What Do You Want That You Need To Yell My Name?
You
mother fucker….how much did you pay the refs for that Super Bowl? How much did
you pay for my team to lose, you shit grinning son of a bitch?!!
Oh, this is about that great Super Bowl where your team choked the big one.
Watch
it, pal!
Oh, it’s not fun losing, is it? Well, I’ve got some
bad news for you. I only paid the refs for the first quarter, your team blew it
the rest of the way.
Wha….But….AHHHHHHH
Now get to inducting the worst movie of 2015. Oh and
by the way, congrats on winning the Fantasy Football bet where you’ll get the
summer to review your films. But, I have something in store for you in April.
Goddamm….fine,
let’s get to the induction.
Monster Crap Inductee: Fantastic Four
Beyond Incompetence…Beyond Ego…Lies The Shitastic
2015
GINO Award Winner
2015
was not the best year for movies given that I was able to do a Top 20 Best and
Worst of the Year and according to you fans, I still had not seen the worst of
the year as neither of the two films that people voted a lot on were films I
had seen with Jem And The Holograms and the one that ultimately won, Fantastic
Four.
In 1961, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were commissioned to create a superhero team by their boss Martin Goodman because Martin had played a golf game with someone high on DC Comics and that person was bragging about how well the Justice League was doing. They of course created Fantastic Four and the rest of that story is history. 6 years later, a Fantastic Four cartoon was made by Hanna Barbera which lasted only 20 episodes, so yeah….a hiccup there. In 1994, Constantin Films (who somehow got the rights to a Fantastic Four) commissioned Roger Corman to make a Fantastic Four movie so they could keep the rights. What nobody who made the film knew was that the film was never going to be released and is still a prize among movie bootleggers.
So
because of that failure, Fox just sat on the franchise and kept making X-Men
movies instead as those still made money, but around 2014…they came to a little
problem. Marvel had actually created their own studios and with the backing of
Disney a year after the film division was created, Marvel made it pretty well
known that if you lost the film rights to their properties, you weren’t getting
them back, which is why Sony had to do Amazing Spider-man despite Spiderman 3
being only 5 years old.
But
what was different for Fox was that they had TWO Franchises they were fixing to
lose if they didn’t make another movie to as they also had the rights to
Daredevil. Fox could only choose one and basically let the other one expire
back to Marvel so they decided to give Daredevil back to Marvel.
Marvel
In Turn Made A Daredevil TV Series Exclusively For Netflix That Was A Slam Dunk
Hit And Not The Flop That The Daredevil Movie Was.
So
with Daredevil gone, Fox immediately had to rush out a Fantastic Four movie
because if this got cancelled at this point, it was bye-bye to a series that
they believed they could make money off of. In their hurry, they made many
decisions like hiring Josh Trank to direct the film after he made the hit found
footage film, Chronicle
They
also made a lot of hires in the cast like Miles Teller as Reed Richards/Mr.
Fantastic, Kate Mara (my favorite of the Mara sisters) as Sue Storm/Invisible
Girl, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm/Thing and the most controversial, Michael B.
Jordan as Johnny Storm/Human Torch (controversial because Johnny Storm had
always been white and Michael B. Jordan was a black man). Personally, I really
don’t care about race and even if I did have a problem, that whole thing was
crap when we already had a white girl in Sue Storm be played by a Latina woman
in Jessica Alba in the last film.
But
the film had bigger problems because as we learned while making the film, Josh
Trank wasn’t a big fan of the series he was adapting so he was writing a script
that had things that would totally betray the fan base…and if you have been
paying attention in Hollywood forever, giving someone the film rights to a
franchise that they don’t really care for, normally turns out goddamn horrible.
It
got even worse as once the film was finished and trailers were coming out, NO
ONE was talking positively about the film and the film was getting the always
bothersome review embargo where you can’t write reviews until the film gets
released. And since it is being inducted onto this site, you can guess how the
final product turned out. But enough with that, let’s get into this film that
you all thought was the worst of 2015.
We
begin this film with a classroom of 5th grade kids in Oyster Bay,
New York talking about what they plan to be when they grow up. The kid we hear
first wants to be quarterback for the New York Giants. Oh, and this kid even
has an annual salary modeled of between 10 and 20 million dollars a year. Next
is Reed Richards, who is this kid. Reed Richards says that he wants to be the
first person in human history to teleport himself, which gets a laugh.
