Half in the Bag Episode 93: Fantastic Four

- the bag dr. doom is the top 5 greatest characters to ever come off of a comic book you know panel he is one of the greatest characters ever conceived in 20th centuries and you know well that was disappointing yeah after six hours of cleaning up blood all we wanted to do was see Mission Impossible rogue nation yeah who would have thought after three weeks the movie would still be selling out they should have just called it admission impossible that's a good thing they made a new Fantastic Four movie plenty of seats left for that oh my god so many seats but I was still disappointed though why because the movie was so terrible no because I was hoping it was going to be a rerelease of my favorite 1990s golf training video Fantastic Four Mike why would movie theaters in the Year 2015 need to re-release a Gulf video from the 90s I don't know J you tell me director Josh tank brings us a new sci-fi horror film called Fantastic Four in this new reboot from nightmare world films I mean Marvel miles teller stars as Stretch Armstrong a man made of rubber for no reason at all and as a kid he starts building a teleportation machine for no reason at all then as a slightly older kid he builds a bigger teleportation machine and all of his friends get turned into superheroes on a planet in another dimension by glowing green ooze what's the secret of the ooze only Vanilla Ice knows because he wrote the scripts Jay what did you think of Fantastic flop well Mike this Fantastic Four isn't quite so liked by critics oh my god I thought you were gonna say fantastic why would I say I just I really I didn't I so nobody likes this movie it was floating around between a 7 percent and a 10 percent on Rotten Tomatoes for the past couple days yes ah critics aside other critic Society I'm asking you Jay what did you think a fantastic flop I know I feel weird trying to decide like discuss it as a real movie because I felt like I watched an unfinished movie it felt like there was giant chunks that were just torn out it's it's like impossible to separate this from all the behind-the-scenes drama at least for me I don't know how much of that you were aware of who said the fantastic lie I was aware of no behind-the-scenes drama um and so I didn't quite get the feeling that you had where it was missing chunks I felt like it was a cohesive movie in but it was just like I knew it was fairly straightforward the Tigers and for the second half when things start happening and you're like why doctor dr. doom wants to destroy the world for some reason he has some sort of vague superpowers that we don't understand no no it builds a device to shoot a black hole under the earth out of rocks somehow see that okay all that that that ending was all confusing but it was all everything was set up and everything made sense to me cuz the Victor Von Doom character he's a bit of a misanthrope in the beginning he's like you know I'm humanity sucks and bah and then he loves Sue Storm so there's a little love triangle thing going on with him and stretcher Richard Reid Richard Reid Richard Reid was anything his name's Reed Richards oh really yeah is it Richard Reid a movie reviewer I believe so you know Richard Richard Gere Richard readers a Richard whoa Richard Roeper and Reid Rex Rex read Rex read they go to the the alternate dimension they get a little bit of the loose on them actually it's more complicated than that like rocks flying into rock man's cabin they all have something happened to them that somehow relates to what their eventual superpower is weird weird weird things from another dimension give them superpowers so we don't know what the ooze is or how it gives them powers but it does it's a weird dimension that's all you need to know but it's not even the use because then when they travel back to our dimension Sue Storm stayed behind and she gets hit by some sort of energy thing the second turn invisible I'm assuming that that came through the teleportation from the other world whatever but Victor von Frankenstein fell into the who's and was was consumed by it he got it like a hundred times worse than everybody else plus they left him behind on a planet for a year and so that you know that was brewing and his motivation I'm angry and then plus he's been altered by this stuff he's angry I'm fine the problem is is that you cannot make a movie from the Fantastic Four I want you to meet my daughter sue you want to be famous I just want my work to make a difference John Green this guy doesn't take orders well yeah especially from people who say I don't take orders well don't let a nice lab coats give you any crap bye well if I do I know who to call the muscle I gotta say it's fun having you here really mm-hmm this one this one is closer to Fantastic Four of what a Fantastic Four movie should be because Fantastic Four it there it's not like worst superhero team like the Avengers going out to save the world we're a bunch of scientists and weird things have happened to us a similar concept but it's like the the Jessica Alba Chris Chris Evans one it's like okay we're gonna quickly go through the science stuff in the first five minutes and then the rest of the movie we've got to save people on this bridge from Doctor Doom we're we're a superhero team and they really aren't I think that's sort of like I don't know much about the Fantastic Four comic but every adaptation it always feels like there's a disconnect between those two elements the science elements and the superhuman power elements and it's it's more so obvious in this version because the scientists elements are treated so seriously that it's very bizarre when they start like stretching limbs and we have a giant rock monster it feels completely out of place there's a what I'm suing was an insert shot early on when they have a boardroom meeting and they're flipping through papers and they go I've sieved brought on Victor Von Doom because from what I understand Josh Trank's original version that wasn't his name it was like Victor something else because Von Doom sounds silly in the tone that he was going for with this so it's like that's silly so yeah there's like a mishmash of tones