20th Century Fox's Fantastic Four Films

Hello everyone and welcome to

Movie Goodness where we examine life through cinema here on the KB Radio Network.

I am your host Kevin Reed and I hope that I am finding everybody doing just fine in the world wherever it may be that you are listening to this show.

We are on the doorstep of the third Marvel film to come out in 2020.

Yes,

we've had three.

Three

Marvel movies to come out this year.

And for better or worse,

the first two to come out this year,

Captain America,

Brave New World,

and Thunderbolts,

have been kind of divided.

You know,

Captain America didn't do anything,

at least for me.

It wasn't a big blockbuster at the movie theater either,

but it just did nothing for me.

That was

Probably one of the worst Marvel movies in my humble opinion and then we get to Thunderbolts which came out in May

I actually enjoyed Thunderbolts.

I thought Thunderbolts was

One of the better phase five films that they've put out since in game It's up there with Shang Chi and Deadpool and Robo ring But you know,

it didn't blow the doors off of the movie theater

But I thought it was really really good and it was a step in the right direction and

Marvel decided to release three films this year for a number of reasons.

I don't think this was the initial plan

Captain America was supposed to come out like two years ago the but with reshoots and rewrites and the writers strike and the actors strike and

Covid and all this other stuff really affected

their release plan since the pandemic,

to be quite honest with you.

And we're getting the Fantastic Four

First Steps,

which comes out July the 25th.

I am excited.

I tried not to be.

This was the first time in a long time that I actually fought hard to temper my expectations.

I think it worked because I'm not...

like over the moon excited as i would be before these films but uh i'm still highly anticipated you know i'm still zeroed in on this film because i am super super interested to see how they're

gonna do this version of the film how will this differ from the last fantastic four films that we've gotten uh

over the past 20 years from 20th Century Fox and

Will this be an upgrade that can you upgrade this franchise?

Can you do something different?

Well

Going by the trailer is going by the promotional material.

It definitely is gonna be different being as though this is set in this parallel universe,

I guess you could say

1960s retro futuristic type

deal you know is not in our universe and i put our in heavy quotations it because the rest of the marvel universe is it our universe technically but you get where i'm going with it it's it's

different and this is basically the era that fran fantastic four uh came to prominence you know in 1960 and their popularity was

at its peak i would say but i'm a big fan of the fantastic four as characters because as a comic book nerd growing up and still is who am i kidding i really was intrigued by this group because

this is the first family this is marvel's first family reed richards aka mr fantastic sue storm the invisible woman uh uh

Johnny Storm,

the Human Torch,

and Ben Grimm,

the Thing.

You know,

these are some interesting characters in how they interact with one another.

They are truly a family.

And that's what made this property such an interesting and exciting group.

You know,

because

Mr. Fantastic is this super genius,

the smartest man on Earth,

basically.

And he can scratch.

You know,

you have some storm who can turn invisible and make force fields.

The human torch is a fireball that flies,

you know.

And the thing is just that,

a thing.

It's just a giant rock monster who can go toe-to-toe with the Hulk for a little while until the Hulk gets angry and that's a wrap.

The fight's over.

But this is a...

film that Marvel

Studios really needs to knock out of the park.

This can't be a base hit.

It can't even be a double in baseball terms.

This has to be a home run for a number of reasons.

Number one,

Marvel is,

they are basically backed into a corner here.

They are reeling right now.

They're not hitting.

Even the movies that are good.

Aren't doing good at the box office now full disclosure

That's across the board anyway a lot of people aren't going to the theaters like they used to you know

Thunderbolt Scruggled at the box office

Superman as good as it is in my opinion is doing decent at the box office But it's not doing great at the box office.

You know uh

Sticking back with Marvel I mentioned before

Captain America didn't do great at the box office.

Deadpool and Wolverine did amazing.

I think it made a billion dollars at the box office.

But what brought people to the theaters,

it wasn't because it was Marvel.

It was because of Hugh Jackman.

It was because of Wolverine and his popularity.

And

Deadpool, a lot of people like Deadpool.

I like

Deadpool, but in the films,

I liked him in the first film and it kind of diminished after that.

But that's besides the point.

It was a more nostalgia thing,

you know,

because they brought in

X-Men. They brought in characters from the Fox

Marvel Universe in that film to kind of give them a proper goodbye.

Blade showed up at Wesley Snipes.

Blade showed up.

So it was more of a goodbye to

20th Century Fox

Marvel Division.

They sold that thing.

that's why that movie did what it did their tv shows the disney plus shows for marvel have not been hidden you know uh ironheart it got a lot of good reviews me personally i

thought it could have been better it started off weak it ended a little better with the final three episodes but it wasn't enough for me to say okay we're good you know with this character moving forward uh

Daredevil was decent.

It was really good.

It was good.

I say decent,

but it was really good.

It stayed on par with the

Netflix version of that show.

I wasn't mad at that.

But everything else has been a struggle.

And I have

Agatha all along was a struggle.

I mean,

going back to Secret Invasion was horrible.

You know,

there have been a lot of misses for Marvel.

