Fantastic Four, Alien 3 and the American Civil War
The latest iteration of comic book franchise Fantastic Four (stylised: Fant4stic) has been quietly shepherded to a dank unlit room in the vaults of film history where it is scheduled to be mercifully executed, pending appeal. The last one to leave, turned out the light, in the hope of hiding forever in darkness the film's fatal flaws.
It's a cautionary tale told with some trepidation. Director Josh Trank (more on him later) essentially disowned Fant4stic on the eve of release, it barely broke even at the box office, the sequel was unceremoniously cancelled, and the franchise was left in limbo, caught somewhere between the two studio suitors (Marvel and Fox) both courting future ownership. Fant4stic was ill-conceived, had a difficult labour, and a troubled birth. But like any hideously deformed child, it deserves a degree of love, compassion and understanding.
Somewhere beyond public relations spin, studio damage-control and the unfettered internet opinions of everybody, everywhere, ever, we can easily decipher there were problems during production. The abundance of rumours regarding these difficulties range from credible to unknowable. Trank - for his part - likely torpedoed his career with a tempestuous outburst on Twitter, essentially bemoaning the studio's unwillingness to subscribe to whatever fabulous vision the young rapscallion felt he had for his movie.
We know Fant4stic required re-shoots. We know that Trank was removed from helming a major Star Wars spin-off, and we can speculate this was consequent of dodgy behaviour on set during production of Fant4stic. There were also rumours of drug use, damage to rented accommodation, poor communication, and the grotesque crime of allegedly making the amazing Kate Mara cry. Combined with reports of constantly rewritten scripts and a general disaffection from fans of the source material, it's fair to characterise Fant4stic as an archetypal troubled production.
Disquieting news filtered out slowly but perceptibly, insidiously, and then explosively with Trank's torpedo tweet. It informed public opinion, it poisoned an already inconsistent and poorly defined message about what the movie was, what to expect, why it was different, and why it mattered in a crowded marketplace. The underwhelming trailers were late, and looked unfinished. Inconsistency and uncertainty infected all aspects of the promotion of this major summer release.
Conflict and failure became the dysfunctional parents of Fant4stic. With parents like that, their deformed lovechild had little chance. So it's remarkable that the counterpoint to the inevitable negativity is persuasive. But to hear it properly, to even entertain its validity, we have to go back to 1992 and Alien 3. We can go back further, we can go sideways, or swing upside down. But this other Fox franchise, is as good a place as any to visit on our journey to accepting the obscene premise that Fant4stic is actually quite admirable.
Alien 3 was a bad movie, with a tortuous production, that became a good movie, with an interesting iconography, and elements, just glimpses, of greatness. Director David Fincher famously said that he didn't make a movie, he made a release date. Studio interference was rife, production conditions challenging, scripts changeable, tone muddled. But seeing a bald-headed Ripley, glimpsing a harsh penal colony on an alien planet, with a cast of deranged British thespians playing hardened killers and rapists, populating and trapped in a netherworld of industrial-gothic imagery with a hostile hungry beast, made it all worthwhile. Alien 3 demonstrated the grandeur in efforts to realise a coherent vision, with oddly fitting component parts, and an inhospitable workplace.
There isn't quite enough audacity in Fant4stic to parallel the penal colonies, skin-heads and factory cathedrals of Alien 3. But there's certainly enough to hesitate before subscribing to the negative narrative of failure that permeates the discussion of this movie. The reasons for the convincingness of the counter-narrative are somewhat disparate, concealed by convulsions towards genre conventions, that really disrupt efforts to differentiate Fant4stic from the dozens of superhero movies that litter the summer schedules.
There is real - but relative - darkness to be found in this difference. Some hints at horror. And some Spielbergian smultz to muddy any clear and constant tone. This is a movie that has skulls exploding in bloodied environmental suits, charred bodies burning, and a convincing argument for the necessity of imperialistic endeavour as means to perpetuate our sick and unsustainable way of life. It is also a movie built on boyhood friendship, as the central conceit, with the Reid Richards and Ben Grimm bromance being the one relationship demonstrating chemistry, authenticity and emotion.
Yes, even in a discussion about the strengths of this movie, the flaws, weaknesses and failures are obvious. The supporting cast is flaccid. The motivations of Johnny Storm are unclear. The central concept of a planet rich in resources worth stealing to save our own, essentially frames villain Dr Doom as the hero resisting marauding American imperialists. The entire middle act of the movie is at least mangled and malformed, more likely wholly missing. The dialogue lurches between exposition and words tantamount to inconsequential whimsy. There are many problems, many flaws, many missteps. But the whole somehow works. Sort of.
The darkness demonstrated is admirable, and if not original, at least refreshing in a genre swamped with primary colours and a summertime palette. The restraint is also commendable, Fant4stic doesn't rush to shower the audience in cinematic semen. The belated action, at least, is earned.
The protagonists as an ensemble struggle for cohesion, despite the abundance of talent. There is chemistry, just not enough screen time to cook it, which admittedly in a slow-build movie is somewhat unforgivable. This is not a movie about action, this is a movie about dark science, about intelligent people inadvertently finding a vehicle that drives their destiny. Oh, and Dr Doom is brilliant. It seems that criticism of this character stems from deviating from source material. Or perhaps we just prefer our villains to be English public schoolboys, or weird sentient products of Microsoft, or fluffy aliens on surfboards. Fant4stic has an antagonist that is demonstrably evil. Now, if only they could have given him more screen time and a serviceable plot...
During the American Civil War, the president of the Confederacy, after his capital city had fallen to Union forces, stated that freed from the necessity of defending cities his army could still win. 160 years later, Fant4stic proves that Jefferson Davis was right. Freed from the necessity to defend and perpetuate the conventions of the superhero genre, judged in that context, Fant4stic is a good movie that occasionally threatens to be great. It certainly surpasses many superhero movies that are so shackled by their genre, they simply sleepwalk through the multiplex. A troubled production and fashionable consensus are not enough to condemn a movie. Even when married to flaws that abound on the big screen. It doesn't matter what your friends say, Fant4stic doesn't deserve derision or to be entirely forgotten, although that is its inevitable less than fantastic fate.
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