attempts to save all those worth saving.

            Serkis, as always, delivers a grand performance while wearing the motion-capture suit, and he’s found an equal in Toby Kebbell, who plays a mutilated former laboratory monkey named Koba.  They’re the most complex characters in the film, and their tumultuous relationship is the driving force thematically.  A misstep by either, or by the digital effects team who rendered their performances, would have spelled disaster.  Instead, we get a timeless tale of deeply scarred individuals who will never see eye to eye.

            The other characters, both human and ape, don’t fare as well.  Malcom (Jason Clarke), a peacekeeping human who works closely with Caesar, and Caesar’s son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) are filled out enough to serve their pieces of the story while the rest of the characters walk around with one or two vague traits.  The cast is filled with quality actors, and their talent is largely able to smooth over this flaw.  Only the most egregiously one-note character, an ape-hating jerk named Carver (Kirk Acevedo), actually took me out of the film.

            Weta Digital continues to advance motion-capture technology and here shows an astounding leap forward from their work three years ago on “Dawn’s” predecessor.  No matter how realistically rendered, I had never seen a motion-capture creature that appeared to exist in the same world as its flesh and blood counterparts.  They always seemed somewhat removed, as if something in their texture revealed the algorithms that gave them life.  Watching “Dawn,” for the first time, I was convinced that these creatures actually existed.  They were as present in the scenes as the humans, which removed what would have been a constant reminder that I was watching a film.  That’s what makes this such a grand achievement.  It pushes what is possible in reality-based storytelling further than ever before.

            The original “Planet of the Apes” film series was highly allegorical, wearing its culturally significant commentary on racism and nuclear fears on its sleeve.  The rebooted series is much less interested in modern social commentary, preferring to deliver highly entertaining pieces centered on timeless ideas.  By comparison, the newer series might seem less important than its originator, but that comparison is unfair.  Each series has succeeded at its respective goals, and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” has earned its place in this revered science fiction franchise.

            Other Notes:

Ø  The beginning falls prey to some clunky plot points.

Ø  When Koba rode out through the flames, the lines from Caesar’s speech in “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” ran through my head.

Ø  I’m okay with James Franco being gone, but could we at least bring back Frida Pinto?  And maybe give her something to do?

Ø  You can’t have a line like “ape not kill ape” scrawled across a wall and not have me think of “Animal Farm.”