And I say all that to say this.

they need this and they need this to be a hit money-wise this needs to be a blockbuster uh for marvel because after this there's nothing else until we get to avengers doomsday and this is the big finale

of this saga of the multiverse saga you know and not only that another kind of a monkey wrench that was thrown into marvel's plans was the john the majors of it all You know?

the Kane the Conqueror deal and that just threw everything off so they they are uh they are in desperate need of a hit the second thing it's Fantastic Four you know uh which we're gonna go over the

previous Fantastic Four films and none of those movies are good none of them some are worse than others.

but none of them were good so we we are in a state right now do we want to take a chance on fantastic four you know we've been burnt three times in the past i'm not counting the very first one that came out because nobody saw that it was unreleased and so just

considering the two from director tim story and that joshua trank version that those were

three horrible comic book so our audience is willing to give

this property a chance that's the big question um will the inclusion of pedro pascal who is just money at this point he is the he's the go-to in

hollywood i don't care if it's the last of us it's mandalorian whatever it may be uh pedro pascal is is a shot of adrenaline for any project that he's involved with

Will that be enough to draw him to the theater?

Will Vanessa Kirby as the Invisible Woman,

Joshua Quinn,

will the popularity of him being a part of Stranger Things carry over with him?

Edmund Moss Batrack from The Bear,

will that carry over with him being a part of this film?

Not to mention,

not to mention,

and I heard this when I went to...

go see oh what was the move i think it was mission impossible the final reckoning we was in the theater and the trailers were playing and they played the trailer for the fantastic four first steps and

the dude sitting on my row he was about a couple of seats over and i guess he's a nerd as well he well he couldn't have been too good of a nerd he he he leans over and whispers to me when

Uh...

Silver Surfer popped up on screen.

He was like,

oh,

man,

I'm not going to like this movie.

They changed Silver Surfer.

And,

you know,

I don't talk during the movie,

and I don't talk during the credits either.

But I felt the need.

I felt the need to entertain this gentleman.

And

I said,

what you mean they changed?

He was like,

oh,

Silver Surfer's a man.

I said,

well,

there is a female Silver Surfer as well.

no silver surf is a man i read the comics and i at that point i shut you know because i could see that he was going to a whole nother realm with it i like man give the movie a chance who cares even even if charlotte bell which is the name of the character is

not a part of the uh uh comics canon who cares who cares

who's to say that norman rad doesn't show up in this film we don't know maybe they're saving him for later uh fantastic four films or maybe a film of his own who knows but in his mind the movie's gonna be horrible because of that so there

you go there's there's there's one person that marvel studios need to work on uh you have galactus in this film i've seen people online

complain about Galactus.

How is he walking around in New York City?

He's bigger than a planet,

you know,

in the Odyssey.

And this is not being in the know or knowing about the character in the comics.

He can shrink down the size,

you know,

he can grow to size.

He's Galactus.

And we're arguing about the logic of him.

comic book character which is which is also insane to me but that's neither here nor there it will get to that in a couple of days when the fantastic four first steps steps into theaters but

in honor of this film's release we're going to go back in time we're going to travel back we're going to travel back to the year

2000 and

five and you can't imagine the excitement that was flowing through my veins as i saw the trailer the first trailer for fantastic four we

were right there on the precipice of the comic book movie renaissance you know we we weren't quite at the mcu birth yet uh mcu came around what

three years later with iron man but we were starting to rev up our engines with comic book movies people were starting to get excited you know we have got spider-man spider-man 2 at this point we've got countless x-men movies up to this point it was it

was getting better you know i think we had got batman begins we had superhero shows on television it was just a lot going on with the comic book uh

live-action versions around this era and

Things were looking up because before this if you you were lucky to get one comic book movie a year

lucky because we didn't get that it was like if every blue moon maybe once every five years you get a comic book movie but we were starting to get conditioned to the point where we are now where we have like three marvel movies this year we have a superman movie to come out this year we have uh countless other tv shows uh based on comic book characters coming out uh

just this year

And man,

you put 2025 and we're just over the halfway point of this year.

We've gotten more superhero content in 2025 up to this date than we did from

1990 to 2005 combined.

And so this is madness what we're going through right now.

We are spoiled.

beyond belief uh in this day and age but in 2005 they took a swing they took a big swing here uh they being 20th century fox seeing the success of x-men and x2 x-men

united and seeing the success of spider-man and spider-man 2 they decided you know what let's let's go let's get us

let's get us another team superhero team you know let's do the fantastic and they hired chris columbus and at the time that was genius chris columbus who is known for family films you know home alone and mrs doubtfire and things of that elk he he

can do it if anybody could have done it,

it was him.

Well,

dad fell through.

He didn't.

get the opportunity to direct this film but he did stay on as a producer i think he was the executive producer of this film at the end of the day because a lot of his ideas was incorporated in the finished product so he did get a credit before that but

they end up selling before that and i say selling but whatever i was excited at the time because i was like all right a young black

director directing a superhero film in

Fantastic Four nonetheless this is like Marvel's crown jewel you know property that they put in the hands of this young black director Tim story and up to this point

Tim story didn't run afoul with me you know he's run afoul with me as a blade can't stand his films you know the shaft film that he directed

was one of the worst films i ever watched this new eddie murphy film that's coming out on uh prime video in a couple of months not excited about it at all and i i'm excited about every eddie murphy movie even if it's bad but

i'm not excited for this because tim story directed it but in 2005 i was super excited he he he had directed uh uh ride along he directed uh

a barbershop and i was i loved barbershop still love barbershop and so i was interested to see his take on his property now he he is a self-professed comic book nerd you know he loved the fantastic four comics so he he he

had an idea of how to make this work now before i jump into this review.

