I’ve not written a movie review for quite a while, haven’t I? Well, I’m getting my groove back on now. Be warned.

Anyway, earlier today, yours truly managed to catch the newest superhero movie, Fantastic 4, a reboot from the box-office failure that was the film series in 2005. This time, with a whole new cast of young talented Hollywood actors. Did this movie save the one Marvel Comic Universe franchise that doesn’t seem to catch a break?

Well…

This year’s Fantastic 4 decided to differentiate itself from the 2005 flop. Other than a whole new cast, it has a different storyline.

Reed Richards (Miles Teller) had an ambition – to be the first human being to be able to teleport, which he unfortunately said out loud during a school career day, becoming the laughing stock of the school. But only one person believed and stood by him, his best friend, Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell). Fast forward to a few years later, both of them did manage to teleport a toy plane during a school Science fair, which attracted Franklin (Reg E. Cathey) and Sue Storm (Kate Mara) who were conducting a similar experiment. Reed was then given a scholarship to work with Franklin in Baxter to create a teleporter. But Reed and Sue did need help, and in came long Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), who created a prototype but never managed to complete it, and Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), the playful son of Franklin. The experiment was a success and the management decided to work with NASA to assemble a group of astronauts for the first teleport of humans. Frustrated and feeling rebellious, Reed, Victor and Johnny decided to be the first group of people to be teleported to the parallel dimension they called “Planet Zero”, but not without Ben, who was the first person who believed in Reed. The four successfully managed to teleport to the parallel dimension but it quickly turned into a disaster when Victor was seemingly killed by an unknown energy source. The other three survivors managed to escape with the help of Sue, back on Earth, but not without each of them getting hurt as a result. That accident rendered each of them a superhuman ability beyond their control.

Some people might not like the new cast but I actually do like them. Some might not feel it right that Johnny Storm was black when he was supposed to be white but how many other characters have been white-washed, right? It does not make it right but as long as it does not take away from the story and it all still makes sense, I am going to go along with it. Okay, maybe because I am biased about Michael B. Jordan. He is such a good actor that I don’t really mind seeing him play Johnny Storm. The cast are all younger than the previous movie, giving it a fresh take and making it more appealing to the younger audience. Some people might not like that either but I actually did some research and it is not based on the original Fantastic 4 comic but the Ultimate Fantastic 4 comic series. When I did google a little on Ultimate Fantastic 4, it did match up and that made a lot of sense.

The effects are all fine and fantastic like any Marvel movie would be so there’s nothing short of that in this one. Do not be swayed by the normal voice of Jamie Bell as The Thing in the movie trailer. In the movie itself, he does have the voice of The Thing. Honestly, there are a few things in the trailer that did not seem to match with the movie effects-wise. The energy source, for example, was red in the trailer but it’s actually green in the movie ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Having said that, what I don’t like about the movie was the fact that it was draggy. Audience would come in expecting an action-packed superhero movie. But it was all drama in the beginning for possibly more than an hour until towards the end when it began to pick up. I did like the background story being laid out so you don’t miss things out but if they wanted to do that, they could at least make it slightly more entertaining like Iron Man, Captain America and X-Men, to name a few. Having the drama being drawn out for an hour with a few funny scenes (mostly due to Johnny Storm) can bore you out. It’s like watching Man of Steel (I’m actually cringing about it right now).

I’m a Marvel fan but Fantastic 4 seemed to be lagging behind the other successful Marvel movie franchises and it’s really sad because Fantastic 4 is possibly one of the best Marvel superhero team ever. The ending does made it seem there could be a sequel and if it does, I would really hope that it picked itself up and improved because the cast are just perfect and it’d be a waste to see this be another failure.

I give this movie 2.5 out of 5. It’s not as bad as Man of Steel (I am still pissed at myself for paying to watch that movie, okay!) but it’s not as good as I had hoped.

The trailer…