Sadly, it's been talked about for all the wrong reasons. First up, people were talking about the lack of promotion. Usually, with superhero films, we start getting teases a full year before release. The preview the costume, they showcase the sets, do everything to show you how faithful they're being to the comics. But for this...nothing. Just blurry spy photos until this teaser came out.
Then there was the report that Dr. Doom, one of the most iconic supervillains in comics, had been reduced to an angry, anti-social blogger with the online handle "Doom." In fact, some fear the comics are being ignored altogether as Kate Mara, who's playing Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, revealed in an interview that she was told not to read the comics to research her character as they are "doing something never done in the comics."
And let's not get into the criticism of the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch. What's so wrong with the Human Torch being a black guy?
Director Josh Trank, fresh off his debut film Chronicle, has said that in his Fantastic Four, he's going for a David Cronenberg body horror kind of feel, citing The Fly and Scanners as his biggest influences on the film. I dunno...much like Superman and the resulting Man of Steel, Fantastic Four is a property I never envisioned going dark and gritty. Also, much like the recent Spider-Man reboot, they've decided to draw their primary inspiration from the Ultimate Universe, meaning now the FF get their powers from a teleportation accident, and not being bombarded with cosmic rays, so that makes references to The Fly rather apt.
Rounding out the cast, we've got Miles Teller as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Toby Kebbell as Victor Domashev/Doom, and Tim Blake Nelson as Harvey Elder, who'll hopefully become the Mole Man in the sequel.
So...here's our first glimpse.
Is it just me, or are they really trying to make it look like Interstellar? The fact that they are taking more of a hard sci-fi stance than the usual superhero fare looks interesting, but it doesn't really look or feel like Fantastic Four. The most FF looking this is the bit at the end with our heroes looking at a mysterious shimmering shaft of light. Given all the negative stuff I'd been reading about this film, the trailer definitely comes across as...not as expected.
Fantastic Four hits theatres on August 7.
1 comment:
I am trying my very best not to be negative about this... although it is proving to be difficult. I have never been a huge fan of the Fantastic Four so I suppose allowing the director to take a little artistic licence with the team is fine. It certainly won't be sacrilege, like it might be if they were to mess around with say... the X-men or something... The trailer left a LOT to be desired... not much in the way of motivation (although I agree with you 100 percent on the connection to Interstellar... definite vibe there.) I will go see this one... but the bar is set pretty low. And in the end... perhaps that is what will leave me pleasantly surprised.
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