that don't work at all in addition to and you're right about the character motivations and stuff being very clear and straightforward but like the pacing of the movie is really bizarre and off like we completely skip over and these are things I don't care about I think a general someone who wants to see a comic book movie would is like they get back from their mission now they all these weird superpowers Harden cut to a year later so we don't see them like learn how to use their powers we don't we barely understand what their powers are and it's just a year later and they're all doing these different things yeah that's an it and then doom shows up in the last 10 minutes of the movie and says I'm gonna destroy the world now I guess yeah the this was front-loaded with backstory pardon the contradiction which I actually liked a lot of that there is risk there is sacrifice there are consequences the movie starts off okay there's a nice indicator of what the reshoot stuff is in in the form of Kate Mara's horrible wig you should not be thinking of samurai cop when you watch a 200 million dollar movie but this is what we got really for all that money you can't get a natural wig well they ran out of money by that point they ran down to the party supply store we need a blonde wig we have a Marilyn Monroe one good enough well straighten it it's just terrible it's bad but but it's helpful because I was aware of a lot of the back-and-forth struggles between Josh Trank in the studio so seeing those it's like okay reshoot you know and especially most of the second half appears to be reshoots and there's a couple little moments where you could tell it wasn't because it was a real hair that I thought were actually kind of neat and I wish I could see what the original version of the movie was because I see elements in here that might not work as like a traditional comic-book movie but I thought the science stuff was interesting there's some almost like a horror movie at parts and I thought that stuff was interesting dr. doom shows up and he's going down a hallway and he's using like scanner power to make people's heads explode I was like that's creepy and weird and interesting dr. doom was awesome in this in some of it and he only decided to shoot a blue laser for no reason and then they stopped him somehow well I I I don't know what reshoots are what the original josh josh trank ideas were script Elizabeth from what I understand his original idea was to do sort of a science fiction movie with like Cronenberg type body horror elements something that is different from from your average superhero film something that they don't really expect a hundred percent beef burger melted cheddar with crispy hash browns and an egg your way no that's a you want that to go again sweetie the thing burger I had a feeling that doom comes back and then he gets in the transporter and he leaves and I thought I was gonna end there and I'm like that's great that's a great end thing I'm happy with it a little bit of a fight scene in the in the laboratory yeah he's gone and then whoa whoa not big enough though I'm assuming his original version was a lot more smaller scale I don't know what it was but you can see hints of it especially in the first half a lot of that seems like what was his original intentions it reminded me a lot of the fly with Jeff Goldblum well that's sad going back to chrome donor yeah right it's just like those teleportation machines and I'm the and I'm deciding to take the leap and jump into the teleportation device themselves after a night of drinking that's just like the fly this move like I said this movies from loaded with an hour of science stuff and it's not even that intricate but I think it's more than general audiences and people looking to see a comic book movie are going to want to deal with yeah they want to go we have got a machine that'll do this okay thanks yeah they don't want it too they get to the the superhero stuff get to them fight in gets a Doctor Doom in the middle of the street going I'm going to destroy New York Robo although they [ __ ] that up in the the Jessica Alba Fantastic Four - it doesn't work either way I think so they keep trying to redo these fantastic four movies and every time they just get worse and worse the best one is the Roger Corman one that wasn't even intended to be released do they called me doc dude how they get technically better technically better yes but they get less entertaining the thing costume did a dip it was great in the Roger Corman version then it looked terrible Michael Chiklis in a rubber suit yeah even though the first one was a rubber suit but it didn't look like a rubber suit though the rocks don't wrinkle when he moves like the Michael Chiklis one yeah and then this one of course is the the an appropriate use for a CGI character yeah okay you look good don't put a guy in a rubber suit and let you use a CGI character for that great I think the problem here is people want to see a happy witty fun action movie with the Fantastic Four and for some [ __ ] reason they went brooding and dark but it would have worked ultra brooding and dark as its own thing yes but the studio panicked and said don't make it like the Avengers that end scene oh my god when they when they they're like the government's like we want you to work for a still now like nope here's our deal we want our own laboratory and we want to be best friends and then they're all standing like looking over their lab they're like oh oh witty banter yeah what should we call ourselves the Fantastic Four huh I guess see josh trank like it's tearing his hair out I gotta say that's what I was thinking through most of this movie once I actually kind of saw what he was attempting to go for that completely got [ __ ] over there's a lot of like stories about him on the set he's like a horrible [ __ ] and he'd show up drunk and he trashed his living quarters that he was in while they're making the movie like completely destroyed it like he sounds like a horrible [ __ ] but watching this movie made me feel really bad for him Wow you're watching a coming-of-age story well you know what it's it's not his fault it's the studio's fault for