Superhero flick a 鈥楩antastic鈥 flop
Print Edition
I’LL admit it. About an hour into “Fantastic Four,” the inexplicably plodding and dreary new attempt to adapt the beloved Marvel story, I started thinking about Ethan Hunt from “Mission: Impossible.”
Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, as I watched these fake young superheroes battle unconvincingly on a fake-looking planet for a reason nobody seemed to care much about anyway, to see Ethan swoop in — a real middle-aged guy hanging off a real plane by his bare knuckles, with a clear and immediate purpose and a real, throbbing pulse?
OK, enough wistfulness. “Fantastic Four,” directed by Josh Trank, deserves to be judged on its own merits. So here goes: It’s not wholesale terrible — just depressingly mediocre, and at a certain point you sort of start wishing it was definitively terrible, because that would at least make it more entertaining or give it a certain strange raison d’etre.
Aside from the known story — in a few words, science-loving humans experience a cosmic accident while exploring inter-dimensional travel and emerge with formidable superpowers — we have some talented actors on hand. They include the usually very compelling Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan, along with Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Reg E. Cathey and an expertly creepy Tim Blake Nelson.
It all begins promisingly, with a setup that introduces Reed Richards and Ben Grimm as fifth-graders on Long Island. Reed is a bespectacled science nerd; he tells his class his life goal is “to be the first person in human history to teleport myself.” The unimpressed teacher directs Reed to come back with a more realistic goal.
Years later, Reed (now Teller) is back with his invention at the high school science fair. Here, he and Ben meet Dr Franklin Storm (Cathey) and daughter Sue (Mara), who realize what Reed has — a better teleporter than their own. Storm gives Reed a scholarship at his science institute to pursue his dream.
Eventually, the full-blown teleporter is ready. One night, the youngsters get tipsy and decide to take a test spin.
Oops! They end up on Planet Zero and havoc ensues.
This isn’t the first attempt to make this story into a profitable franchise. Previous efforts failed. The thought here must have been to re-energize things with a young and appealing cast. But these actors are not well used, and their charisma remains untapped. The result? Something much less than fantastic.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 娌狪CP璇侊細娌狪CP澶05050403鍙-1
- |
- 浜掕仈缃戞柊闂讳俊鎭湇鍔¤鍙瘉锛31120180004
- |
- 缃戠粶瑙嗗惉璁稿彲璇侊細0909346
- |
- 骞挎挱鐢佃鑺傜洰鍒朵綔璁稿彲璇侊細娌瓧绗354鍙
- |
- 澧炲肩數淇′笟鍔＄粡钀ヨ鍙瘉锛氭勃B2-20120012
Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
