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LTTP: Fantastic Four (2015) Why is the first half so good, the second so terrible?

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The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Caught this on a flight the other day. What a strange fucking thing.

The first half is good. Genuinely good. Everything involving those kids working on their teleportation project is well directed, well performed stuff, compelling even. I liked those characters and I wanted to spend more time with them

But then they actually get powers and the whole thing just goes off the rails. It loses any sense of fun, and any of the magic around the character interactions. The plot speeds up (and jumps forward a year for some reason) and culminates in a CGI bash-fest that genuinely feels ripped from like 2005. Seriously, there's this moment at the end where they insert Johnny's voice going "time to go" as he speeds up off the screen with the rest of them in their bubble and its the most cringeworthy "this is what a superhero movie looks like, right?" thing I've seen in ages

So much wasted potential. This shouldn't have been a Fantastic Four movie, they should have done something else with these actors that maintained the strength of the first half

Oh, and that end sequence, where in about two minutes they tell the government to screw off and the government responds with "okay then take this super advanced secret facility to keep as your own. Have fun kids". What the fuck
 

Nabs

Member
There had to be a monumental amount of studio fuckery behind the scenes. The movie just felt so gutted and slapped together.
 

SFenton

Member
There was still a lot of stupid shit that happened in the first half, but yeah, by far it felt much more cohesive than the second half.

Victor von You Came Back For Me Thank You JK Fuck You, more like.

Did appreciate the more violent Doom, did appreciate the very brief period of Cronenbergian body horror. And that's about all I can give the second half.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I mean this whole thing suffers from having to be a Fantastic Four movie. The character of Doom, including what happens to him, works as a villain (up until the climax), it just doesn't work as Doctor Doom
 

DeathoftheEndless

Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
I didn't enjoy either half. Homer Simpson berating a kid for wanting to be a scientist and building a working teleporter is just so dumb.
 
Yeah, I actually really enjoyed the first half. It's not really good for a movie when the part before they are the Fantastic Four is a hell of a lot better than when they get their powers. I don't think the movie is the worst superhero movie out there. Reed does the worst cliché ever when he ignores the warning from his friends about the green dangerous stuff and heads straight for it, effectively fucking everything up.

Also Ben's brother saying "it's clobberin' time" before punching him is so bad, it's amazing.
 

Timu

Member
It was all terrible actually, 1st half was slow, not that interesting and had terrible dialog, while the 2nd half is just...yeah.
 

Toa TAK

Banned
I feel like it had promise, but it loses it all the moment they get Ben in the machine with them in such a contrived manner.

There is no Victor...

ONLY DOOOOOOM
 
Because they didn't know what movie they wanted to make. "Grounded Four" but by the end of the movie they just wanted to chase that Avengers money and have CGI superheroes pounding on a supervillain.

If they stuck to their guns and had a cohesive narrative vision, they could have at least had an interesting movie and a bad FF adaptation, instead of just shit all around.
 

Toxi

Banned
The first half is good. Genuinely good. Everything involving those kids working on their teleportation project is well directed, well performed stuff, compelling even. I liked those characters and I wanted to spend more time with them
I don't really agree at all. The high school science fair scene where the teacher disqualifies them for breaking the laws of physics wide open and teleporting an object because "it's a science fair, not a magic show" might be the stupidest thing in the damn movie.
 
The first half isn't that good at all. Stupid explanations for some of the concepts from the comics ("It's clobbering time" is repurposed from Ben's brother threatening to beat him up?), silly character moments (the science teacher being unimpressed with teleportation technology), no sense of chemistry between Teller and Mara and an incredibly-silly explanation for how they get to Planet Zero in the first place.

The only good thing in that first half is the reveal of their powers, and I'd argue that it belonged in a far better movie.
 

Timu

Member
He lost a science fair when he displayed teleportation or something along the lines. Couldn't get past this.

I don't really agree at all. The high school science fair scene where the teacher disqualifies them for breaking the laws of physics wide open and teleporting an object because "it's a science fair, not a magic show" might be the stupidest thing in the damn movie.

The first half isn't that good at all. Stupid explanations for some of the concepts from the comics ("It's clobbering time" is repurposed from Ben's brother threatening to beat him up?), silly character moments (the science teacher being unimpressed with teleportation technology), no sense of chemistry between Teller and Mara and an incredibly-silly explanation for how they get to Planet Zero in the first place.

The only good thing in that first half is the reveal of their powers, and I'd argue that it belonged in a far better movie.
That part cracked me up, really. I would be impressed as hell if I saw that.

Although them getting their powers was the ONLY good thing about that 1st half.
 
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