Fantastic 4 Review: 20th Century Fox Strikes Out On Third Swing

If Stan Lee hadn’t sold the licensing rights of characters like Spider-Man, the X-Men and Blade to other studios years back, Marvel may not have even existed to reap all of today’s benefits. But, as Marvel’s grip on the superhero film genre gets more established with each success, the failures of other studios to match even half of that become more glaring – especially 20th Century Fox. After two failed attempts at bringing the Fantastic 4 – an undeniably important part of the Marvel universe – to the big screen, Fox stepped back up to the plate to see if they could regroup and get at least one hit to get things moving. To reboot the franchise, they tapped Josh Trank, the director of Chronicle (2012). It was Trank’s job to take the dated superhero ensemble and bring them into the 21st century with new life. This goal was only met halfway. Fantastic 4 begins with the message that it’ll be a superhero film for today’s generation. In an opening flashback scene, we see Reed Richards (Miles Teller) giving a presentation to his elementary school class with a George W. Bush portrait hanging in the background. (This sounding familiar to any of my fellow millennials?) He then meets Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) and the two become best friends as they work on Richards’ teleportation device all the way through high school.

When they present a new and improved version of their device at a science fair, they draw the attention of Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his adopted daughter, Susan (K…