Despite being somebody who enjoys superhero films as much as the next person, this 'Fantastic Four' reboot has to be down there with one of the worst.

The 2005 film and its sequel, both directed by Tim Story, were not great films (the former was somewhat mediocre, though the sequel was an improvement) but even with their faults they were much better than the reboot. Although it is often considered one of the worst superhero/comic book films ever made, this reviewer has yet to properly see the 1990s incarnation, but it does have to be irredeemably bad to be worse than this.

Oddly enough, 'Fantastic Four' is not completely irredeemable. Michael B. Jordan is a cool, commanding and likable Johnny/Torch, and the only one in the cast who tries and succeeds to do something with the way the characters are written. It is ironic that the best thing about the film was the thing that was attracting the most negative publicity before release due to his race. Some of the film does look quite good, with slick photography, darkly atmospheric lighting and audacious production design.

Not all of it comes off though. The editing is both sloppy and choppy, not only looking cheap but in particular severely affecting the storytelling. The special effects are at best perfunctory and some of them look pretty bad actually, much prefer the look of The Thing in the Tim Story-directed films here The Thing looks too much like a rock monster. Josh Trank clearly wasn't the right director for this, directing with little flair or involvement with the story. Then again he doesn't deserve all of the blame as most of the film's failures falls at the door of producer/studio interference. The music has some haunting parts but at best generic and not much stands out.

'Fantastic Four' has only one good performance, the rest are poor. Miles Teller and especially Kate Mara make Ioan Gruffodd and Jessica Alba look like Oscar-winners, Teller looks far too wooden and out of his depth as a leader and Mara is incredibly mechanical. Jamie Bell does try to stay true to Ben/The Thing's character, but the character is written far too one-dimensionally so Bell despite some glimpses as a whole fails to inject much tragedy or depth to him. The chemistry between them is almost non-existent and they just don't feel like a team. Toby Kebbell is an insipid and very non-threatening Victor Von Doom, here a villain practically shoe-horned into the story and basically a villain for the sake of being a villain with no obvious motivation or personality to speak of.

In all fairness they do have a very clunky and by-the-numbers script, with some cheesy lines and too many stupid moments, to work with that has some neat ideas but barely does anything with them. There is too little action, and what there is of it is hugely underwhelming, very uninterestingly choreographed and no fun or tension, everything just feels indifferent. The biggest let down here in 'Fantastic Four' is the story which is a mess. Scenes that go on for too long, due to poorly written exposition that is barely elaborated upon (the father-son relationship could have injected some much needed heart to the film but goes nowhere),drag endlessly, and when something does happen if not by much the film rushes through it with some incompleteness here and there. The too short running time is to blame, the film should have been twenty minutes to half-an-hour longer.

Particularly suffering is the far too busy third act and a very rushed (in length and to a lesser extent pace) and dramatically limp final battle, which doesn't really feel like much of a battle.

All in all, fantastic is the last word to describe a very disappointing reboot. 2/10 Bethany Cox

I read somewhere that this version of FANTASTIC FOUR - coming hot on the heels of the two instalments from the 2000s - was only made so that 20th Century Fox could keep the rights to the franchise. Whatever the reason for its existence, this turns out to be a real dud of a movie, a movie by turns dull and deeply embarrassing. A fresh new cast of actors take up the main roles, and three of them are very good, but not so here. Kate Mara has so little to do that she seems bored by it all, while Jamie Bell has even less screen time. Toby Kebbell is a fine actor (just watch DEAD MAN'S SHOES if you don't believe me) but wasted as another stock bad guy. This long-winded origin story goes on and on and on with boring experiments in a laboratory for nearly all of the running time, until the last half an hour which packs in the over the top CGI effects and explosions. It's mindless, childish, and the complete opposite of what Marvel are managing to do with their Avengers franchise at the moment.

It's 2007 Oyster Bay, NY. 5th graders Reed Richards and Ben Grimm become friends. Reed is building a "Biomatter Shuttle". Ben's family owns the local junk yard. Nobody believes in the boys. Seven years later, Reed (Miles Teller) and Ben (Jamie Bell) have a working prototype in the high school science fair. The teacher dismisses them but they catch the attention of Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his adopted daughter Sue Storm (Kate Mara). Reed joins them at the Baxter Foundation to build a bigger version of his machine. Bitter former child protégé Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) and reckless speedster Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) also joins the team. When Dr. Allen (Tim Blake Nelson) calls in NASA, Reed, Johnny, and Victor decide to recklessly be first on the new world. Reed calls in his best friend Ben. The expedition goes badly. Victor is lost on planet Zero. The three others escape. They and Sue gain superpowers.

It starts well. I'm not going complain about any departures from the comics. That's not a big deal for most people. The movie starts with a fine friendship between Reed and Ben. Then it quickly splits them up. It's a giant mistake. It has an easy fix but nobody seems to care about the group chemistry. Almost everybody is acting flat. Reed is on the autistic spectrum but there is no such excuse for everybody else. None of them are charismatic or given a chance to be compelling. Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan could do so much better than this.

It becomes simply going from one point in the plot to the next. There is no excitement. The dialog is bland. It could have worked as a moody body horror but it's obvious that somebody desperately wants an action packed thriller. The bare minimal requirement for this movie is to introduce a group of young actors with personality and compelling connections. These are great young actors but the movie wastes their talents. The problem is that this achieves nothing, at least nothing good.