Fantastic Four 2015

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: Laughably cheesy, bordering on Zardoz levels of simplicity. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: A lightweight and basically unnecessary attempt to once again bring some cinematic life to one of the lesser teams in the Marvel Universe. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: The entire experience is shameful -- for us, for the filmmakers, for whoever at the studio had the job of creating the ads, in which the cast appear to be starring in hostage posters. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Much of Josh Trank's abysmal "Fantastic Four" is set in a barren place called Planet Zero - and you may feel stranded there yourself for all 100 minutes of this plodding, joyless and stillborn Marvel reboot. Read more

Brian Lowry, Variety: Feels less like a blockbuster for this age of comics-oriented tentpoles than it does another also-ran -- not an embarrassment, but an experiment that didn't gel. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: It's shockingly humorless and glacially slow for a film featuring a bendy boy genius, an invisible woman, a human torch, and a talking pile of stones. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: The film's lack of scale becomes readily apparent in the final confrontation, which is surprisingly toothless. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: Oh, well - they can always reboot. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: All four principals -- Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell -- are well-cast, and their gee-whiz idealism is just right for the wide-eyed perspective of director Josh Trank. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: For a movie largely set on a planet ("Planet Zero") coursing with living, liquid energy, I don't know if I've ever seen a superhero movie more in need of a lie-down. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The special effects are cheesy, the acting perfunctory, the plotting pallid. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The film's dynamic is completely off, offering too much build and too little payoff. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: A plodding retelling of the Marvel Comics characters' origin story. Everyone involved seems to be just punching the clock until payday. Read more

Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly: This Josh Trank-directed reboot had a very low hurdle to overcome to become the best FF movie so far. The most fantastical aspect of the movie is that it may not achieve that goal. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: It's as if it looked at possible templates for excitement and willfully decided to go for something more disjointed and boring. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Fantastic Four feels like a 100-minute trailer for a movie that never happens. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Once those super powers kick in, the whole film goes into a more standard gear. We've seen it all before, and it's safe to say we'll be seeing it all again as well. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Fantastic Four is a synthetic bum-out, an assembly-line product, a movie a group of people made just because they could. Read more

Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: It's not wholesale terrible -- just depressingly mediocre, and at a certain point you sort of start wishing it WERE definitively terrible, because that would at least make it more entertaining or give it a certain strange raison d'etre. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: We get endless scenes of Teller being personable, Jordan being passionate and a raccoon-eyed Kate Mara having no chemistry with anybody. Read more

Chris Klimek, NPR: Even a cast of our very finest 28-to-32-year-olds who can sort of pass as adolescents ... can't save this dreary, overfamiliar origin story. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: A self-destruct mode is apparently automatically included in any film adaptation of Marvel's "First Family of Superheroes." This is the third attempt at a movie franchise - and the third lame result. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Ms. Mara disappears. Her character also has the power to make other things vanish. I would say she should have exercised it on this movie, but in a week or two that should take care of itself. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: I can't remember the last time four actors appeared less invested in a movie for which they've teamed up. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: There are hints of a more compelling story but they are never developed and the movie as a whole seems like the unhappy marriage of competing agendas. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: The latest reboot of the Fantastic Four - the cinematic equivalent of malware - is worse than worthless. It not only scrapes the bottom of the barrel; it knocks out the floor and sucks audiences into a black hole of soul-crushing, coma-inducing dullness. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: Thus does the summer of the superhero movie stumble to an end with a whimper and a wheeze. Read more

Michael Ordona, San Francisco Chronicle: Is it a home run? No. But at this point, comic fans are just happy to see Fox play error-free ball with their Marvel adaptations, and "Fantastic Four" mostly qualifies. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The third big-budget attempt to tell the origin story of the Fantastic Four superhero saga on film hasn't turned out to be the charm. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: If you would like to admire the awfulness of Fantastic Four without actually having to sit through it--or if you've already seen the movie and are still reeling from the experience--read on. Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: A comic book movie that is bizarrely short on humour and action. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The fatal flaw is that it squanders more time fashioning these familiar Marvel Comics heroes than it does motivating them. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Director Josh Trank has assembled a quartet of engaging, charismatic performers and stranded them in a miasma of exposition and set-up. So much time is spent putting the pieces on the board that there's barely any time to play with them. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: Frankly, it's amazing this is watchable at all. Read more

Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun: Fantastic Four, yet another live-action, big-screen reboot of the Marvel comic book, starts with a sloooooooow burn that lasts for more than an hour. But, unlike the Human Torch himself, the movie never ignites into anything exciting. Read more

Brian Truitt, USA Today: An unfortunate movie that does an embarrassing disservice to the decades-old property and is a frightful waste of all the talent involved. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: Counting Roger Corman's unreleased stab, this is the fourth Fantastic Four movie. It's also the fourth whose producers seem embarrassed at the thought of making a Fantastic Four movie. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: There's a fundamental tonal dissonance at the heart of Fantastic Four. The awkward staging, cut-rate effects, and stilted dialogue might have worked alongside a fun, ridiculous story. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: This is a step backward, in more ways than one, for the franchise. Read more