The Copper Sea

At its core, the movie feels like a horror film. Everything is set up to emphasize the tragedy of a government experiment turning bright young scientists into body horror monsters. The government only recruits genius Reed instead of his best friend and helper Ben, so when Reed decides to go to the other dimension on his own instead of letting the government steal the glory, of course he invites Ben along. The only reason the head scientist’s son Johnny is there is because he has to pay off a debt for trashing his car, and the scientist’s daughter Sue that wants to be there is adopted. The only two who are “supposed” to be there are Reed and Victor, and Victor is an asshole who shouldn’t be there at all. So of course Victor is stranded in the other dimension and Reed escapes, leaving the three biggest casualties to be used by the government as weapons. The whole thing feels artificial and convoluted, which really rips away any tension and impact everyone getting powers should have. 

Then of course the government decides to go back into the other dimension to create more superhumans, and this gets them all killed by Victor, who has become the embodiment of the other dimension. You’d think this would mean that Victor wins as the embodiment of humanity’s hubris is trying to control something they can’t and roping innocent people into it, but no the plucky young superhuman scientists beat them with the power of teamwork because this is supposed to be a superhero movie actually. It just doesn’t work. It's a classic tale of "just because they could, doesn't mean they should", except literally the only person who dies that we care about at all is the lead scientist, so it reads like a happy ending when the movie is not set up for it. Or maybe I just want everyone to die because I hate this movie.

Part of the problem is just how overpowered Victor is. He explodes people’s heads with a flick of his wrist, and yet never bothers to explode our protagonists’ heads because then they would lose and we can’t have that in our superhero movie. It’s not even like head exploding is an escalation of Victor’s powers: it’s literally the first thing he does after returning from the other dimension after not being mentioned for the entire middle hour of the film.

Honestly, our protagonists aren't much better. They barely feel like friends, and don't get a chance to interact after they get their powers because they're kept as government lab rats. The only one who really wants to be there is Johnny, but this literally goes nowhere because the finale is about Victor coming back to destroy the Earth. Ben is the one who wants to be there the least, but he and Johnny never interact for this to be a problem. Ben and Reed have like 1 fight about Reed kinda being responsible for turning Ben into The Thing, but then it also goes nowhere because the finale is about Victor coming back to destroy the Earth. Sue seems ambivalent about the whole thing to be honest. Reed is at least trying to cure everyone, but we literally don’t see any of his progress because it all happens during the 1-year time skip. Oh yeah, there’s a 1-year time skip after everyone gets their powers, so they’ve all adjusted to being superhuman government lab rats already. The time during that skip is potentially the most interesting part of the movie and the part with the most horror potential, but instead it’s glossed over entirely to show us the status quo and then advance to the next plot point, which in this case is Victor coming back to destroy the Earth.

FF as a horror movie is an interesting idea, but not as a big screen adaptation, and also not when it’s done really badly. The team's origin is stupid convoluted, making it so Sue doesn't even go on the mission and Ben just tags along because he's Reed's best friend as opposed to actually being part of the group. Victor von Doom is literally just some guy, and then he turns into the living embodiment of a hostile alien dimension. Everyone gets their powers because the elements just glomp onto them when they do the interdimensional travel, which is more complicated than it needs to be because it’s normally just random. Why does Ben become a rock man? Nobody cares except this movie, when they decide it’s because he gets covered in alien rocks while jumping between dimensions. Sue doesn’t even get her powers from the other dimension, she’s just hit with the teleportation energy. It's certainly not a film about superheroes, and it's barely a film about the characters. It's about a science experiment gone wrong that gets co-opted by the American government to use as weapons, which is not the Fantastic Four at all. 

I will shout out the two things I like about this movie. There’s one scene where the team gets the interdimensional teleporter working, and Johnny tries to give Reed a fist bump, but Reed gives him a high five and it’s really awkward. It’s very funny. Also the reveal of Reed’s powers where his foot is stuck under some rubble and then he crawls towards Ben only to realize that his foot is still stuck and his legs are stretched is good. The special effects are also decent.