I want to let you know I'm reviewing this.

As if I'm watching it for the first time in 2005.

I'm not revisiting with my mindset that I have now.

So just travel back with me 20 years as we jump back into

Fantastic Four.

Directed by Tim Story.

This stars

Ian Guilford,

Jessica Albert,

Chris Evans,

Michael Chiklis,

and...

the recently deceased julian mcmahon and uh just want to shout out julian mcmahon uh who played victor von doom dr doom in these two films uh he passed away what last week week before last from uh cancer and

so our thoughts and prayers go out to his family uh but this film follows the origins of the fantastic four as they learn to come to terms

with their newfound abilities following the exposure.

of Cosmic Rays.

This is a bonafide early

2000s film and I say that in the sense that this movie is kind of hampered by the fact that we weren't there digitally yet.

You know we didn't have the visual effects that we have now and so a lot of the visual effects are dated super super dated in this film.

But like I said,

not going to judge it off of 2025 vision.

I'm going to judge it off of 2005.

It was decent,

especially the visual effects with the human torch.

I liked it.

I still like it because it didn't look like it upgraded much going by the trailers in the new Fantastic Four film that's coming out.

It looks virtually the same.

Now they have them.

And that's fine.

I mean,

what different,

what can you do different?

A man on fire flying.

There's not much difference you could do.

But it was great.

What wasn't great was the scratching from Mr.

Fantastic.

The scratching was horrible.

I mean,

it looked so bad.

It looked,

I don't even know if I can describe it accurately.

it is the worst looking visual effects you ever want to see and this is me saying this in 2005 now when i re-watched it uh and i re-watched all these films with my daughter uh she wanted to watch them a few months back and i ended up uh uh watching

those two because she didn't see the first two she had saw half of the the other one that we're going to go through the last attempt and she wanted to watch the other

so we watched that and actually all end up all three but that's besides the point and when i re-watched it i was like man this is so bad the visual effects are so bad but i do remember being satisfied with it in

2005 i was like okay you know you you accept things when you know they couldn't do any better back then but now when you look at it you're like oh

I think they could have did better.

I really do.

This wasn't good.

These were not good visual effects,

even for 2025 standards,

but

I accepted it for what it was.

What I didn't accept was the fact that this was a boring movie.

This movie was so boring.

They had basically had the thing fighting the fire truck.

That was pretty much the big.

action set piece in this movie you know the sequence on the bridge when everything went haywire you had sue storm turn invisible and in the film you know she turns invisible but not of her clothes and

so she had to get naked in order to turn invisible and you don't see none it's pg-13 but it was it was so silly and she turned invisible to get through the crowd of people to get to ben

And she had Reed and

Johnny take her clothes to meet her up there once she gets through the crowd.

Well,

what was the point of her being invisible?

Because

Reed and Johnny got through the crowd no problem.

Matter of fact,

they beat her to the front of the crowd and met her with her clothes.

It made zero sense whatsoever.

It was just a moment to show that she had powers.

And the same thing with

Reed Richards.

He used his scratchy powers to catch a fireman from not jumping,

but falling off the bridge.

And it was just a silly sequence.

And that was the big action set piece of the film.

The final climax with Dr.

Doom was just,

it felt like it was thrown in.

just to say we had a act three climactic battle and that's what it was they just threw that in it was nothing was written on page okay let's do this all right let's shoot water at him uh but uh uh reed richards i need him to curve like a water slide so the one you can go through completely

ridiculous anyways uh all that was bad that there was no action in this movie

The only thing that really worked flawlessly was Chris Evans.

as Johnny Storm.

And this was the reason I was doubting him playing

Captain America because they are two polar opposites of each other,

those two characters.

I'm like,

man,

there's no way Chris Evans could play Captain America.

As silly and boyish that he just played in the Fantastic Four,

I don't see him pulling it off.

my guy was i wrong he pulled it off flawlessly uh thank god for redemption uh he was able to redeem himself as captain america but with it saying all that he was the best part of the movie he was the best part of both of them well this movie we'll get to the next one in a couple of minutes but

he was the best part of this movie because he was the only one that understood the assignment he he was the only one that knew what type of movie he was in

Michael Chiklis knew what type of movie he was in,

who played Ben Grimm,

the thing.

He knew what type of movie he was in also,

but he's hampered by being in this rubber suit.

And I remember discussing with a friend of mine around the time of this release,

who he passed away a few years back,

RIP to my dog.

He,

his big flaw.

And this before the movie came out,

he was like,

man,

they got him in a suit.

I didn't want,

you know,

I'm like,

well,

there's no way.

They're going to,

you know,

digitally do him.

And he was like,

well,

they did it for the Hulk because we had just got a Hulk movie.