And the teacher asks him to repeat that.
The
Teacher In This Room Is Dan Castellanata, Who Most Will Know As The Voice Of
Homer Simpson, But Here In Monster Crap, He Will Always Be Remembered As The
Narrator For Super Mario Bros. Who Asked Us What Would Happen If The Meteor
Sent The Dinosaurs To Another Dimension.
Anyway,
Young Reed here talks about the scientific ways he can teleport himself and
even says he has a prototype at home. His teacher reacts by making fun of him
for this technological crap asking if next year is going to be a flying car,
which Reed responds by saying he isn’t working on that anymore. Anyway, Mr.
Kenny as the teacher is called, tells Reed to redo his career and come back
with a real career. Okay, Mr. Kenny, you are a terrible teacher. Despite Reed’s
wild ambitions, who the hell are you to say that his wish to be the first
person to teleport himself is not realistic? Next thing you will be doing is
telling the next kid who wants to be the first person to go to Mars that he is
being unrealistic.
Here
we also meet Ben Grimm and Ben Grimm is the son of a junkyard owner.
The
mom comes in to go after the older son who was picking on the younger one. She
also tells Ben to go outside and check on what the dog is barking at. Ben gets
the bat and yells at the dogs to go away. Ben heads to the car and sees Reed,
who needs a power converter. Ben allows him to take the converter from the car
in exchange for allowing Ben to see the teleporting machine.
They
go to Reed’s house, where they build the machine. They use a toy car as a
guinea pig for this experiment. The machine for the most part works,
teleporting the car, but it also causes a power outage.
And
I think I know what his dad is exactly going to do: Make them watch Tim &
Eric’s Awesome Show.
That
Will Teach The Little Imp For Causing A Blackout And Screwing Him Out Of
Watching The Game.
7
years later, Reed and Ben display their teleporter at a science fair in a high
school gymnasium.
If
you are not a comic book fan and are wondering why I am saying poor Ben…here is
why. Ben Grimm is a jock who excelled at football and as a Marine test pilot
before becoming a scientist. So basically, they turned tough guy Ben Grimm into
a scrawny kid. Yeah, this movie can kiss my ass.
Reed
decides to be a dick and use another kid’s model airplane as the guinea pig
since Ben forgot to bring the model car. So they do the experiment where the
plane is teleporter to an unknown place and back.
Reed apologizes to the kid for destroying his plane and the kid calls him a dick. So it seems Reed and Ben have failed, but they do get noticed by Dr. Franklin Storm and his daughter Sue from The Baxter Foundation.
So
they head to the Baxter Building.
Enjoy
It Now Because After They Get Their Powers, That Building Will Never Be Used
Again. Yeah, This Won’t Be The Fantastic Four’s Headquarters.
So
Reed and Ben are brought to Reed’s office so they can get the place to his
liking. Ben leaves and goes away for a good chunk of the movie (although not
the majority). Reed heads to the library and talks with Sue, although she is
clearly annoyed by him. Sue talks about music being pattern recognition. She
talks about thinking Reed just wants to be famous and Reed says that’s not
true, but he does want his work to make a difference.
Franklin
then talks to the board who are not happy about bringing another kid in. The
board also doesn’t believe his teleporter will work and then Franklin talks
about bringing back Victor Von Doom into
the project. He convinces them to do so despite them thinking Victor should be
in jail for set fire to the data servers. Franklin then finds Vincent and is
able to get him to rejoin the project.
Oh
and we learn that Victor has kind of a crush on Sue as she is basically the
only reason he comes back. In the lab, Sue says he nearly caused a black hole
with his experiment. Victor in the lab also pisses on the schematics of the
machine Reed built. It is revealed that this planet can help save the world
even though Victor isn’t sure about saving this one. Yeah, he is one of those
guys and Sue jokes about his opinion by calling him Doctor Doom (this will be
the only time he is ever called Dr. Doom and it was done as a joke). Franklin
thinks they can work together to save the world through their generation.
We
then see Johnny Storm who is about to compete in a street race.
