Opinion: Fantastic Four (2015) in retrospect is a sci-fi horror film

After watching Dark Phoenix, I was not blown away by the story and felt that certain story arcs should have been explored more to help with certain character development. I wrote a full review about it here.

I don’t feel like I was overly critical because I’m a glass half full kind of person. So even though I wasn’t blown away, I’d never say Dark Phoenix was bad. I just figured that the reboot may have been wrong for this point in time.

I mean this is an era of superhero movies that evoke tears! This is an era where people rewatch and rewatch until every easter egg and theory has been explored. Some times, the type of connection that fans have with a film could cause it to be re-released in theaters only one month and some days after the initial release.

Cough cough, Avengers: Endgame.

Dark Phoenix didn’t evoke that.

That being said I decided to go back in time to 2015. To a time when the world saw a reboot of another story about the Fantastic Four.

Previously, in the 2005 version, it was a story about 2 scientists, a researcher, an astronaut, and a pilot journeying into space to experiment with cosmic energy against the better judgment of certain party members. They get caught in a storm that turns them all into superheroes. Right away three out of the four participants use their powers for good, the fourth one eventually comes around and the Fantastic Four save the day while the fifth powerful being goes rogue.

The film was light-hearted enough. No real consequences that interrupted the flow of the world. Plus at the end of the day, the Fantastic Four stood victorious and all was well.

Cool.

Now that we’re up to speed, let’s look at the most recent reboot.

Reviews for Fantastic Four ( 2015) weren’t the best. In fact, if you google the film you’ll see mostly negative reviews. But I watched it for myself four years later and I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve been thinking about this all wrong.

This isn’t a whimsical story about superheroes. This is a sci-fi horror film!

Think about it.

Five teenagers who are under supervised with chips on their shoulders use their expertise in science to create a portal to an unknown planet. They have no respect for authority, barely get along with each other, and of course, there is a love triangle involved.

The lack of supervision gives them time to set up an exploration of the unknown planet and when they arrive there is an unknown entity waiting to pounce.

Student number one gets crushed by rocks, student number two is burned alive, and student number three is presumed dead after falling off a cliff into an acid lake.

While trying to bring their ship back,, student number four gets infected due toa blowback blast causing her to go into a coma. And student number five seemly gets away without an issue until he realizes that he is permantly deformed.

Student number five flees after the four surviving members of his group are captured by a private sector of the government. Pleagued by guilt due to the cost his friends have paid he leaves them to be experimented on by the government.

Eventually, the student who fell into the acid lake comes back when the adults, who weren’t paying attention in the first place, try to revisit the unknown planet. His skin is charred and he is unrecognizable. He’s seeking revenge. He’s being bent on death and destruction. He is no longer a human and now his only goal is to kill those who left him behind and destroy the earth by sucking it into a black hole.

See doesn’t that sound good?

Granted the end of the movie sees the four other teenage students band together to destroy the threat but, some horror films have happy endings too.

So next time Fantastic Four (2015) is on TV watch it with new eyes and tell me what you think.