What,

a couple of years before this?

Ang Lee's Hulk,

not the Incredible Hulk with

Edward Norton.

The Ang Lee's

Hulk with Eric Banner.

And yeah,

they digitally did him.

And I'm like,

yeah,

that makes sense.

You know,

I get it because the thing is huge.

And when you see him in

first steps in the promotion leading up to Fantastic Four first steps.

Okay,

I get it.

But once again,

that was 20 years ago.

I don't think the technology would have worked.

The thing would have came off looking cartoonish.

My God,

look what they did with

Mr. Fantastic.

He didn't work.

You know,

his scratching powers did not work digitally.

So I don't think they could have did a full CGI character like that.

but i get his complaint but if you were gonna do a suit at least make the suit look like a rock it did not look rocky he looked like he was in a rubber suit and that's that's what that's how it came out on the big screen that's how it looks on the small screen it does not look good and

so unfortunately that kind of hurts uh michael chiclet's portrayal has been grim even though liked his

liked his performance it wasn't his performance it was just soup i just couldn't get past it and still can't get past it jessica alba was horribly miscast horribly miscast

in this role i don't i don't think jessica alba is a bad actress by no stretch of the imagination i just think she's in some bad movies man

she's just she she just being some bad movie she was in a movie about a year or so ago that was on netflix triggered that movie was so bad and she was so bad in it i'm like oh my god i thought she was retired she needs to stay retired that's how bad it was but

i love jessica alva i've seen her in good things she's been good that's why it was mind-boggling but i always felt she was miscast for this role.

Ian Goffard as

Reed Richards,

I didn't know anything about him before.

I don't know nothing about him now.

You know,

last thing I seen him in was in the Bad Boys sequel that just came out.

He was the bad guy in that.

He was great in that.

He was really good in that,

but he just did not radiate Reed Richards to me.

And

I don't know if it's because of the way that character.

Written he was directed or whatever the case may be it Never fully worked for me because Reed Richards is supposed to be a genius,

you know,

and they have him He's smart and all that's all good,

but he was just dorky

He was lame.

It was nothing about him that radiate confidence in you know

have this sense of leadership you know this is this the same character that is the leader of the illuminati in marvel comics there's no way that this portrayal of the character could lead the illuminati there's no way and

so it never worked for me in that aspect uh julian mcmahon as dr doom i became a fan of julian mcmahon from nip

I love nip tuck me and my wife watched that religious and so when he was cast as dr.

Doom.

I like oh,

yeah Yeah,

that'll work they gave this dude nothing to work with Rob it was like

Okay, just play a mustache trolling Billy.

Plot no substance.

No nothing his whole motivation.

He didn't like Reed Richards.

That was his whole motivation

the whole film it was nothing else about him there was no meat on that bone not even not even fat it was nothing on that bone it they did him no favors in his film but you

for some strange reason

I finally remember actually being entertained by this movie and in 2005 I didn't hate it I didn't love it but I didn't hate it

I don't hate it now,

you know,

in comparisons to other films that we might talk about today.

But this was not a good movie.

It was a mixture of subpar acting and bland storytelling.

That's basically what this movie was.

But like I said,

it was entertaining for the time.

is nothing that you can go back and revisit as being okay a cult classic never never fantastic four from

2005 gets a letter grade of a c minus yeah i'm shocked it got that high but it it is it is not a it's not a movie that i would ever

go back to revisit again the only reason i watched it again a month or so ago was because my daughter asked me but god forbid if she asked me again it'll never it'll never happen it's it's not gonna happen but

believe it or not the movie was successful the movie made money it made 333 million dollars worldwide off of a 87 million dollar budget uh well some some

reports i read it it said 87 to 100 so i don't know what the right number was i i find it hard to believe that this movie was made for a hundred dollars but a hundred dollars well yeah it did feel like a hundred dollars but a hundred million dollars but

whatever the case may be it was successful enough to warrant a sequel and up to this point uh until ryan coogler came along with Blake

Panther which grossed over a billion dollars

Tim story held the record for an african-american director with the highest grossing superhero film and so that was something to celebrate you know I was happy for him on that regard but uh not

the quality but hey maybe maybe he'll get it better the second go-around maybe he learned from the mistakes that he made

in the first film and do it better in the second film well fantastic four rise of the silver surfer came out in 2007 once again tim story returns to direct this film the main cast returned including julian mcmahon as dr doom uh additionally

to this cast you have andre brower uh doug jones and Lawrence Fishburne.

both playing silver surfer in this film one doing the physical work while the other did the voice i'll let you determine who was who um the plot of this sequel uh the fantastic four are confronted by the silver surfer to save the earth from galactus and this sounds familiar like didn't you just say that about the fantastic four first steps yeah but

um it is

This is clearly different.

I'm gonna tell you this and I know

I'm going out on a limb.

I'm making a pretty bold statement here,

but I'm willing to stand on it.

I'm willing to put my head on a chopping block with this.

the trailer for the fantastic four first steps is

10 times better than fantastic four rise of the silver surfer whole movie this movie was so dumb it made no sense whatsoever this movie made no sense at

all let's start off with the elephant in the room here

Let's start off with the fact that

Galactus, who is the villain of this film,

we don't see him at all.

