Fantastic Four (2015) review

In 2005 there was a Fantastic Four movie and it was Not Very Good. A decade later – with other Marvel Comic creations getting five star treatment in movies like Ant-Man and Avengers Assemble – the Four have been given a reboot. The bad news is that it’s so dull it makes the earlier version look like an Oscar-worthy classic.

Part of the problem here is that this Fantastic Four don’t get to do anything remotely exciting (and certainly not fantastic) until the last 20 minutes. The previous 80 minutes are a slow slog relating how they become The Thing (Bell), invisible girl Sue (Mara), human torch Johnny (Jordan), stretchy dude Reed (Teller) and baddie Victor Von Doom.

Basically, they invent inter-dimensional travel, try it out and come back all squished. See, it only took a sentence to explain what the movie takes over an hour to relate. Yawn. In between, we get furrowed brows as they glance at computer screens and blueprints, weld some stuff and try not to notice Mara’s changing hair (she wore a wig for re shoots filmed in a bid to improve the film, to cover up a change of hairstyle).

And when the climax finally comes, none of them notice Doom has no apparent evil motive when he decides to obliterate the earth. Or maybe he’d just seen the clunky, humourless script.

Kids who are Marvel fans will enjoy the few action sequences when they finally come but everyone else will just remember this as the first Marvel movie failure in years.