Childhood friends Reed Richards (Miles Teller) and Ben Grimm (Jaime Bell) have been working on a teleportation device for years and it draws the attention of Professor Franklin Storm.  Reed goes to work at the Baxter Building where there is a similar project to Reed’s that allows access to another universe.   He works with Franklin’s adopted daughter Sue Storm (Kate Mara), reckless son Johnny Storm (Michael B Jordon), and the jealous protégé Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) who started the Quantum Gate project in the first place.   A reckless journey to the alternate universe has resulted in giving them powers which they struggle to control and Reed wants to find a way to cure them, but the military has other plans for them.

 

The reboot of the FANTASTIC FOUR movie franchise holds promise where the first hour is a great origin story where the last 20 to 25 minutes is just a rushed mess as it shifts gears into a different type of movie all of a sudden.   Josh Trank tweeted he had a fantastic version of the movie a year ago and he quickly deleted the tweet.  The reboot has gone through some rewriting and reshoots.  One does wonder if there are too many cooks in the kitchen as you have a studio (20^th Century Fox) feeling the pressure to create a franchise that is as strong as the X-MEN series.  Lots of wonderful set-up and character development is shown off in the first two-thirds of the new FANTASTIC FOUR.  This new movie may not be as fun as the Tim Story movies, but it makes up for it with the drama before it all gets ditched for some misbegotten feeling we need to fit in superhero action pieces and hope it all comes out fine.  Then you have the Victor, Reed/ Sue love triangle that goes nowhere.  I would be interested to see what could be done in the sequel which we hopefully get to see (but box office performance has propelled rumors Fox may opt for a Deadpool sequel in the Fantastic Four 2 release date instead).  The movie has fantastic production design and the new Fantastic Four costumes are great as this movie is a mix of the original FANTASTIC FOUR and ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR.  I don’t get the flack over making Johnny Storm black since Michael B Jordon does get the brashness of the character right.  He is about the only character besides maybe Ben Grimm that you can change the race of the character since I always think Reed and Sue as white.  I just wish the last third of the movie was as great as the set up in the first hour, but instead we end up with a sometimes frustrating reboot which is basically a set-up for hopefully a better sequel if 20^th Century Fox opts to make another movie with these actors.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The making-of featurettes omit any of the trouble the production had and the trouble between Josh Trank and the studio (including the third act reshhots).  Instead we get behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with cast and crew on special effects and production design.  No deleted scenes (there are parts of 12 cut scenes you can glimpse in ethe trailers) or theatrical trailers to found on this disc either.

POWERING UP: SUPERPOWERS OF THE FANTASTIC FOUR (19:36)- a making-of featurette about the  character’s powers and how they created those powers with effects and through costume design (including showing original tests for the Human Torch flame effect by setting a stuntman on fire before going the digital fire route).

THE QUANTUM GATES (10:50)- all about the interdimensional travel of the movie and the quantum gate sets

PLANET ZERO (8:19)- creating the look of Planet Zero using green screen and CG

THE SCORE (5:03)- the music of the film

CONCEPT ART for THE QUANTUM GATES and PLANET ZERO

 

Previews for VICTOR FRANKSTEIN, HITMAN: AGENT 47, MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS, THE MARTIAN, SPECTRE, THE TRANSPORTER REFUELED, and Discover Digital HD

Code to download and stream a Digital HD copy of the movie

 

FINAL ANALYSIS: The FANTASTIC FOUR reboot had its share of problems resulting in a movie which ahs a climax that doesn’t work with the rest of what is a great new take on the characters.  The making-of extras are great, but this blu-ray doesn’t include the theatrical trailers or the deleted scenes cut from the movie. The special effects weren’t even completed on some scenes due to Fox cutting scenes and ordering reshoots when they weren’t happy with Josh Trank’s original cut.  I do think there is probably a more interesting making-of documentary on where the movie went wrong that I hope is made for a future edition of this reboot on blu-ray because the making-of featurettes only hint at how certain things were designed and made.

 

This review is ©12-28-2015 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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