There is no visual representation of that character in this film other than the fact it's a cloud in space.

There's no nothing.

There's nothing.

No word,

no dialogue,

no nothing.

It's like

What are you doing?

This is the one character you couldn't flub up and they found the way to do it.

It made no sense now I remember around this time there were reports that the reason they didn't reveal them in the movie is because they were gonna do a silver surfer movie on his own a spin-off of sorts and

Galactus was gonna be in it and they had a

another director that was going to do it so they didn't want to impede on another director's vision okay i can i can understand what they're saying but but directors

take over franchises all the time they do different whatever iterations of characters all the time you look at the you look at the marvel cinematic universe as a whole

they're all had different directors there's a different director for every movie that doesn't change the landscape of that character or the the dimensions of that character your logic made no sense because if that was the case you wouldn't have did that with silver surfer you wouldn't you would have hid civil surf and

now there are no way you can kind of change civil surfer he's a silver guy that rides a silver surfboard so there's not much you can change there

there's nothing you can change with galactus either he's the same as he is in every version that he pops up in the comics i don't understand why they chose to go that route but whatever let's let's

act like that didn't happen so is the movies good it still isn't good because you had you had your your actors from the previous film whether it's ian goffert

Jessica Alba,

Michael Chiklis,

and Chris Evans.

They were completely different from what they were in the first film.

And I'm not saying it was wrong because the characters grew.

They're in a different space than they were in the first film story-wise.

No,

they were just different.

It was like their attitudes changed,

their composition changed.

For example,

Chris Evans.

Chris Evans

was Jokey Jokey in the first film.

That's cool.

Johnny Storm.

Johnny Storm is a hothead.

He's a prankster.

He's a jokester.

He's all that stuff.

So I can live with that.

But they just made him downright silly in this movie for no reason at all.

Just silly for silly's sake.

And I think one of the reasons was this movie did make a change in its rating.

The first film was PG-13.

And I don't know why it could have been PG,

but this film was PG.

And that's rare.

That's rare these days.

I don't remember a movie outside of Pixar or a Disney animated film,

which I've seen some of them be

PG-13.

I can't think of a live action movie off the top of my head over the past 20,

30 years that has been PG.

This is the first one.

and the only one and and it was true pg i think the only reason it wasn't g because you did see uh sue storm get i guess you could say die in this movie by being impelled and that was it and you didn't see it you

know it was blood coming out of her nose i think that was the only thing that's the only reason it was pg otherwise it could have been g this was so kidding and i think they were trying to appeal to the

Young,

young,

super young,

toddler audience here,

and they fell miserably.

Why did they pick a movie?

or a story that involves a planet-eating alien that devours planets,

kills billions of people,

and for their

PG project?

Why did they pick the story where Johnny is trying to find love and,

you know,

hopping out of showers and got his chest out and all this here in front of women?

Why did he pick that to be your PG move?

I don't know but this movie was not good at all.

This was worse than the first one.

There's absolutely nothing about this movie I remember and I just rewatched.

This is the most forgettable of all of them.

Now the next one we're gonna talk about

I remember everything about it and not for a good reason but

Rise of the Silver Surfer was just a miss man.

I mean you have an excellent character in Silver server.

If you follow the minute comics so much story to tell there so much story to tell there between the Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer and Galactus and

Silver Surfer and there was so much dare to play with and they chose this

Bringing back.

Dr.

Doom after we all saw him die at the end of the first one spoilers

But it's it made no sense to me.

I don't know

If it was a contractually obligation type deal that they had to bring him back for the film or the fact that he was one of the best things from the last film that you had to bring him back.

I don't know what the reason was,

but it made no sense.

It made absolutely no sense.

And I thought that

Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer at that time was the worst comic book movie I've ever seen.

Blade

we we're we're about to dive into that one but fantastic for a rise of the silver surfer from 2007 gets a letter grade of a d plus yeah it it is uh it

is it is embarrassingly bad you know the the scene with uh reed richards at his quote-unquote bachelor party and it was just dumb.

This movie just threw stuff in here just to be cute and funny and

They were trying to add personality to

Reed Richards and that made it worse and

My god D plus and the only reason it doesn't get an F

The absolute only reason why this movie does not get an

is because there's a movie that we're about to go over that is absolutely hands down worse and i couldn't give rise of the silver surfer and them and this next fin and film and f as

if they are you know in the same wavelength rise of the silver surfer is citizen kane

in comparison to the 2015

Fantastic Four,

or what is known online as FanFourStick.

It is running a race with Batman and Robin,

Madam Web,

Kraven the Hunter,

I mean,

as some of the worst comic book movies of all time.

I don't know which one is worse.

I'm pointing to this,

but...

I think Madam Web is worse.

I think Madam Web might take the title as the worst comic book movie ever made.

But that doesn't let this movie off the hook.

Fantastic Four was directed by Josh Trank.

Super excited by that hiring when they announced it.

Josh Trank directed Chronicle.

This little found footage superhero thing.

And,

you know,

this was during the found footage craze when we got...