Johnny
goes to his work at the lab and we immediately see that he and Victor are not
the best of friends. Reed asks for some help and Johnny is willing to help. We
then getting a short montage of everyone making the machine and the suits for
the machine. We then go back to Grimm’s junkyard as Ben is getting home from
school and he gets texts from Reed talking about how close they are to
finishing the machine.
After
that, we get a conversation between Reed and Sue. We also learn that Sue was
adopted since her real parents died. This was done of course for those who were
pissed that a white Sue Storm and a black Johnny were brothers and their dad
was black. Honestly, it would have been a lot easier if they had a picture of
their white mom, but then we would get the “controversy” of interracial
marriage (yes, for some reason, someone would have been pissed).
Anyway,
we see that the two have a personal connection and after they separate, Victor
complains that Reed is being unprofessional. Reed then says that they finished
it so he decides to go take a nap while telling Victor to tell Dr. Storm for
him.
Well,
it is time for the big test on this teleporter. The test subject?
Look,
I understand Rise of the Planet of the Apes because they needed to use so many
apes and they didn’t want you to differentiate between real and fake apes….like
what happened with Congo. But this is the only ape we will ever see in this
movie so maybe just one moment, you would think this movie would get an actual
ape for this movie. But no, we have a CGI ape.
Long
story short…the test works as the ape is teleported into the next dimension and
then teleported back. The next thing that happens is the board tells the crew
that they need to get in correspondence with NASA so they can send
professionals to that dimension that they have now named Planet Zero. This
sounds like this would be a smart idea so we can send people who can deal with
this shit, but…this pisses off Victor and Reed as THEY wanted to go to the next
dimension.
So
guess what the two fuckheads decide to do? They recruit Johnny Storm and Ben
Grimm to come with them, break into the lab, and make sure they go to Planet
Zero because they want to be the first to do this because they wanted to be
remembered like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. I really hate these selfish
pricks. Sue Storm learns of this and tries to stop them, but they don’t listen
to her.
They
teleport back, but because of the manual override with the machine not being on
even ground, the teleporter explodes engulfing all three of them plus Sue
Storm.
Reed
wakes up and tries to get Ben out of a rock formation, but when he turns
around, he realizes he has stretched his leg since his leg was caught under the
machine.
Hi,
Stretch Armstrong
Okay….I
kid, I kid. Reed Richards has obviously become Mr. Fantastic although they will
never call him that. Reed keeps asking where his friends are, but the
scientists just want him to try to move his fingers. Meanwhile, Dr. Storm is
getting interrogated by army brass.
All
of these scenes are meant to prove the body horror of the events that caused
their transformation that director Josh Trank wanted with this film since he
wanted to emulate David Cronenberg. And it still continues for a while. Meanwhile,
Reed decides to use poor CGI to shrink his limbs after hearing through a vent
Ben calling for him.
Area
57 Guards Are Useless
Reed
gets to the vent where Ben Grimm is held and we see what happened to Ben.
Seriously,
this version of Ben Grimm is The Thing who is completely CGI (with no practical
makeup effects) and he also wears no pants.
The
alarm sounds for Reed escaping and instead of trying to help Ben escape, Reed
decides to keep crawling and only basically tell Ben that he will come back for
him eventually.
Basically,
Reed Richards in this film is made to be a shitty friend, but we as the
audience are still supposed to sympathize with Reed even when he leaves his
best friend high and dry. So Reed escapes.
Then
Dr. Storm gets yelled at by the head of the board because Reed escaped and he
wants to know where Reed is. Franklin tells him that he doesn’t know and tries
to say that Reed is scared like the rest of them. The head says that they don’t
know what they are, but that they are powerful, which makes them extremely
valuable to the bosses. Franklin threatens that he will not allow these kids to
be government assets and the head says that they don’t have a choice if they
want to protect them.
So
the head of the board talks to Ben and basically says that Reed left him high
and dry. He then is able to talk Ben into playing ball and helping the
government, which both Sue and Johnny also do.
A
plane ride with the head of the board is escorted to the base by Johnny Storm,
who can fly too. Johnny goes to the base and seems really happy with his use as
a government weapon. We also get to see Sue get her balance in the flying force
field better.
