Some trailers instantly reel-in moviegoers, even if they are the shorter “teaser” versions of movie previews. One you won’t find on the list of best trailers or teasers is the first released for the reboot of super-team Fantastic Four in The Fantastic Four, just released. Like the not-so-amazing and unnecessary reboot of the Spider-man movie franchise, here again Marvel Studios is re-launching another one of their classic superhero titles. As moviegoers, and fans of the superhero genre in particular, why are we supposed to care about this new version?
Clearly this next film is another origin story. Yawn. We already saw the origin story of the team in the 2005 Fantastic Four movie starring the superb British actor Ioan Gruffudd as a perfect Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, with Michael Chiklis as comic-book-character-come-to-life Ben Grimm/The Thing, Jessica Alba as a great Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, and Chris Evans as a brilliant Johnny Storm/Human Torch. In fact the Human Torch and The Thing should be on everyone’s top list of comic book characters realized on the big screen. So why do it all over again ten years later?
If you’re going to take hundreds of millions of dollars to do something again, to please fans you need to make the new entry exponentially better. Not just a little better, and not just with bigger effects, or a younger cast. Otherwise fans of the series aren’t going to play along, or if they do, it is with full knowledge the studio is only squeezing as much revenue out of the franchise as they can regardless of whether there is anything redeeming about the new version. This isn’t to say the new movie might be good, a lot of fun, or even great. But it’s the studio’s job to sell us on it. That’s what trailers are for. They’re like book covers. This teaser gives us nothing to get excited about. It might as well be the trailer for Hulk or Iron Man 2.
And what’s the best they have as a tagline for the poster? That it’s made by the studio that made X-Men: Days of Future Past. That’s it?
Check it out for yourself:
Feeling the goosebumps? Probably not. Now take a look at the teaser for the 2005 version of Fantastic Four:
A far better teaser. Here’s the full version:
What better reason to re-watch the original?
The Fantastic Four arrives in theaters August 7, 2015.
C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com