hiring him yes because if this is the that was the script that they okayed I mean the guy he made a internet video is that how we got it Chronicle yes it's like a footage of a drunken party that's on someone's video camera and someone that's taking out lightsabers and fighting and that's how we got a deal to make a feature film I think so and then he made Chronicle and I don't know what their reasoning for hiring him for this was other than Chronicle had teenagers or young people in it and as science science fictiony element it kind of becomes a superhero type movie towards the end so I think that's because they saw yeah where that's that movie it has superheroes in it did you just completely forget what Chronicle was even about I did it's a good movie I remember it being blue and having people in it yeah you hire him to make this weird science fiction horror film you let him make the movie and then you [ __ ] them over in editing and reshoot half the movie with kate mara in a bad wig and then dump it in theaters but then what's your alternative to make a movie that looks like the Roger Corman movie where they were in the goofy costumes with the four on it and they're running around trying to save the day and that's what the Jessica Alba one was yeah it was yeah the Jessica Alba when it's kind of similar to the Roger Corman one with just a higher budget as far as how corny it is but the Roger Corman one has that low-budget charm that makes it kind of fun it's that it's a blur that line of the comic book movies where you can't go fully realistic sometimes but then you can't go corny yeah and when you ride the line in the middle that's when you end up with with muck well I think yeah the problem with the Fantastic Four is all their powers are inherently silly you have a man who stretches like you should not try and make a dark gritty movie like that it appears what Josh Trank was trying to do was something that kind of skirted around those elements or treated them like freaks or whatever he was trying to do and then yeah and then yet in all the superhero stuff and you're just you get like whiplash yeah what is this movie going for and Justin you get like whiplash Justin you get like whiplash oh I unintentionally made a whiplash reference yeah are you gonna get around to that yeah I did not do that on purpose I mean that was my goal and I'm I landed it the whole time I kept picturing miles teller like playing these these complicated jazz drums going ladies playing like another drum set over here JK Simmons turns up in a dr. doom costume and they have a like a drum off no JK Simmons goes Parker what's wrong movie everyone's on a [ __ ] superhero movie you have no idea what they are planning to do to you listen to me that's what got me here in the first place just want to fix my friends I can't fix this nobody can you don't know anything about what's coming what is coming to the end of your world it's the beginning of mine well let's talk about miles teller people say they want to punch him in the face yes everyone says he has a punchable face I feel like the best actors there there are certain roles that they were born to play and Myles was born to play this this role like he is so good Oh God so boring this character sucks I liked miles teller and whiplash which we never talked about whiplash I'm half from the bag because we haven't seen it until recently and it's like the best movie of last year it's [ __ ] great who's better than Birdman I'll say that under Advanced Mode Nightcrawler it's it's probably the best movie of last year and I like him I think you know he's not like I don't know he's not like super handsome I like that he doesn't look he's not like a Chris Evans like the type of person you would put in one of these movies yeah and they don't have them be the classic Reed Richards with the grey and you know like how he looks in the comic book they have a little did a little different twist on it although on the poster they try to make him look more attractive in the poster and I always have noticed like more so like I think they they they stretched his face out no pun intended and like added thicker eyebrows and I'm looking at the rid of his scars they got ya they tried to make him look like like a attractive guy in the poster so probably so they could get the the girl demo in there and he looked doesn't look like that in real life there's some some noticeable differences between the heavily photoshopped I've done that the other actor got he looked really bad the guy who plays the thing really needs some lotion like he looks like he's made of rocks oh I think that was a visual effects what so kate mara is the sister of Rooney Mara oh really and I'm wondering if they had a competition too because I saw the trailer for that Peter Pan movie would kick with Rooney Mara and a big comical wig and I wonder if they had a competition to see who could pick the most embarrassing project to work on I play Sue Storm she's pretty shy very smart and very passionate about science and she becomes the Invisible Woman I agree with you the Doctor Doom coming back was like genuinely frightening like he's pretty scary you super powerful they exploding people's heads as awesome and as graphic as you can in a pg-13 movie yeah and like when the thing is is like we're right away when they have their powers and miles teller strapped to the table and it's like weird and then he's in the air shaft and then the things like her help moves I'm trying to pull himself out of the axe and yeah is he's like still kind of forming and it's really kind of grotesque and scary and yeah little kids will not enjoy this film whatsoever it's boring for adults yeah but for me I in a way I kind of liked it in the way that you did where it's like I like a lot of the elements I liked the tone the strange darkness to it it worked as a movie just not a Fantastic Four movie or not a superhero movie well I wouldn't know because then you get to the second half where you get to all the the goofier stuff it's not the second half is more so is the last tenth you know what I mean it's hard to figure out what to do with them yeah like what do you do with the Fantastic Four you