Talkie Tuesday: Fantastic Four

"It's pretty fantastic."

Hello everyone!

It's movie time once again, and tonight I'm going to talk about a movie that I didn't love nor did I hate, but I was entertained enough by it that I watched it through to the end and didn't want to fall asleep. 

The movie I'm talking about is Fantastic Four, although not the older versions with Ioan Gruffud and Jessica Alba (which, I will admit, I watched and actually really enjoyed back in the day), but the new, remade thing with Miles Teller and Kate Mara in the titular characters of Reed and Sue, although we do see a number of other actors make their way across the screen.

I will admit that I wanted to see what they'd done with the remake, because if I remember right the first two movies were okay-ish, but didn't bring much to the table for a third, so this is supposed to be a revival of sorts, right?

I do think there's talk of a sequel, and it did a good enough job to merit it, I suppose.

So, as I said, this movie is a remake of the older versions, and I must say that I think I liked the older one better for the actors, but then again I have a soft spot for Ioan Gruffud and I don't think I could outgrow that one even if I tried. He may have been an idiot in San Andreas, but he was great as Reed back in the day! And Lancelot, let's not forget Lancelot.

Ahem.

The story goes as follows: we encounter a young Reed in class telling his teacher he's building a teleporting device that could transport people from one point to the other, but of course no one believes him. Befriending a schoolmate named Ben, they actually make a good start at this machine and continue with their friendship and their work up to university years when Reed is scouted by a professor and his adopted daughter, Sue, who then offer Reed a scholarship and a chance to work for them.

There, he meets other like-minded young people, including Sue's brother and Victor Van Doom, together wit whom he then works on a bigger version of the transporter machine, eventually succeeding. But at that point, the government wants to step in so that they can send their own people through, and the scientists say screw it, we're going first.

Calling Ben, Reed takes the guys over to the other side - American flag included - but things go wrong when they encounter this crater of liquid which eventually swallows Victor and contaminates the lot of them, Sue included after they come back to this side.

Reed wakes up, not knowing where he is, and is stretched like rubber, but he manages to escape and becomes a fugitive, while the other three who wwere affected become military assets and train their abilities. Eventually, Reed is caught and brought back in to work on another version of the machine, and there's hostility between the group as they feel he has abandoned them (when he was only off to try and figure out what to do).

Reed finishes the machine, and on World Zero, as they call it, they find Victor, who has survived, but gone to the other side, because he proceeds to kill everyone upon his return to Earth and then goes back to wipe out the planet, as well (namely, ours, not his). The four go after him because, obviously he can't do that. Their only problem is that they don't really work together at first, which results in almost destruction until they cooperate - and bam! Bye-bye Victor.

As the movie finishes, the four demand imunity from the government and their own research facility, where they can work and then save lives if need be. Out of all of them, Ben comes up with the best name for the lot: Fantastic Four.

And that's a wrap!

It was an easy moving, nothing too complicated, nothing too out of the ordinary, the four are introduced, younger this time than in the original since they're all college students, their relationships are established and their place in the world is set. It wasn't too memorable though so I'm waiting for a second movie before I proclaim this a success or a failure.

xx

*images and video not mine