It’s proven remarkably difficult for Marvel to make a good movie about the Fantastic Four, considering that it’s the company’s flagship superhero property and the series that kicked off Marvel’s comic-book Silver Age resurgence in 1961.
The superhero family of Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Thing has a spotty history at the movies, beginning with a low-budget 1994 feature film that was never officially released (but is available online if you know where to look). The later, larger-scale adaptations haven’t fared much better, from a pair of Tim Story-directed movies in the pre-MCU ’00s to “Chronicle” director Josh Trank’s misbegotten 2015 reboot.
Comics readers have very particular standards — I first saw the 1994 movie at an unauthorized screening full of fans yelling out their negative comments — and now that the team has entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” has the chance to finally get things right.
Here’s my take on how all five Fantastic Four movies stack up.
5. ‘Fantastic Four’ (2015)
![Fantastic Four | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/_rRoD28-WgU/maxresdefault.jpg)
A notoriously troubled production that was extensively altered during reshoots, Trank’s franchise reimagining could be regarded as a missed opportunity. But I can’t see how Trank’s initial approach would have ever made sense for these characters, who are defined by their heroic optimism and solidarity. Trank turns the team’s origin story into dark body horror, making their powers into curses.
Trank and the various screenwriters give the characters absurdly grim backstories, even making The Thing’s “It’s clobberin’ time” catch phrase into a motto of abuse. Stars Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell all seem completely lost, and there’s no sense of camaraderie or even cooperation among the characters.
The horribly paced story takes place almost exclusively in dimly lit science and military facilities, barely getting around to a half-hearted battle in its final moments.
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4. ‘The Fantastic Four’ (unreleased)
As detailed in the documentary “Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four,” this 1994 movie was put into production solely so that Constantin Film could retain the film rights to the characters. B-movie legend Corman engaged his famous resourcefulness to produce a low-budget film that mimics an epic scale, with mostly underwhelming results.
Still, director Oley Sassone and stars Alex Hyde-White, Rebecca Staab, Jay Underwood and Michael Bailey Smith put their full effort into the cheesy, Saturday morning-style adventure, and Joseph Culp is easily the best onscreen Doctor Doom. Culp brings grandiose Shakespearean villainy to the Fantastic Four’s arch-nemesis, despite being surrounded by chintzy sets and costumes, and even worse special effects.
The story is dull and takes way too long to give the characters their powers, but the movie is a semi-endearing reminder of the era when superhero movies were underfunded underdogs.
Watch “Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four” on Prime Video
3. ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’
The second movie starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis gets a few things right, including a goofy, upbeat tone and an eerie take on the Silver Surfer (played physically by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne).
Its version of the planet-devouring villain Galactus is a bust, though, opting to depict the distinctively designed comic-book character as an amorphous cloud of space dust. Julian McMahon’s return as Doctor Doom goes nowhere, and there’s an equally pointless power-switching gimmick among the main four superheroes.
The focus on the impending marriage of Gruffudd’s Reed Richards and Alba’s Sue Storm results in some painful sitcom-style hijinks, and the rushed storytelling never convincingly conveys the world-ending stakes of Galactus’ impending arrival. The only thing more horrific than the threat of Galactus is the horrendous wig that Alba is forced to wear, which is emblematic of the movie’s slapdash approach.
Watch on Disney Plus
2. ‘Fantastic Four’ (2005)
The first adventure for the team’s ’00s incarnation is marginally better, thanks to the real sense of menace that McMahon brings to Doctor Doom. He’s not as bombastic as Joseph Culp, but he’s more insidiously dangerous, reimagined as a tech mogul rather than a foreign monarch.
The team’s oft-retold origin story is a mess, though, and including Doom as part of it only undermines his authority and influence. By the time he emerges as a genuine villain, the plot has lost most of its momentum.
The bickering between Evans’ Johnny Storm and Chiklis’ Ben Grimm is more mean-spirited than charming, and Evans’ version of Johnny as an extreme sports-obsessed jerk is barely distinguishable from the character’s foul-mouthed resurrection in “Deadpool & Wolverine.” The dated pop-culture references don’t help, although they can be amusingly quaint, much like the movie itself.
Watch on Disney Plus
1. ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’
I might make the argument that being the best Fantastic Four movie is a fairly low standard to reach, but “First Steps” is an entertaining movie on its own, and the only Fantastic Four movie to capture the whiz-bang wonder of the best Fantastic Four comic books. It also benefits from the substantial resources of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to deliver a sci-fi saga that lives up to the team’s adventures on the page.
Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are the first Fantastic Four to truly come off like a family, and that makes the emotions at the heart of the story more meaningful.
The alternate retro-futuristic setting lets the story unfold on its own terms, away from the clutter of the MCU. Maybe there still hasn’t been a great Fantastic Four movie, but at least now there’s a good one.
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