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YMMV / Fantastic Four (2015)

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    A-L 
  • Accidental Aesop: Do not make life-altering decisions whilst under the influence of alcohol.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • The collective decision that led to the hijacking of the Quantum Gate goes beyond stupidity. That being said, Victor's actions are the most reckless in the group, but they're done in an emotionless, apathetic way. Seeing how since Victor's life has spiraled out of control since the government began to meddle with Baxter's projects (sabotaging the project and all that entails, living in complete filth), it's not hard to see his individual choice to hijack the gate and to act so thoughtlessly as fueled by suicidal thoughts.
    • Comes into Ho Yay territory, but Ben's near-idiotic choice to follow Reed into Planet Zero instead of stopping him from ruining his life could be easily interpreted as Ben being in love with Reed. If Love Makes You Dumb isn't enough of a motive, consider that the one time we see Reed contact Ben again after joining Baxter, Ben looks elated to receive a message from Reed. Early scripts had Ben join the army after becoming convinced Reed had forgotten him after joining Baxter. Maybe Ben considered that holding the Idiot Ball for just a few moments (he did urge the other three to be quick about it) could earn Reed's love back again.
  • Angst? What Angst?:
    • Although the team being variously sedated/sealed away/on the run soon after the accident might be occupying their minds somewhat, no one, not even Franklin Storm, seems at all devastated by the apparent death of Victor. This could be Handwaved however to Victor not being particularly well-liked.
    • Following on in that vein, the team does not take the death of Franklin Storm nearly as hard as one would expect them to, especially since he's the father of two of them and the mentor of another. Even after the climax occurs and the world is safe, they just seem to forget about him.
    • Ben Grimm goes from constantly angsting about his transformation and blaming Reed to suddenly coming to terms with his problems at the very end of the movie, without any real explanation.
  • Arc Fatigue: The characters don't teleport to Planet Zero and gain their superpowers until roughly halfway through the film. Following that, Doom doesn't even return and initiate his big evil plan until the last fifteen minutes.
  • Ass Pull:
    • Reed somehow being able to function after Doom disables his suit, without any in-universe explanation for it, comes across as a Deus ex Machina.
    • Doom is essentially this trope incarnate — his return is barely explained, and his motives for trying to destroy the world, even less so.
  • Audience-Alienating Era:
    • Following this film, there was increasing mistrust in 20th Century Fox's films based on Marvel comics, with only the Deadpool films and Logan proving to be critical successes. Not helping matters was stock in Fox dropping significantly after the release of this film, only bouncing back after the announcement that it would be sold to Disney.
    • Josh Trank fell into this following the film's failure, with reports of his behaviour causing other studios to reconsider hiring him for their major projects, fearing that he'd get drunk with power once again. Trank retreated to making independent films, though Capone didn't fare much better than this film, and Trank's social media has continued to reinforce the negative image he gained from working on this film.
  • Audience-Alienating Premise:
    • The director, cast, and crew promised a Darker and Edgier and grounded take on a traditionally more light-hearted, science-fantasy title, complete with Body Horror and a lack of teamwork/familial bonds between the characters. This was very contentious with fans, to say the least. The act of making the cast Younger and Hipper also did not sit well with some fans.
    • Using the Ultimate Marvel version of the series, which itself was already contentious, as a basis for the adaptation. Even among Ultimate Fantastic Four fans, all of them believed the movie was too different from that line to be considered a real adaptation (other than the nod to Reed and Ben working together as kids).
    • No matter what kind of movie 20th Century Fox was going to come up with, there was bound to be fan backlash toward them for making the film instead of Marvel Studios in order to keep the rights to themselves, thus preventing the Fantastic Four from appearing alongside other heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It didn't help that this film's production didn't start until the rights were about to expire.note . As noted below, the last time they did this resulted in one of the most reviled adaptations of all time, so the fact that this film felt like it was being handled similarly didn't help at all.
  • Awesome Music:
  • Bile Fascination: No Marvel movie has garnered such a negative reception since Elektra, leading many to watch the movie simply to see where and how Fox failed in adapting the source material.
  • Broken Base: While portraying Ben Grimm as young and scrawny has been criticized by comic fans and other fans of the character, some do like the contrast between Ben and the Thing, believing it makes his angst about being a "monster" more appropriate.
    • After the infamous amount of backlash against the response to "Victor Domashev", the character's name was changed back to Victor Von Doom over the course of the reshoots. However, some fans and other viewers found that the name Victor von Doom clashes too much with the Darker and Edgier tone of the film, resulting in Narm.
  • Cliché Storm: In spite of Josh Trank, Simon Kinberg, and Jeremy Slater's efforts to make their movie seem original, one of the biggest criticisms levied toward the movie is that it's a lot like any other superhero flick — including the 2005 Fantastic Four movie — with too much of a focus on the origin story and not much else to allow it to stand out in its own right. The climax even has another sky portal.
