The new, mysterious Fantastic Four reboot finally has a teaser trailer! Dig in below:
Okay, so now that you’ve seen it, WE MAY COMMENCE SNARKING.
Directed by Josh Trank, who also did “Chronicle,” this Fantastic Four reboot has made a name for itself in all the wrong ways. The producers and director have spoken numerous times about how this Fantastic Four essentially “ain’t your daddy’s Fantastic Four,” and about how different and unique it will be. “A modern retelling” is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, and from the looks of that trailer, they ain’t joking. They cast a group of 20-something actors (that look TV-16) for characters that are well-established as not only being adults, but as distinguished adults – I’m talking Reed and his signature gray temples, here.
Okay, now I know what you’re going to say – how much can be said about a teaser trailer? Can you really determine the quality of a movie by such a thin slice? Well, of course not. And let’s be clear – I’m not judging the movie. I’m judging the trailer, and by extension, the marketing campaign. And if you don’t like broad sweeping generalizations about tiny nuggets of content, I question your geek credentials in the first place. We live for bitching about irrelevant minutia – let us never forget the Ballad of the Knightsaber.
Let’s start with the voiceover – it’s bad. I normally like that actor (you might remember him from “When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong”), but the dialogue he’s given is stilted and “spooky” without actually saying anything. It comes off so unnatural – the word “immeasurable” escapes from his mouth like a rusty saw blade made for dragging across ears.
The Interstellar / Gone Girl / Trent Reznor score(or, “mood throbs” as I’ve taken to calling that kind of music) would be great for a movie about a serial killer in a sleepy New England neighborhood, but the Fantastic Four is about a smart stretchy guy and his bickering astronaut family. Or, it should be. The music describes a film of horror and regret, which seems an odd tone to strike for Marvel’s first family.
I also think it’s cute how they tack on “from the studio that brought you X-Men: Days of Future Past,” but the “from the studio” part is super faint and fades out immediately before even a speed-reader can get a peek at it. It’s an excellent statement on the kind of hucksterism Fox is famous for.
Thirdly, the visuals. From what I can tell, the story is about a group of high school sophomores interning at an Apple store who accidentally step into some tubes and get their skin ripped off. The movie is then a dour examination of the Folly of Man.
That’s the tone they’re striking. Maybe they don’t realize it, but this Fantastic Four teaser looks like a trailer for a horror film, complete with terrifying cuts to bizarre biology. If it weren’t a Fantastic Four movie, it might be pretty interesting-looking.
It’s grim, humorless, and has a mostly gray palette and no focus on the characters. Basically, it looks like a trailer for a DC film.