Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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SEPTEMBER 16-22, 2015 UCW 13 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Just before I sat down to write my review I asked my husband which movie was worse, Fantastic Four (100 minutes) or Thor, and he really had to think about his answer. Finally, he laughed and told me he would watch Thor again, but he had no interest in seeing the four goonybirds act out a plot that made no sense, ever again. Also, sexism. So there's your answer. One boy genius (Reed Richards, played by Miles Teller) and one sidekick (Ben Grimm, played by Jamie Bell) are lifelong friends because Ben sees Reed making a doodle and believes that if he doesn't understand it, it must be science. Ten years later, a famous scientist randomly trolling high school science fairs (Franklin Storm, played by Reg E. Cathay) spots Reed across a crowded gymnasium and offers him all the money to do science stuff. Reed sheds the dead weight of Ben Grimm like so much snakeskin and immediately begins making science happen at the Baxter Foundation. There, he meets "scientist" Sue Storm (Kate Mara) whose science con- sists of listening to Portishead and identifying patterns in stuff while typ- ing very fast. She is the best at doing these things. She also has a brother named Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) who rejects science in order to trick out cars and make them go fast, at least, until one of his street races ends tragically with him breaking an arm. Then, Franklin Storm is like, "No more cars for you! Now you must perform science for me!" In any other world, Johnny would just go get a job and finance his own streetracing lifestyle, but in this one he's like "I can think of no other way to get what I want, so okay." With three young people now doing science, Franklin wanders off to trade the affections of his daughter to a vaguely Eastern European scien- tist named Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell) in exchange for … more science? I think? The team now in place, and Sue is there to type really fast, so they make rapid progress on the machine that tears holes in reality. Then, the government wants to take the science and give it to the military. The boys are not pleased. Sue accepts that she lives in a world run by men and wanders offscreen. The three science boys drink from a single small flask of, presumably, 100 percent proof ethanol, and simulate drunken bonding while Sue Storm is somewhere else typing stuff. For some reason, The Three Best Friends club makes Ben join them in activating what they have made, and then they all turn — fantastic! Even Sue, who didn't get to defy authority with them, but got zapped anyway while trying to save them from themselves. As women do. At the end of the film, I found myself disappointed that it wasn't worse. It wasn't great, but I'm not sure it deserves the gallons of Hater-ade being poured on it from all sides. Nonsensical, sexist, plodding, poorly acted, poorly directed — yes, it is all these things. Is it completely unen- joyable? I wouldn't go that far. If an insomniac who had never seen a comic book movie before, and never read The Fantastic Four, were to come across this on late-night cable they might even enjoy it. A little bit. Now showing at Patriot 14 +IMAX. Haters Gonna Hate Fantastic Four (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200. Don't forget to vote in the Primary Election on October 6th and the Municipal Election on November 3rd. Director, NC Division of Veteran Aairs