Cloverfield and all of the found footage horror films like Paranormal Activity and

Blair Witch Project and stuff like that so to kind of take that genre and do a superhero film in that format very interesting very unique and a very good film so of course my optimism was through the roof like okay we're

getting somewhere and then there was the the talk

About this blending in in a cinematic universe with the x-men film

Once again,

got super,

super excited about that prospect because we're,

at this point in 2015,

we've gotten the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

We've gotten the MCU.

We see that this can work.

We see that a cinematic universe with different characters can actually work on the big screen.

And so

20th Century Fox,

you own the rights to Fantastic Four,

you own the rights to X-Men.

It's a no-brainer.

let's blend the two if you can match the tone because you couldn't do that with the tim story fantastic four films and bring those films into the x-men universe completely different tones would have thrown everything off but

if you're going to make a kind of a darker version of the fantastic four which i wasn't a hundred percent behind but they uh expressed that these were based off of the ultimate

Marvel comics and I didn't really dive into the ultimate

Marvel comics um

I dabbled in a couple of them but I wasn't reading them religiously around that time when they were all released and so I didn't know the backstory of that comics you know what what the difference between uh the Fantastic Four and the normal

canon versus the ultimate uh uh comics and I know it was different

with how they got their power because it was more of they got it out of a different dimension as opposed to cosmic weight raising space so i knew that aspect of it but that's neither here nor there and

then you have a crop of very young talented actors who were taking over the roles miles teller as uh reed richards michael b jordan which was a controversial move at the time

I think it's still controversial to this day.

He was cast as Johnny Storm,

and he worked with Josh Trank on Chronicle.

Kate Maurer as

Sue Storm,

and then you have Jamie Bell as

Ben Grimm.

Okay.

And then you have

Toby Kebbell as Dr.

Doom.

Toby Kebbell,

I think,

is a really good actor who just...

i don't know man he just gets wrapped up in the wrong projects uh aside from planet of the apes but he was he was in motion capture there but whenever he's in a live action role he just cannot break through but he is phenomenal i love toby kevin but

he was cast as dr duke and i'm thinking okay cool so they start filming the film and i followed the production of this film very closely

I wasn't on set or anything like that,

but they filmed this movie 10 miles away from my house.

They filmed it in

Baton Rouge,

Louisiana,

right around the corner,

you should say,

from me.

And so I followed the production very closely because I was excited for this movie.

I'm like,

okay,

we're getting a different version,

a reboot to the Fantastic Four.

I heard nothing but horrible things.

I didn't hear not one good thing.

coming out of the production of this film and that's not beyond the norm you know a lot of movies go through tough productions and the end product comes out all right you know some turn out great you would never know that it was a

horrible experience to make movies but it came out all right but that's what i was hoping here and god help us here this film of

it follows them they're teenagers now they're not adults they're teenagers and they build this inter-dimensional portal doodad and it caused them to gain their powers all right you sit down and watch it once again a

movie that i i said i would never watch again but i re-watched it with my daughter she didn't want to watch it i kind of forced her to because i wanted her to experience it for herself because she watched like the first

30 minutes of it or something like that and uh i i forced her to finish it and yeah she felt the same way that all of us did after watching this movie but i remember being in a theater i went with my friend another

friend of mine childhood friend of mine he loves movies just as much as i do and he's the type he loves every movie that he goes see i mean i don't care what it is i remember we got in an argument one time about a

film.

Uh,

i wish i knew which movie it was but i told him i ain't too much careful and he was like how you didn't like it it's a movie how you love movies you don't love movies because there's no way you all movies are good and all this it was some stupid argument he was making i can't remember it was years ago and

i'm like man what is you talking about you can't have that attitude going into a movie that every movie is great because every movie isn't great that's like eating pizza every pizza isn't great

You know,

there's Domino's,

there's Pizza Hut,

there's Papa John's,

there's many other pizza places.

And everyone is different.

And it's the same thing with a movie.

You know,

everyone is different.

What works for you may not work for me.

It's all subjective.

But anywho,

we went to see this movie together.

Opening night.

And the cat was out the bag at this point.

You know,

they didn't do any press screenings,

no test screenings,

nothing.

Nothing.

So you kind of knew that this was bad whenever the studio doesn't give you early Screenings and that like that for a film that's usually a sign that the movies back and so they didn't do any for this movie Yeah,

you know I'm still being optimistic Kevin.

I'm like okay

Maybe they don't want spoilers to get out.

Maybe some of the x-men pop up in it They don't want to spoil it so I'm being optimistic in the night

before the movie came out

Josh Trank the director of this film he also co-wrote this film as well he sends out a tweet bashing the movie going off on the film this isn't the movie I directed this this was butchered by the studio and the reshoots and all this here and

I have nothing to do with it I denounced the movie and all this even then stupid me

I off

they probably made the movie better he probably didn't know what he was doing you know because this was his first big movie you know chronicle was a small movie uh in the sense of a studio film like this and so i'm still optimistic because i'm i'm holding on to hope plus i had enjoyed the trailer the trailer sold me so

i'm amped up i got my ticket me and my boy we go in here uh sit down in the theater movie starts

And we're off and running.

First hour of this movie.

I kid you not.

