For a while in the newly-rebooted Fantastic Four, things are going pretty well. The clock has been turned back to 2007, and we’ve made the acquaintance of a pre-pubescent Reed Richards, a science fanatic who’s been building a rudimentary teleportation device in his garage—a project that’s caused many a power outage in the neighbourhood, much to his parents’ consternation. Our misunderstood protagonist soon finds a partner in crime, though: while hunting for spare parts in a junk yard, he runs into classmate Ben Grimm and the two quickly become best buds. 

Fast forward to present day, and we find Reed (now played by Miles Teller) and Ben (Jamie Bell) hawking the teleporter thingamajig at a high-school science fair, whereupon it seizes the interest of one Dr Franklin Storm (Reg E Cathey) and his daughter Sue (Kate Mara) of the Baxter Foundation, a hi-tech research organisation in New York. Reed is offered a scholarship to join the foundation and expand his project via collaboration with the ominously-named Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), another young prodigy who’d had an idea for a similar device earlier. Even though Doom isn’t too keen on sharing the spotlight, or Sue’s attention for that matter, they—with the addition of Sue’s brother Jonny (Michael B Jordan), who’s been made part of the team via clunky contrivance—still manage to bang out a larger, more refined version of the machine, which, as it turns out, has been sending objects to a planet in another dimension, a primordial earth-like world that spells major resource-exploitation potential (yum!). 

Now, given that we’re already almost an hour into the film at this point, one does start to wonder where in god’s name these superpowers are that we were promised, all that action featured in the promos. Well, I’m happy to report that the backstorying does end eventually—and superpowers are bestowed—but it’s so prolonged and achieved in a manner so ridiculous that you’ll need all the patience you can muster just to sit through the rest of the story. I won’t go into the tiresome details of what happens next, but just know that it is sluggish, dull and just plain awful.

This new film is the third attempt at telling the origins of Marvel’s superhero quartet, and the fourth film in total—there was a goofy, low-budget 1994 version directed by Roger Corman that was never released, followed by the two Jessica Alba- and Chris Evans-starrers that came out in 2005 and 2007. As bad as these were, however, the latest iteration directed by Josh Trank—who has one other feature under his belt, 2012’s Chronicle, a found-footage indie that, uncannily enough, revolved around high-schoolers with superpowers—is easily the worst of the lot. There was, to begin with, really no reason for a franchise reboot so soon after the last film. And even if the apparently imminent expiry of Fox Studio’s rights to the characters had necessitated a rushed rehash—that’s how the big-budget cookie crumbles in Hollywood—it is difficult to imagine that there wasn’t a better story, anything really, that could’ve been picked over this, that millions of dollars went into something so unwieldy, so unworthy. 

Chief among many problems is the script itself, co-written by Trank; we’ve seen plenty of expensive superhero duds over the years, but this represents a whole new low for the genre. There is so much eyeroll-inducing exposition and gaping holes in logic that you’ll lose count, and the film generally feels like a collection of familiar but disjointed plot-points. We have, for instance, the requisite government-wants-to-weaponise-heroes theme going on, as well as the requisite race against the doomsday clock—wouldn’t you know it, there’s another Bad Guy here Who Wants to Destroy the Earth for No Good Reason, and he’s chosen to use the presently very popular space/time-warping wormhole to that effect—leading up to a requisite CGI-heavy final battle. None of it makes much sense; we’re repeatedly told the stakes are high, but details are never clearly laid out to allow us to become invested to any degree. And, like that wasn’t enough, the film wrecks the one element of any superhero origin story that is always exciting—namely, the discovery and honing of powers—by making a chronological leap that is just unforgiveable. 

Fantastic Four also tries to emulate the sort of darker, somber tone that Nolan infused into his Dark Knight trilogy, except that it feels at odds with the playful campiness that is inherent in the source material—we’re talking about a guy who can stretch like rubber and another who resembles a mound of rocks, after all—something the previous films captured far better. There is no humour here, no sense of fun or adventure, only a grim landscape inhabited by even grimmer people. Trank might believe himself to have created more intimacy between his characters than the average superhero film, but just lining up one close-up after another of his actors’ faces is hardly enough—these reaction shots only lengthen running time and quickly get tedious. 

The film’s ineffectiveness is all the more unfortunate given the kind of talent it’s rustled up—Teller, Mara, Bell, Jordan and Kebbell have all proven themselves exceedingly capable in their respective film and television projects elsewhere. Their characters here, however, are so ill-defined and given so little to do—they basically brood and stare, throw around scientific mumbo jumbo and bang endlessly on keyboards—that their natural charisma just leaches out. Lack of chemistry in their interactions with one another and stiff dialogues also means that they never truly feel like a family—one of the supergroup’s defining characteristics; there’s a too-late attempt at some cheery ribbing between them, but it doesn’t convince at all. 

Finally, a note on the special effects: what the hell happened? The visuals are like something straight out of a B-movie; you have only to look at the depiction of the Other Planet or that murky, confusing climactic confrontation to know that something has gone horribly wrong in the digital department. And when our five leads receive their powers, the rendering is distressingly hokey: Reed’s expandable extremities look silly (to be fair, it was never really going to be a visually-appealing ability), Sue’s electric blue bubble and Johnny’s bright-red flaming body have a gaudy quality about them, Ben doesn’t fare any better than in the last installments (except this time he’s been divested of his pants) and le pauvre Doom, already suffering a clear lack of purpose as a villain, is simply too cartoonish in appearance to take seriously. 

To sum things up, Fantastic Four is a terrible, embarrassing reboot that should never have seen the light of day. Even Stan Lee has preferred to sit this one out—there is no cheesy cameo for once. You’d do well to take your cue from him.