Sue
and Johnny get into an argument about their new powers as Johnny is okay with
using his powers to help the government while Sue wants to help their father
get them back to normal. The head of the board talks to government officials
about the three agreeing to help them in return for eventually finding a cure.
Franklin
and Sue have a conversation about wanting to find Reed since Reed does have the
secret to helping create the part of the teleporter to get people back from
Planet Zero after they get there, and that will be the only way to get closer
to a cure. Sue thinks Reed abandoned them and for some fucking reason, Franklin
defends Reed’s actions. Basically Franklin wants his daughter to help him find
Reed since he will only listen to Sue.
So
they track Reed down to being in parts Panama.
We
also learn that Reed is getting scrap parts and looking for Ben, who he left
high and dry. Sue needs some music so she can find Reed, in an abandoned jungle
lab where he is even using his stretching skills to be different people.
Oh
God…Bad CGI Transformation
Oh
and here is his place.
In the plane, Reed still tries to make good with Ben, but Ben is still on bad terms with him. Reed is brought back to Area 57 and he starts to work with Franklin to design the teleporter again in hopes of finding a cure, with persuasion from Sue. So Reed fixes the machine in less than ten minutes because they had almost everything done, but the source code is a little fucked up. Yes, this film didn’t have much time to go back to Planet Zero so they basically hackneyed their way into getting this done quickly. Oh and we needed time for Johnny Storm to say he wants to be an asset to the government again, but this time to his father. Oh and that issue between Johnny Storm and Reed Richards, fixed off screen as they are now hugging.
The
place goes to a Code Red and the four superhumans are able to get out of their
rooms. We see Reed and Ben meet up and Ben wonders if Reed is going to run
again. And I don’t know if this was bad acting or bad directing, but it takes
Reed a minute before he tells Ben that he isn’t going to run this time. We also
see Johnny and Sue meet and wonder where there dad is. So of course, we cut to
Victor going to the lab and confronting Dr. Storm.
And
Victor says this line.
And
that will be the only time, Victor kind of calls himself Dr. Doom. Yeah, none
of the heroes are designated by their hero names. Kind of stupid if you ask me.
But
through sheer effort, Reed is able to get out of his restraints through sheer
will and is able to knock Victor down (fuck it, he is Doom now). This stops his
control over the elements for the others and they are able to break their
restraints. Reed then tells the rest that they need to all work together if
they are going to beat Doom because while he may be stronger than each of them,
he isn’t stronger than them as a unit.
After
a short (and I mean short) battle, Victor gets an uppercut from Ben (who yells
“It’s Clobberin’ Time”) and is forced into his own machine. Basically, Johnny
destroys the supports and Doom gets disintegrated.
As
the black hole closes, the four heroes escape and head back to Earth.
Afterwards,
we get the four in a meeting with military brass and the four have an idea.
We
then cut to their new base.
While
on a tour of this new base (where the place is called Central City, but they
rename it the Franklin Storm Research Center), the team talks about how they
need a name for their team. After a few rejections of bad names, Reed asks Ben
what he thinks about all of this and Ben says it is fantastic. That gives Reed
his idea for the name.
So
the aftermath of all of this. Well, this film was panned upon release (despite
the review embargo) and it was a financial box office bomb. While it was able
to make its $120 million production budget back thanks to worldwide sales, the
film only grossed $56.1 million in North America, making it the lowest grossing
Fantastic Four film. Also, while it may have made its production budget back…if
you add in marketing and distribution, the film cost $200 million overall and
even with a $111.6 million gross internationally, that still makes it $167.8
million, which is way less than what was needed to break even in the end.
Of
course, you will also notice the absence of a Stan Lee cameo, but he hasn’t
made a cameo in a Fox made Marvel movie since the last Fantastic Four movie
(although he will be in the new Deadpool movie and X-Men: Apocalypse). But
yeah, that should tell you his thoughts on what the dumbasses on Fox have done
to his creations.
The
critics as I said, weren’t too kind to it either as it has a 9% on Rotten
Tomatoes and a 27 out of 100 from MetaCritic. Even the best reviews of the film
only have it as meh. It is nominated for five Razzies with Worst Picture; Worst
Director; Worst Screenplay; Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off, or Sequel; and
Worst Screen Combo.