  • Complete Monster: Victor Von Doom is a gifted young genius who worked for the government to develop a device that would be capable of transporting people across dimensions. After joining with Reed Richards, Johnny Storm, and Sue Storm, he was able to finish the device, and together with them he traveled in an alien dimension where, after an accident, he gained superhuman powers. Desiring to create his own world in that dimension, Victor was not happy when government agents retrieve him, and thus slaughtered many of the scientists and soldiers in the base, including Johnny's father, before planning to use the teleporter to create a black hole on Earth and destroy the entire planet, solely out of God complex and hatred for humanity.
  • Designated Hero:
    • Reed ditches his friends for an entire year and then has the gall to wonder why Ben now hates his guts. There's no justification for this, as he could have simply done research from the military base where he was stationed (which ultimately would have solved a lot of problems).
    • At the end of the movie, the Fantastic Four themselves have an unheroic moment where they threaten the government with what is effectively a terrorist demand. This is Played for Laughs, and the conspicuous Protagonist-Centered Morality present in the situation is not brought up at all.
  • Designated Villain: The US Government, which employed and funded Franklin Storm; allowed Franklin to hire his children and chose their other teammates; who gave Reed, Sue, and Victor the funding for their experiments; who quite reasonably wanted to hire trained professional astronauts to explore the new dimension; who continued to work with Sue, Johnny, and Ben after they gained their powers through no apparent coercion (Johnny is very happy to work with them); and saw the experiment result in Victor killing a lot of people and causing a lot of destruction. And at the end of the movie, Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny act like total dicks to them and demand more resources and funding.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Reg E. Cathey has been praised for his performance as Franklin Storm. It's helped by a number of viewers recognizing him as Freddy.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: From a narrative standpoint, the heroes saving the world is a pretty standard happy ending — but from a character standpoint, the Fantastic Four end the movie as broken people who have barely bonded at all. Sue and Johnny have lost their father. Ben and Reed's relationship is still strenuous at best. Johnny barely knows Reed and is a dick to Ben for no reason. Sue's not Reed's biggest fan either. The family dynamic more closely resembles a Dysfunctional Family than an actual surrogate family. In the movie's defense, a lot of this is in fact true to the comics, or at least it was in the early days — Ben disliked Reed for his transformation, Johnny was constantly pranking and insulting Ben, etc. In fact, their (relatively) dysfunctional relationships were one of the most notable things about them back then, before everyone started doing it in one way or another. The movie just takes it way too far.
  • Fan Nickname:
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception: From Marvel Cinematic Universe fans: Do not insinuate that this movie is connected to Marvel Studios or the MCU in any way.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
    • With Marvel Cinematic Universe fans, who believe the franchise would be in better hands at Marvel Studios. Like other Marvel superhero movies made since The Avengers, a number of MCU fans said that they would skip this film to increase the chances of the character rights going back to Marvel Studios. After the movie came out, however, many Fox-Marvel fans were in agreement with MCU fans over the quality of the film.
    • Some Interstellar fans felt like the first trailer was a knockoff of Christopher Nolan's movie. Many critics even stated they felt like the movie was trying too hard to be the science-fantasy equivalent of The Dark Knight.
    • Those who prefer Fantastic Four Duology deride this film for lacking the good qualities Tim Story used from his films.
  • Fanon: After Toby Kebbell revealed that his Victor/Doom is introduced as an anti-social computer programmer and blogger known as "Doom" online, a number of people took this to mean that he would be a hacker and/or an Internet troll based on his very limited wording and a lack of official information. Of course, it's not helped by the fact that Victor is introduced in the film as being a Basement-Dweller.
  • Fashion-Victim Villain: This version of Doctor Doom wears a robe that looks like it was made out of garbage bags. This, combined with his face, earned him the nickname "Trash Test Doomy".
  • Fight Scene Failure:
    • At the end of Ben and Reed's brief scuffle, Ben headbutts Reed in a manner that looks extremely stilted.
    • The battle between the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom is seen as the absolute worst point of the movie by critics, featuring a lot of CGI that is pieced together incomprehensibly in a weirdly choreographed and forgettable climax.
  • Genre Turning Point:
    • Though not necessarily in the kind of way that you would think. The movie's Troubled Production and widely-criticized period of silence for news released during that time seems to have affected the marketing strategy of other superhero movies from that point onward. Nearly every production of any superhero movie made after Fantastic Four has been a lot more open about showing information long before the movie's release date. Disney/Marvel Studios' Captain America: Civil War and Suicide Squad (2016) from Warner Bros. are two examples. This even extends to 20th Century Fox, who revealed a good amount of information about Deadpool (2016) and X-Men: Apocalypse, in stark contrast to their previous strategy of keeping quiet about their marketing until the movie is about half a year away from release.
