See, here’s what other people — fanboys and critics — missed in condemning those earlier film incarnations of “Fantastic Four.”
They were childish, and intentionally so — aimed at a younger audience. Action pictures with training wheels, they were a gateway experience for smaller children looking to get hooked on comic book movies. As such, they were jokey, self-mocking, a perfectly pleasant riff on “comic book movie,” because the filmmakers didn’t take them so life-or-death seriously. You’ve got characters named Victor Von Doom and Johnny Storm, for Pete’s Sake. It’s a lark.
Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis got this. The rest of the casting wasn’t great, the stories were lame, but the tone worked — at least in the first one.
The new “Fantastic Four” fails even in those modest ambitions. It’s a joyless relaunch/re-imaging of the origin story of four folks given fantastic powers thanks to their encounters with…
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