Review: Fantastic Four reboot a half-cooked superhero movie

REVIEW: It’s been slammed the world over for its lack of action and bad acting. So is the new Fantastic Four really that bad? Leigh Paatsch gives his verdict.

Fantastic Four (M)

Director : Josh Trank (Chronicle)

Starring : Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey.

Rating : **

Fantastically Four-lorn

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The new Fantastic Four keeps the fantastic stuff very well hidden indeed.

As for the quartet of young actors taking over this well-worn Marvel Comics commodity from its previous screen guise — remember those two cheesy F4 movies last decade with Jessica Alba and a pre-Captain America Chris Evans? — let’s just say the cast never had a hope of jump-starting the stalled re-origin story told here.

Lacklustre duo ... Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan in Fantastic Four.

Seriously, Fantastic Four just has to be the most long-faced, lead-booted and fun-free superhero movie since Man of Steel turned Superman to rust.

The (in)action begins with a young Reed Richards (Miles Teller) seeing out his high-school years with an unwanted reputation as a deluded science prodigy.

For reasons never quite explained — there are so many leaps of faith required in this movie they should include a springboard with the price of the ticket — Reed has almost perfected the ability to teleport matter between dimensions.

Too earnest ... Miles Teller plays a young Reed Richards.

This radical achievement is recognised only by a secret research think-tank known as the Baxter Institute, whose head honcho Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) recruits Reed into the fold.

It is here that Reed scores some long and lack-lustre get-to-know you time with Storm’s two tech-savvy kids.

Sue (Kate Mara) looks and frowns at computer screens a lot. Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) is a bit of a rebel, and loves cars so much he initially seems to have absentmindedly wandered off the set of the next Fast & Furious movie.

Then there is the ominously-surnamed resident hacker of the Baxter Institute bunch, Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell).

Fun free ... Kate Mara and Miles Teller in the rebooted Fantastic Four.

After getting a gizmo going that can send a chimp to and from an alternate universe, Reed persuades his childhood best friend Ben (Jamie Bell) to join he, Johnny and Victor for a joy ride into the great unknown. As for Sue, she’ll be watching on from a monitor on her desk.

By the time they return, some radioactive business has irreversibly transformed all aboard. Reed now has four very stretchy limbs. Johnny is a walking, talking human bonfire. Ben is a punchy pile of rocks. Victor is simply a glowing green streak of evil.

Big man ... Jamie Bell’s Thing was achieved through motion capture and CGI.

And Sue (even though she didn’t even take the trip) can now turn invisible at the drop of a hat, and also float here and there inside a force-field bubble.

Due to decidedly urgency-free plotting and performances that at best embody a grim, let’s-just-get-this-over-with professionalism, Fantastic Four chews up much of its screen time doing not very much at all.

Leaps of faith ... Fantastic Four, starring Michael B Jordan, lacks energy.

Having taken an eternity to walk us through a very basic set of characters and conflicts — a task most modern superhero movies can deal with inside the 30-minute mark — Fantastic Four proceeds to jog through a marginally exciting final act without ever breaking a sweat.

While it never quite becomes a bad film, it can never quite make you forget it is a botched film.