Hot Take: Sure, alone we can’t stop Hollywood from turning out Fantastic Four films but together, if we all stop going, maybe we can make it go away forever.

The most stunning thing about Fantastic Four is it’s 21% “Liked It” score on Rotten Tomatoes. We rarely see TV movies anymore and has there ever been a superhero TV movie? Well, this could have been a TV movie. A very bad, boring, dull, brooding, lifeless, soulless TV movie.

The estimated $120 million budget was money poorly spent. The effects, for the most part, were unspectacular. The close-ups of the Human Torch were kind of neat but the rest of the superheroes — especially Victor von Doom — left a lot to be desired.

Maybe the ridiculous cost had something to do with how much was edited out of the movie. Watching back multiple trailers (because I hate myself), there are multiple shots in the trailer which never made it into the final cut. Fantastic Four came in at a running time of 106 minutes and, even with the considerable cuts, felt entirely too long. Or maybe I was subconsciously hoping to be put out of my misery?

“Spoiler Free” Pros

  • The Human Torch Close-Up Shots
    Not so much the scenes where Torch took flight but the close-up visuals were ok. (Hey, ok is pretty huge praise for this dumpster fire!)
  • The First 10 Minutes Or So
    A very young Reed Richards and Ben Grimm meet in grade school. This was ok, too. Maybe it wasn’t 10 minutes (everything felt much longer than it really was).
  • The End
    When the credits started rolling… yeah, that was awesome!

“Spoiler Free” Cons

  • Victor von Doom
    Everything about Victor von Doom was a disaster. Origin stories aren’t sacred but this twist was brutally flawed. If I cared about the movie at all, I would nitpick at the way this plotline played out.
  • While We’re On The Subject Of Origin Stories
    Did this franchise need another reboot? How many times can a franchise reboot?
  • The Fantastic Four Franchise
    This is easily the worst superhero franchise going. Despite numerous attempts to get the Fantastic Four off the ground, it’s just not happening. So, stop… please. Pretty please with sugar on top… STOP!