I wasn't expecting to enjoy this movie at all. I was a huge skeptic when the first trailer came out thinking it would be another FF movie chock full of cheesy one-liners and cartoony humor. In that respect, I was way off. Josh Trank's Fantastic Four is grounded in relative realism, showing what would likely happen if people did in fact crack inter-dimensional travel and brought back superpowers. It has a darker tone than the other movies and is a wildly different experience because of it. The characters are more relatable, their situations are more believable, and for a good part of the movie, it actually feels like you're watching the true Fantastic Four origin story unfold.
I can't blame Trank for the discrepancies I have with the movie because he is not at fault. Apparently the producers demanded reshoots which rear their ugly head about 20 minutes from the end. It turns from this relatively dark, stylish superhero drama to an overblown one-liner infested CGI-fest. Mind you, I was still pulling for the heroes the entire time, but the moments following, preceding and including the final confrontation are so forcefully rushed and haphazardly put together it completely disconnects you from what the first hour of the movie set-up. The climax is generic and lackluster, and the believable shaky chemistry the characters shared in the beginning of the movie becomes incredibly forced and awkward. The shift is so drastic it's as if they Frankenstein'd two separate movies together, making for one extremely disjointed watching experience.
Miles Teller and the rest of the cast have the benefit of being immensely likable. They worked well together and had palpable chemistry for a good chunk of the movie. Even Doom was fine. Once I got past the fact that it wasn't the comic book's adaptation of "Doctor Doom" and took him at face value as a sci-fi villain, I thought he worked wonders and actually posed a genuine threat to humanity. The CGI as a whole is great - a few moments will leave you scratching your head as in "was that really necessary?" but for the most part, the alternate dimension looks fantastic and the few fight scenes there are (literally only two or three) are executed well.
Again, these are simply hints of what the movie could've been. It's obvious Trank had a vision with this world, and it's a damn shame that we won't be able to see it in full effect. What we're left with is a promising set-up and a complete mess of a third act with potential bleeding out right up until the final frames. Fantastic Four is more realistic and immersive than the other two adaptations, but unfortunately not as fun as either. What we're left with is an exercise in "what could have been" and another superhero movie with promising aspects that simply did not click.
