Friday, 29 March 2024

Superhero thing not so 'Fantastic Four' in the reboot

FANTASTIC FOUR (Rated PG-13)

Why? That’s the immediate question which comes to mind about the unnecessary reboot of “Fantastic Four,” starring four relative unknowns (except, perhaps, for Miles Teller) in the origin story of how the Marvel Comics superheroes came to possess their unique talents.

This “Fantastic Four,” as opposed, I think, to the two previous installments, spends more time delving into the childhood of Reed Richards, the whiz kid who exerts himself to building a teleportation machine for intergalactic travel, enlisting the help of his classmate Ben Grimm.

The young inventor Reed designs a unique matter transportation device that is cleverly cobbled together from parts scavenged from the salvage yard operated by Ben’s family.

Trial and error of endless experimentation often results in knocking out the power grid throughout the Oyster Bay, Long Island community. But the seventh grade scientist, a complete techno geek, is persistent in his belief that he can finesse his invention.

Years later, at the high school science fair, Miles Teller’s Reed Richards, assisted by Jamie Bell’s Ben Grimm, still fails to impress his dubious science teacher, but gains notice from Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey), dean of the Baxter Institute, a school and think tank.

Dr. Storm invites the young visionary to be a part of his elite group of brilliant students at Baxter Institute, an educational center dedicated to incubating the best new ideas from high school and college students.

Fortunately, the dean of the Baxter Institute spots gifted potential where lesser beings only see Reed’s prototype experiments to be nothing more than a menace to school property and society in general.

Boarding at the Manhattan-based research center, Reed becomes acquainted with Dr. Storm’s children. Sue Storm (Kate Mara), the adopted daughter, is a brilliant scientist and mathematician, and she figures prominently in the quartet of superheroes.

Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) is first seen street racing in his fast car, looking like he may be auditioning for a role in the next “Fast and Furious” film. Like Vin Diesel and his cohorts, Johnny is a rebel who chafes under authority and the strict discipline of his father.

The Baxter program allows Reed to develop a space shuttle that runs on the breakthrough technology he first pioneered in his parents’ garage. Success is achieved when the shuttle transports a monkey to Planet Zero and back without evidence of any ill effects.

One night, Reed decides to test his device on human beings, so he enlists his pal Ben and Dr. Storm’s son Johnny. Also joining the expedition is fellow Baxter student Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell), soon to become, no surprise to anyone, the ultimate villain.

Brilliant but temperamental, Victor is a computer programmer and hacker lured back to the Institute by Dr. Storm, as Victor had been previously working on the technology which Reed finalized with the Quantum Gate device.

Again, not surprisingly, the amateur astronauts’ mission goes horribly awry, leading to an explosion upon re-entry. Reed, Johnny and Ben are seriously injured, while Victor goes missing while walking around on the surface of another dimension that resembles a primordial Earth, simmering like residue of a volcanic eruption.

Sue, who stayed behind in the lab, is also seriously hurt when the space shuttle returns to its platform. Tim Blake Nelson’s Dr. Allen, the gum-chewing, unscrupulous Baxter board chairman, is only too quick to throw the quartet of young scientists under the bus.

As a result, the government quickly relocates the four young people to a top secret facility known as Area 57, where they are contained and probed like the alien beings they are suspected of having become.

Soon, the quartet exhibits unique physical conditions that provide them with incredible abilities. Reed can stretch his limbs into extraordinary shapes. Johnny can set himself on fire, becoming known as the Human Torch.

Sue can render herself invisible and create powerful force fields. Unlike the others who can go back to their original human condition, Ben is transformed into a permanent hulking rock creature known as The Thing, which becomes an incredibly destructive military weapon.

When Victor von Doom resurfaces, he ushers in the dawn of a new Armageddon because his previous bad temperament has metastasized into full-blown hatred for Planet Earth and civilization.

The inevitable confrontation on the forbidden lava-encrusted planet between Doom and the Fantastic Four arrives at a predictable conclusion, but with only a modicum of exciting action worthy of a superhero franchise.

The best thing going for “Fantastic Four” is that it clocks in at less than two hours, and adding to regret
when extra scenes don’t materialize, be warned that the end credits seem to run forever.

Beyond the hard core fan base for the Marvel Comics-to-big screen efforts, reasons to sit through “Fantastic Four” are difficult to formulate into a cohesive argument.

One senses that, in general, the superhero cinematic universe is not well-served by this entry.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

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