Anghus Houvouras on whether Fantastic Four is the worst blockbuster ever…
This summer has been rough on some of the most notable big budget franchises in Hollywood. Jurassic World and Furious 7 set new highs for their respective franchises. Avengers: Age of Ultron delivered a solid sequel that made mad bank. Mission: Impossible delivered the best film in the series to date.
Then you have Fantastic Four, which not only has been a major box office disappointment, but has become a cosmic lightning rod of controversy and vitriol among the vast majority of critics and the ticket buying public. The movie has become the punching bag du jour online pitting studio against filmmaker in an epic battle that if far more entertaining than anything featured in the film.
The problems of Fantastic Four are ridiculously easy to spot. It’s a franchise known for being sub-par since Roger Corman first filmed a ridiculously low-budget version in order to maintain the rights for the company that held them. 20th Century Fox got their hands on the famous comic book property and delivered two flaccid installments. Part of their contractual agreement with Marvel Studios is they have to continue to produce movies based on the properties they own the rights to (which also includes the X-Men). So here we are once again with another mediocre, prefabricated and utterly redundant take on the Fantastic Four.
But for all its flaws, is the Fantastic Four the worst blockbuster ever?
No. For me, it’s not even close.
Fantastic Four is not a great film, and it’s a powerfully salient example of a mismanaged franchise that serves no purpose. A painful reminder of the bottom line mentality of studio filmmaking and what happens when you enter into a project without a strong vision.
Hardly the worst blockbuster of all time, something that the pitchfork wielding, torch bearing mobs would have you believe. No. For all it’s flaws, Fantastic Four is still half a decent movie and half a complete disaster. Unlike something like Batman & Robin or Terminator: Genisys that is bereft of anything resembling a single decent frame.
The first forty minutes of Fantastic Four are actually quite engaging. It’s unoriginal and trite, but there’s enough talent in the cast to make you interested in where Josh Trank was taking things. Eventually we discover Trank is drunk at the wheel and wildly veers the thing off the road and into a poorly rendered CGI wasteland of plot point cribbed from every superhero origin story ever. And you could argue that 20th Century Fox forced Trank into his drunken state and slashed the brakes on the vehicle. But in those early scenes of the movie, there is promise.
Fantastic Four is a disappointment. In fact, I almost considered a ‘Most Disappointing’ column on the film. But disappointment implies high expectations. And after everything we’ve seen Fox do to the Fantastic Four, was anyone under the impression we were in for something great? I was hopeful for good, expecting average, and ended up seeing something sub-par. However, the bandwagon is in overdrive on this one unfairly flogging the Fantastic Four for being an epic disaster when it’s nothing more than a mildly disturbing car crash.
The internet loves to burn things in effigy, and there are those will tell you that Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four is worthy of hyperbolic human torching, but I’ll reserve my ‘Flame On’ powers for movies that deserve to be reduced to soot and ash. Fantastic Four isn’t one of them. Reserve your rage for the really insulting stuff like Terminator: Genisys, which is far more deserving of your ire.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker and the co-host of Across the Pondcast. Follow him on Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=sl-b0ShEsC8
Originally published August 23, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