I wish I could call him up and put him on air.

I wish I could call him up so I could prove to you I'm not lying.

We're sitting down an hour into this movie.

And we both lean over simultaneously and say,

I don't see where people are tripping about.

He's like,

I don't know either.

This is pretty good.

And

like i said earlier i don't talk in movies we don't talk in movies i'm i'm all in but i had to express that this because i'm like where is all this vitriol coming from so far i'm engaged in this story this actually is

good and it's like i jinxed it because maybe five ten minutes later one of the most horrendous things happened that i can't get burrowed out of my head you see that

this title card come up on screen one year later from that point on this became the most depressing surreal

experience i've ever had in a movie theater i've walked out of one movie in my entire life and that was uh torque this movie that came out that

it was early

2000s about i don't even want to talk about anyway that i walked out of that movie because it was that bad and it the sad part is i walked out at the end i should have walked out an hour earlier but i waited to the end i mean at the very end to walk out but anyway and

i still got my money back i ain't got my money back for that movie i almost walked out of this movie

And you know why I didn't walk out of this movie?

Was the simple fact I was sitting there with my boy.

And I know how he feels about movies.

I know that he feels every movie is great.

Every movie deserves to be nominated for an Academy Award and blah,

blah.

And so I didn't want to anger him,

make him mad and ruin his experience.

And so I sat there and stomached the rest of this movie.

I can't believe.

that not only this movie got made that they actually released it

this movie it's the worst movie i ever saw in my life we we walked out of the field the movie well i didn't walk out of it but you know the movie was over we we were leaving i was quiet and we got into the parking lot because i don't like talking in front of the theater because people may be walking in and we may be talking about the

end of the movie and i don't want to spoil it for nobody so we walked into the parking lot and he he asked me and i could tell

It was just his tone.

I could tell he was like,

well,

what do you think?

What do you thought even though I knew by his tone?

I wasn't a hundred percent certain.

So I like well,

you know

Before I can get it out he like

Thank you Jesus I said this was the worst movie I ever saw in my life

and he was like bruh i wanted to leave and i was like i wanted to i wanted to the only reason i didn't leave was because of you and he was like man that's the reason i didn't leave so we pretty much killed each other there but it was so bad

this movie was so incoherent this movie had nothing to there was no characters to get behind

Not one of the four cats,

not one of these characters could you cheer for.

Nobody grabbed you.

Nobody was sympathetic.

The only person I was sympathetic for was everybody sitting in the theater who paid their money.

That includes me.

It was horrible,

horrible.

And I can't understand.

This is one of the most mind-boggling.

movies you would ever watch because like I said the first few minutes of this movie was actually good borderline great setup

I mean everything was set up great and then you had that title card one year later and everything after that was a dumpster fire and

I'm left scratching my head wondering how

did this movie manage to go from good to downright horrible in literally five seconds and it wasn't a gradual drop you know it wasn't okay the one year later tag and then it just started to get bad boring and disinteresting and stuff like that no it was it was it just it

hit the floor as soon as that title card was off the screen

it never got back up at no point

Michael B Jordan as the Human Torch worst cast in history and this is uh I made this statement when I reviewed sinners that I was not a

Michael B Jordan thing

I've never really liked him as an actor you know not that he's a bad actor but I feel he plays the same character in every movie with the exception of

Killmonger from Black Panther.

Loved his character there.

Thought he did excellent.

Thought he was excellent in Sinners.

Made me turn around.

Maybe when he works with Ryan Coogler,

that's the only way I can accept him.

But outside of Ryan Coogler directing him,

I have not enjoyed

Michael B.

Joy.

This was the worst casting decision ever.

I'm all for,

you know,

sticking it to the man you know uh bucking the system yeah let's make a black johnny cage oh johnny cage uh this is immortal combat uh black johnny storm yeah i'm all for that but i did not like his portrayal of johnny storm now

just like chris evans redeemed himself as being uh captain America,

Michael B.

Jordan redeemed himself being

Killmonger. You know,

so they...

it's not the end of the world to be the human torch so jonathan quinn you all right bro we we good there's still hope for it uh but horribly miscast miles teller miles teller another actor who i i deeply enjoy and

most of everything he's in whiplash is one of my favorite movies i thought he would pick the character perfectly you know and and do some justice

To the Reed Richards character?

Nope.

It was a portion there where you can tell he was trying.

Actually,

to be honest with you,

all of you can tell throughout this film that they all were trying at one point.

And you can pinpoint the moments where they all just gave up.

It is the oddest thing.

This movie should be studied.

It is not it is not for entertainment purposes.

This is for educational purposes.

You need to watch this movie.

and just to view how a movie can derail into i mean is it it's amazing it's amazing you can literally pinpoint the scenes where the actors just said f it they

just forget it and it was over from there uh kate mara she didn't want to be there at all jamie bell as as ben grim

Even though all the characters were done a disservice,

Ben Grimm was done dirty in this movie.

I mean,

Jamie Bell,

I felt so bad for him.

That's the one person throughout this entire film that I actually felt bad for being a part of this film.

Because,

number one,

he wasn't in it long as far as

Jamie Bell as

Ben Grimm.