There
was threat of a sequel before the film’s release with the threat being that
they’ll release the film two weeks after Star Wars: Episode 8, but with the
film’s poor performance, they decided in November of 2015 to axe that idea
altogether now. It’s not clear what Fox will do next with the franchise since
they have time before the film rights expire again, but from their record…you
can probably expect them to try again with the Fantastic Four when the film
rights begin to expire.
Now
as for cast and crew, most of the cast had other movies and shit to fall back
on. Miles Teller (who played Reed Richards) was also in Insurgent (the sequel
to Divergent) in 2015 and that was a hit. Kate Mara (who played Sue Storm) was
also in The Martian in 2015 and that film is being nominated for an Academy
Award for Best Picture. Michael B. Jordan (who played Johnny Storm) was also in
Creed (a continuation of the Rocky franchise with Jordan being Apollo Creed’s
son from another mother) got great freaking reviews and was sadly mostly
snubbed by the Oscars (Yeah, #OscarsSoWhite…I know). Toby Keddell (who played
Victor Von Doom) is supposed to be in some hit films and for some fucking
reason, a remake of Ben Hur. Jamie Bell (who played Ben Grimm) will be voicing
Tintin once again in the sequel to The Adventures of Tintin.
The
only one who truly got fucked by this all was Josh Trank, the director…who saw
his potential go from future Sci-Fi genius to nutcase no one wants to work
with. Although to be fair, that is not entirely Fantastic Four’s fault. He was
supposed to do a stand-alone Star Wars film like the upcoming Rogue One film,
but due to on most counts, bad communication between himself and producers, he
was dismissed from the film in less than a year after he was announced to do
it. Now he has said he quit the film and after the crap of dealing with
Fantastic Four, wanted to do something small scale, but he might not exactly be
an easy person to work with.
So
time for my thoughts on the film and as you can probably guess, I was not a fan
of it. The CGI, pacing, performances, and just overall atmosphere made the
movie hard to watch. And for those of you who are defending with darker tone,
that would be nice…but this fails to do that properly and you really shouldn’t
fuck with an existing product too much. Oh and don’t hire someone who isn’t fan
of the source material. I thought we learned that shit years ago with Exorcist
II: The Heretic. Almost every character motivation feels way off the mark and
you really begin to hate Reed Richards at times (despite him being our main
character). I thank god this film bombed and we won’t be seeing anymore from
this “darker” Fantastic Four because we already have the unfortunate situation
as it is of seeing a “darker attempt” at a character have a sequel that is
dreaded by many.
Hollywood,
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in most properties, you don’t know
better than the fans on what to do with the material. Marvel Studios has shown
time and time again that even if it isn’t a great movie, they can make a film
with almost all the silly stuff in their universe and make it enjoyable.
Especially with movies based on comics, most of the fans are going to know
which ones are going to be shit and which ones are going to be good before the
movie is even released so you can’t pull that wool over people’s eyes anymore.
And Fox, just give Marvel back the Fantastic Four license as you already saw
they can make a way better Daredevil than the attempt you made.
Would I consider this
the worst film of 2015 if I watched it before the deadline on my list? No as I
have seen worse. But this would be on my list as this film is just extremely
frustrating to watch and analyze that even when I am not watching the movie, I
am remembering stupid things that I would forget while watching.
Well, with all that crap out of the way...what do we have, NegaSeth?
Well, we have a tie so I get to relax until April when I reveal my special surprise for you.
So what will be the next induction in?
Why the hell would I care? Okay...since you need something to do. I'll just throw these in the Randomizer and you do whatever.
Lazy bastard...alright, I'll just throw it in and see what is next.
*runs the machine and music plays*
Do my ears deceive me? No, they are not. It is time for some kaiju fun as the next induction will definitely be.
Well, with all that crap out of the way...what do we have, NegaSeth?
Well, we have a tie so I get to relax until April when I reveal my special surprise for you.
So what will be the next induction in?
Why the hell would I care? Okay...since you need something to do. I'll just throw these in the Randomizer and you do whatever.
Lazy bastard...alright, I'll just throw it in and see what is next.
*runs the machine and music plays*
Do my ears deceive me? No, they are not. It is time for some kaiju fun as the next induction will definitely be.
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