have to make a movie about them luring science and physics and weird astral phenomenon no that's not what you should do if you're trying to make a conventional comic book movie though you have them get shot into space in the first 15 minutes of the movie and they come back and they have superpowers and they save people although all those stuff like him building the machine I'm setting the monkey in to the other dimension and it was all very there was one thing I was thinking - is like are they all going to get in the machine and go isn't that the job for like Navy pilots you know like astronauts but I was connecting that point in the movie well they at one point they did say that they were NASA's gonna take over from here I know but like the fact that they were so upset by that and then they get drunk if they were pocket we're just gonna do it as like at that point it's like they're driven by ego which makes you not sympathize with them at all who wouldn't want to visit another dimension that looks like a nightmare planet Doctor Doom like that nightmare planet for some reason I want to go back to my beautiful new homeworld you got covered you got corrupted by goo and we all know when you have a mysterious goo in a movie that does terrible evil things that it's a surefire hit at the box office I was actually thinking of Prometheus when they get to the the other world cuz they start acting like dummies for no reason it's like if you're on some mysterious other dimension and you see a giant pile of green electric goo don't immediately stick your hand in it you have no idea what the [ __ ] this is it's like in Prometheus one there's a little snake monster and the guy puts his face right up to it like why are you doing this so don't go rappelling down a two-mile high cliff yes maybe take take a step out of your pod look around and say alright bye plant your flag taking a couple of pictures here maybe take some scientific measurements soil samples atmospheric readings sure and then go this is what it's like there I'll take your face in green goo there's yeah and if you do want to touch the green goo use an instrument you know you're like the thing that ray Stantz stuck into the river of slime there's there's better science and ghostbusters than there wasn't Fantastic Four some how many years it would take to get to another planet that has a bunch of stuff that we could meet that we can use to help you know the elements that I like so we're not followed through on so it's not it didn't appeal to me it won't appeal to fans of the Fantastic Four because they change so much of the backstory and the the tone of it is all wrong and it won't appeal to general audiences I just want to see a Marvel Avengers Titan movie or little kids oh and definitely want to feel the little kids so it ends up being a movie for nobody I didn't hate it I attempted to say it doesn't deserve a lower on tomatoes score than [ __ ] pixels but at the same time it's a frustrating movie that you can't recommend to anyone really five-year-olds at least will enjoy pixels because it's colorful and you can understand it's happening yeah this movie should have had the tone and the writing of like a guardians of the galaxy where you do like Reed Richards doing wacky things or or you take a chance and you really commit to the weird science horror movie which you know they didn't do that either it's one way or the other I can't believe they even greenlit that it's crazy to me haven't even tried I almost I don't think we'll ever get any sort of directors cuts or or any sort of alternate version but I would be very curious to see what it was originally supposed to be but even even entertaining that notion I could see doing it with something like I don't know like what a big comedy heavy Lobo you know not a giant tent pole well-known yes the fantastic for everyone thinks of is you know the rock man the thing like stretchy man invisible girl and the Human Torch they're all inherently wacky and then they wear the goofy costumes with the four on it and you can't make a dark gritty David Cronenberg body horse you could and maybe you could do it successfully because stranger things have happened well that that's why I'm wondering what this originally was because I can see elements or it might have worked but we'll never know let's drink to Josh Trank but they're gonna need a Josh tranquilizer during this film so Mike would you recommend not so Fantastic Four huh keep your kids far away but I didn't hate it I couldn't hate it there were like you said there are elements in it that were well done the acting is is blandest [ __ ] came our looks bored except for tim heidecker's performance which i thought was brilliant but everyone else in the movie Bob especially the man boy oh yeah it actually gets deeper as the movie goes along so Jay I don't need to ask you what would you recommend fantastic form fantastic fraud oh no I can't I like you I didn't hate it but at the same time it's such a like a muddled mess that I don't I I can't recommend it to anyone really other than not as definitely not as a movie but maybe is just like an artifacts an oddity like the Roger Corman film like the Roger Corman film but yeah I certainly wouldn't recommend supporting in theaters this should just rereleased the Roger Corman film I would love that if that got an official release we do the visual of don't know don't change the visual effects the Human Torch at the end is the best part he's flipping around in front of the laser I was surprised that some of the effects in there or fairly passable huh yeah it had that low-budget charm which this movie is not low-budget and has no charm that's right sir mm-hmm I understand you want to watch your Night Court tape as soon as possible all right we'll be there soon thanks mr. Plunkett goodbye who was that that was mr. Plunkett Oh Jay get your snow gear on we're heading up to mr. plinkus house to fix his VCR again fixes VCR we're doing that again mm-hmm why do I need snow gear because his house is on top of the [ __ ] mountain I was freezing cold Oh are we still doing that and remember his house is on the mountain I know I thought maybe we just skip past that