He wasn't in it long,

you know,

to see him physically.

then the thing okay it was good to finally see the thing digitally made he he did look like a rock thing didn't like the design of them but all right they swung for the fences there they were trying to go for this realistic look that

did geez is it just bad uh poor tim blake nelson he needs to leave uh comic book movies alone he was done dirty and captain america

a brave new world where he played the leader i thought he was done dirty in that film after given a pretty good performance as uh uh as the leader in the incredible halt film was

done dirty there and then in this film he was done dirty again because his character his character was supposed to be mold man and but they changed it in post and so

It wasn't like they rewrote it on the day,

on the set,

or anything like that.

No,

it was changed in the editing room.

And so he goes to see the film.

He's thinking he's one particular character,

and he's somebody else in the finished product.

Unbelievable.

The plot of this movie,

what plot?

It was no plot.

There was nothing there.

Absolutely nothing there.

I've seen this movie three times,

and I still don't know what.

what's the point of this movie i have no earthly idea um the character of dr doom played by toby cavill the most mind-boggling thing that they did to that character number one they gave him superpower they gave him telepathy which

is something uh or telekinesis whichever one i think telekinesis and that character doesn't have that in the comics maybe he have it in the ultimate bit more about that.

i'm not not the ones that i read but uh they gave him this superpower where he can he's basically a scanner he he'll blow your head off your shoulders man just by looking at you and i'm

like okay it's cool and all but when he goes up against the fantastic four he never uses it not one time and i mean it's instant

It's like,

as soon as you look,

he's like,

boom.

And he's fighting and struggling with the Fantastic Four at the end of this movie.

I'm like,

use your scanner powers.

That solves the problem right there.

It's just dumb.

Speaking of their final battle,

what were the stakes?

What were the stakes?

You didn't get a sense of what this world,

this planet was about to go through,

you know,

even though

Doctor Doom was about to discord.

destroy the earth i think i don't know still don't know uh you see a beam come down and some of the planet gets sucked up and you see a few people running in this remote location i don't know what this

movie is horrible this is arguably the worst movie not just comic book movie but movie ever made you can put it in the not top 10 but bottom 10

It is horribly made,

horribly placed.

there's no plot there's no substance that the acting is bad this movie made the previous two fantastic four films look like golden gods bro this is that bad of a movie fantastic

four from 2015 gets a letter grade of a fantastic f this is horrible

horrible this is horrible i'm so glad that i re-watched it the reason i'm so glad i re-watched it is because i knew i was going to do this show and i wanted to get

it fresh in my mind and whatnot and now i know i will never have to go back and watch this movie ever again in my life and i'm so grateful for it

God is good all the time.

But anyways,

yes,

that movie gets a solid,

I mean,

sexy F.

It doesn't even,

it don't even make sense to talk about the money it made because it made none.

It bombed miserably at the box office.

Now,

we did get references to

Reed, not in the reference,

we actually got a Reed Richards and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and

2022 I think it was and John Krasinski uh fan casting everybody wanted him to be cast as Reed Richards well ultimately that didn't happen in the canon of the MCU but this was kind of a fan servicey thing to put him in this film as

Reed Richards in the alternate universe of uh uh

Dr. Strange when he was bouncing through universes I don't know

that movie was that movie uh but it was good to see him in a role even though he wasn't very smart to say he was a genius to go up against the scarlet witch uh but it is what it is and then we got uh uh johnny storm returned in deadpool in rover ring just last year portrayed

once again by chris That was a cool callback.

to see chris evans put on the fantastic four suit one last time and we did get a reference at the end of thunderbolts or spoilers um the new avengers when uh that post-credit scene with the fantastic four ship looks

like it's arriving at earth and that sets up the fantastic four first steps which comes out july the 25th i am i am excited to see

This movie for a number of reasons like I said earlier the trailer alone is better than all three of these movies combined

So that gives me hope and it's a low bar to clear here as you could tell

They don't this movie does not have to be great

It does not have to blow my socks off,

but it has to be at least average and from what I've seen

and the talents involved with this project and being as though this is the official marvel swing at the fantastic four because marvel didn't really produce those movies that was 20th century fox so this is marvel studios first goal with

the fantastic four that gives me a lot of hope so we shall see we shall see uh but i would like to know are you excited for this fantastic four

film are you uh looking forward to seeing galactus for the first time even though this is his second time on the big screen and are you one of the ones who uh they feel burnt you felt like look

i i went to go see those other ones and i'm not giving this one a chance and i can i can understand that but i would love to know your thoughts moving forward email the show kbradiopodcast at gmail.com

You can also search for the show on all social media platforms.

Just search for the KB Radio Network.

Also,

don't forget about YouTube.

Subscribe to the KB Radio Network channel and like this video if you don't mind.

Don't forget about the five stars,

the reviews,

and sharing this show if you're listening on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify,

iHeartRadio,

wherever you are currently listening to movie goodness here on the KB Radio Network.

Everybody,

thank you for...

joining me as we discuss the 20th century fox fantastic four films want you all to know that i love you continue to love everyone and until we speak again

You all be blessed.

20th Century Fox's Fantastic Four Films

About this episode