Fant4stic

Sebastian Socorro
Editor-in-Chief

As opposed to its 2005 counterpart, Fantastic 4 (2015) doesn’t have pre-MCU cheesiness to save it. This movie was yet another reboot of the Fantastic 4 film brand to retain the license, and its bizarre marketing was responsible for the name it’s better known as. In all advertisements and theater posters, it looked to be titled Fant4stic, and therein was born a joke that is still repeated today.

In an effort to make the heroes of the movie cooler and more relatable for today’s standards, this movie made even more changes to the original lore than Fantastic 4 (2005) did. Even the outlandish explanation of how they got their powers (through cosmic rays during an experiment in space) was present in Fantastic 4 (2005) but thrown out the window in Fant4stic. Instead they get their powers after they go an unsanctioned trip to a parallel dimension. Afterward, the film takes an incredibly jarring one-year timeskip, stumbles trying to explain everything that happened during that year (everyone but Reed Richards becomes a military assets and The Thing becomes a weapon of mass destruction for the government, no really), then throws an incredibly bland climax to finish the movie

To summarize, while Fantastic 4 (2005) may have been enjoyable for its cheese, Fant4stic is simply bland, uninspired, and trying way too hard to turn its comic book characters into relatable antiheroes. The actors involved in this movie are undoubtedly talented, but nothing can save the tragedy that is the script.

Originally Published on www.bandersnatch.ca Vol.50 Issue 02 on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020