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 1,810,600

Rating: 4.9140258 out of 5

Keywords: Red Letter Media, Fantastic Four (2015), Review, Half in the Bag, Josh Trank (Film Director)

Id: 2ol2rzuRDAE

Length: 27min 17sec (1637 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/b00geyman_ver2]

so glad to finally hear their opinions on whiplash

[u/Nickp1991]

The best thing about this Fantastic Four is that it made the Roger Corman version more popular

[u/joshkg]

I sure hope we can contact vanilla ice to find out the Secret of the Ooze.

[u/yeahHedid]

what's with the audio feedback on Jay's one-shot? All the way through this.

[u/Acharai]

I like how they have a VHS of "The Day the Clown Cried" sitting on the desk.

[u/koreanwizard]

Holy fuck, the Gods at RLM have single handedly shifted the jerk in just one day. If you had posted any of these opinions in this sub yesterday, you'd be downvoted into oblivion.

[u/thefrans96]

Just watched the review, this is why i like this guys so much. They didn't go into ¨fantastic four sucks, i hate it¨ mode. They actually gave it a chance and fair review. I guess thats what happens when you aren't a comickbook fan.

[u/bundt_trundler]

Mike and Jay are awesome. I love Half In The Bag, The Plinkett Reviews and Best of the Worst. There is a companion episode to this one on Best of The Worst that pretty much goes through the 1994 Roger Corman version in the same depth.

[u/frank_13v]

I can see how it could have work out being a dark type of money, even tho the comicbooks are a bit campy sometimes

The fact that ben makes Reed acountable for everything that happened, the dark tone Doom had... they were things i could get behind

But after the 45 minute mark the movie just feels soo weird, you can tell some parts are missing, I mean where did doom get the cape? everyone was being friendly and normal with doom, why would he suddently rage? nobody wated to destroy the planet, how was that his planet anyway? Doom should be driven by power and knowledge, he wouldnt destroy fucking earth, he would want to come and rule everything

That whole year that we see nothing, we could have get the team forming because the goverment wants it and you can see them fighting some terrorist shit or prevent a terrorist attack w/e,then when the other team goes back to the other planet they have take Doom back, and make him help the team to try to figure out how to fix everything, while Ben has everyone accountable for his looks, Doom is just pretending to help because he wants something else out of this, then they go back to the other planet and shit breaks lose there, you can have the light laser shit happen (which will take a lot of shit to the other world), fights bla bla, they let Doom behind and after a year or so, you can see Victor coming back, he created a machine with all the crap that went through the portal and made it back to earth for revenge and bamm credits...

Like half the things you see in the trailer are missing, I think if they have make a 2h+ movie it would have work out