Fantastic Four Trailer Review

"How did we get this far? Human beings have an immeasurable desire to discover, to invent, to build."

 Now that I have some spare time I might as well talk about it now. For months everyone has been expecting the worse from this film, plot details, director and the lack of official images are all being used against it. But now we have a trailer, so is there any rekindled hope now?

I can immediately say that the trailer didn’t blow me away. There was no wow moment, not real effect of an amazing film being imminent and approaching, but what I can say is that as least we don’t already know the plot and synopsis after the first trailer. Whether they decide to keep that up is unknown but for now we know about as much as we should really.

The shooting techniques is quite striking. It does suggest a much more serious tone than the last F4 films. Back then comic book movies were not serious business, they were considered to be gambles as cash grabbing and a very hit and miss critical project as well. But by now half of the film world is lining up to be a part of either DC’s or Marvel’s contributions to this genre and thanks to the boost Days of Future Past gave the studio they may be pouring even more resources into this film than we have been led to believe.

Though it is nice to see a serious undertone there is a danger of it disappearing into blandness. There still has to be some action and fun, again though not overboard. It’s a fine line and difficult medium, superhero films are not as easy as the average person might think.

Of course, this is not a found footage film. How that rumour started circulating is a mystery, because the Josh Trank, director of Chronicle, does not have to make every film that way. If he does one thing well then he will not immediately make everything else that way.

This is of course drawn from the Marvel Ultimate Universe which suggests a complete franchise reboot and that is definitely a good thing because the other two films made the F4 more of a comedy. This means a different origin story, a new age for the team and new storylines that could go in any direction.

There are a few Easter Eggs in the trailer. My favourite would have to be the shot in which Susan Storm is staring at a digital map of Europe with a small dot in the central continent. There is also an IP address hidden in the shot that if you search will take you to the Wikipedia page of Latveria. Interesting, how does it tie in to the rumour that Dr Doom was now a disgruntles blogger (I feel like I’d get along with him for some strange reason).

So it’s fairly conventional as a trailer. But at least this stops people hating this film for not releasing anything and it gives us some cool looking shots and suggests some serious story telling here. I’m not getting my hopes up, but I promise to stop hating this film just on principle from now on.