Correction: This article originally referred to Jason Lee’s character in ‘Mallrats’ as “Banksy.” The character’s name is actually “Brody.” We apologize for the mix-up.
The final trailer for Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four – a movie which might be good for all we know, but that has repeatedly suffered from unimpressive marketing – finally premiered at Comic-Con 2015, and 20th Century Fox has just released it online to the masses. It’s our best look yet at the (apparently rather thin) plot to the movie. Most importantly it gives us a peak inside the mind and motivations of super-scientist Reed Richards (Miles Teller), and proves once and for all that The Thing really does need pants.
That second observation can’t just be us. Looking at The Thing (Jamie Bell) in this trailer is a weird experience because without pants, he looks like a rocky Ken doll (as opposed to a Ken doll based on Rocky, which might even be weirder). The implication/revelation that The Thing has no genitalia is a distracting one, even if it does finally answer Brody’s questions from Mallrats. What’s more, the single color design of The Thing benefits from a splash of color breaking up the visual monotony.
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The Fantastic Four trailer implies that once Ben Grimm becomes The Thing, he simply decides to become a nudist forever, since he obviously shows up in multiple scenes throughout the film without clothing. Not that we have anything against nudists, of course. It’s simply an odd trait to tack onto a character who has never been a nudist before.
But we do like the origin of Reed Richards, whose scientific genius apparently caused him great problems in school, and who seems to have been at least partly based on Dib from Invader Zim this time out. We dislike the tired trope that the government wants to use these superhumans as weapons, and we’re disheartened that we still know nothing about Doctor Doom (Toby Kebbell) as a character. He’s obviously the bad guy, but his plan appears to be blowing stuff up sci-fi style, and it appears that once again the trick to taking him down is… sigh… simply working together as a team. (Of course! It seems so obvious in retrospect! And after watching the first Tim Story movie!)
Hopefully all our concerns will be assuaged when Fantastic Four comes out on August 7, 2015. Check out the rest of Crave’s extensive Comic-Con 2015 coverage for more exclusive videos, interviews and news.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
