Back in 2005 when I was younger and more naïve, I was sitting in a movie theater munching on popcorn and enjoying a pretty terrible Fantastic Four movie by FOX. It had some hilarious scenes from Chris Evans and a half-naked Jessica Alba in it, as well as an almost perfect casting choice of Michael Chiklis as The Thing. Those were the days! Well now that it is ten years later and we look back at that movie and laugh thinking… I wish Fox had stopped with the first attempt. For anyone who follows me or my work it won’t come as a surprise that I am not a supporter of the new Fantastic Four reboot. If this is the first thing you’ve read by me… now you know! I haven’t been happy about this film since the cast was announced, and before you start calling me a racist thinking it’s just me not liking Michael B Jordan as Torch, know that I didn’t like any of the casting choices. FOX picked young popular actors for their cast and are aiming at making it a grounded more realistic Fantastic Four, and from what I can tell, they’re managing just that. The trailer for the new movie was released today (Jan. 27th) and I came away from it feeling a few different things.
First thing I will say is that the trailer was well done for the most part. It was vague, it barely showed anything that I’ll remember tomorrow, and had a narrator whose voice is second only to Morgan Freeman. The trailer looked real and grounded, a bit like the first trailer for J.J. Abrams first Star Trek film. Here is the thing, if this trailer wasn’t for a Fantastic Four movie, I’d be like wow this movie doesn’t look that bad. But I had to keep reminding myself that this was supposed to be for Fantastic Four, one of the “sci-fi-est “, most ungrounded, dimension traveling superhero family comics ever written. So while this trailer sure does make it look grounded (besides the weird alien abduction beam at the end), that isn’t what Fantastic Four should be.
But this totally is…
The trailer starts off showing us our teen to early twenties (Kate Mara is 31) heroes working on cars, playing baseball, building science experiments, etc. We all know who’s who by now, so FOX doesn’t shove it down our throats. The narrator explains how humans have an immeasurable desire to discover, invent and build, which automatically pulled me out of the grounded reality they’re aiming for by thinking “tell that to NASA”! In this world people care about science, which is awesome, but why they are allowing young people to go into space instead of trained-for-years post-Air Force astronauts? Who the hell knows?! So we see our heroes get in the pods that will take them up into space where they’ll get hit by the waves of radiation that give them their powers. Same as the first movie and comics sure.
These kids and the computer hacker are all strapped in!
We get to see 1 second clips of the heroes using their powers, Thing looks to be breaking out of his “egg” of rock, Torch flames on at a distance, we see a giant force field assumed to be from Invisible Woman, and a half second clip of maybe Mr. Fantastic’s arm stretching off screen. That’s cool sure, very, very vague scenes are okay at this point in the game. My biggest issue (again something that ruined the first two attempts of a Fantastic Four movie for me) was that we got to hear a clip of Doom speaking… nope no accent folks. Chert poberi! Why can’t we trust the American audience with a 
Doom, especially one that is supposed to be from actual Russia instead of Latveria? Is it hard to imagine the audience understanding a Russian with a Russian accent? Do we only understand American accents now? I know that in more recent cartoons they’ve switched to American as well, but why can’t we get a believable voice for Dr. Doom? I always read Doom having a Western European accent, like I’m sure a lot of you have… Am I wrong to assume he’d speak differently? I mean the end title is Fant4stic… if we can read that as a real word, we can understand a Russian accent. I just wanted a cool Doom.
I don’t want to be down on this movie. As a comic book lover, and super hero film fanatic I really want to like this film, but this trailer didn’t do it for me. It did however give me a picture of what FOX is aiming for with this film, so maybe over the next few months my expectations will be lowered to match what this trailer showed us, in turn giving me a more positive outlook towards the film. I really wish this movie wasn’t based on anything. I wish FOX would have created a new group of heroes, with similar powers and just wowed us with somewhat original thinking. I’ve still got until probably Christmas before I see this movie on Blu-Ray, so that’s a long time left for FOX to change my mind about this film… They’re going to need it, because as it stands I don’t care enough about this reboot to give it money in theaters, in turn making them think it was a success. They wanted younger actors to team up with the hot new young X-men they’ve been casting, so we know they’re looking at a long road before even trying to land a good Fantastic Four stand alone film. I can’t wait till FOX gives up and gives the rights back to Marvel. The original superpower family need to be with the rest of the superheroes… Marvel is their real family.
More opinions from Geeks With Wives:
“I never thought the Fantastic Four needed to be dark and gritty. You can definitely see the Cronenberg influence but I also imaged the Fantastic Four as a fun light hearted adventure about family. Like Swiss Family Robinson with super powers. Maybe this move will surprise us all but after this first trailer I am intrigued but not extremely excited.
I do hope that if this is inspired but Ultimate Fantastic Four Reed Richards becomes the villain in the sequels that maybe something amazing.
If Annihilus shows up I will instantly love this movie” – Casey Walsh, Editor in Chief“Just saw the trailer. That is not The Fantastic Four that is just another crappy Sci Fi flick. Now you have had two chances of making a great movie with a great comic team. Fox you blew it. Now sell it back to Marvel!” Chris Pirri, Writer
“A dramatic trailer for what is likely to be a less than dramatic movie, I’ll pass!” – Tommy Oxford, Writer
“So vague, and Thing be nekkid!.. I’ll rip it apart…oh oh can I? Or would you like someone slightly more forgiving to do it?” – Piper Steed, Writer
“So if Matthew McConaughey had done the voice over i would have thought this was going to be an Interstellar 2 movie trailer” – Stephen Herron, Cosplay Expert & Writer
Let me know in the comments below what you thought about the trailer!