    • Upon release, the negative reception, and dismal box office performance destroyed any hope for another Fox-created movie in the franchise or an X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover, effectively bringing an end to the planned Fox-Marvel Cinematic Multiverse before it even began. However, the X-Men Cinematic Universe continued to do fine (for a while, anyway), with Deadpool even initially rumored to have earned a sequel based solely on the extremely positive reaction toward its trailer (when the actual movie turned out to be a huge success, it was quickly confirmed that work on the sequel's screenplay was well underway). Furthermore, after this movie's release, no major announcements about a Fantastic Four franchise ended up being made (aside from a possibly-unrelated Dr. Doom prequel which has since been shelved) until a second reboot was announced over half a decade later after Marvel's acquisition of 20th Century Fox, while the plans for the X-Men franchise continued to grow by expanding into television.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Ant-Man was well-received by critics, while this movie was critically panned. As a result, this panel◊ from Tom DeFalco's run on ''Fantastic Four'' of Scott Lang mocking the 90s Fantastic Four cartoon started making the rounds (panel in context◊). Adding to the hilarity is Scott mocking the concept of FF merchandise in-universe when Marvel made no merchandise to promote this film, as well as the number of critics who finished their reviews by telling people to just go see Ant-Man instead. That Lang's face looks like Paul Rudd's only adds to the hilarity.
    • A mere six months after the film's release, The Flash (2014) introduced Wally West, a Race Lifted version of a classic comic book character who is depicted as having a rocky relationship with both his father and his more intellectual older sister and participates in illegal street races in his spare time. It's almost like Johnny Storm jumped universes.
    • In the season of House of Cards (US) released directly after this film, Kate Mara returned in a dream sequence with short hair that Zoe had never sported while alive. In the show it's to emphasize her resemblance to Robin Wright's Claire, but also comes off very much like after her experience with the reshoots on this film, she refused to have anything to do with wigs again.
    • Kate Mara and Jamie Bell fell in love during the press tour and married on July 2017. Hence, the lack of chemistry between Reed Richards and Sue Storm in the film is because Sue prefers Ben Grimm. Especially since the film mostly draws from the Ultimate version of the characters where Sue actually did get together with Ben after breaking up with Reed.
    • Like Jordan, Reg E. Cathey also made a jump to the MCU, again playing the father of a superhero in Season 2 of Luke Cage (2016), though it's soured quite a bit by his death months before the season's release.
    • The famously derided version of Doctor Doom in this movie is a deep-voiced figure with a deformed face, wearing a ragged, hooded cloak and trapped on a barren alien planet. Which bears an astonishing degree of resemblance to another iconic Marvel villain, the reappearance of the Red Skull in Avengers: Infinity War. For extra points, Doom hates the Red Skull in the comics since the former is Romani and the latter is a Nazi.
    • According to this film's website, this version of Reed is a Reality Warper whose powers simply make it look like his body is stretching. Chapter 1044 of the long-running manga One Piece revealed that warping reality was the true power of protagonist Monkey D. Luffy, who was initially thought to just be a Rubber Man like Reed traditionally is. In other words, this infamous movie practically predicted a major twist in a much more universally beloved work seven years before it was revealed.
  • Ho Yay: The strongest emotional bond in the film is not between Reed Richards and Sue Storm, but between Reed and Ben Grimm. When Reed goes into exile, he keeps a photo of the two of them as kids as his motivation.
  • Inferred Holocaust: Hundreds (if not thousands, or hundreds of thousands) of civilians are killed by Doom's energy vortex, but the movie wants us to forget about this — immediately after a shot of a destroyed highway full of cars and what appears to be an entire city is shown, no less. And nobody even obliquely mentions the catastrophic damage at all after it happens.
  • It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars:
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
    • One of the more criticized aspects of this film is the fact that, despite it's massive tonal differences, it still borrows & repeats many of the disliked story/plot elements of the previous Fantastic 4 movie, such as:
      • Using Doctor Doom as the Big Bad, and tying him to the Fantastic Four's origin.
      • The namesake team do not do any actual superhero stuff or have any action-pieces until the end of the film, instead spending most of the film testing their powers, which was already one of the most loathed aspects of the previous films.
      • Most damningly, the fact that the team actually causes far more damage & problems than they actually solve.
    • A common complaint from critics is that the film is very derivative and generic when other superhero films have done much more with their material.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: For the Deadpool (2016) trailer that showed before this film. Some fans just bought tickets to watch the trailer, then headed straight out of the theaters when the actual movie started.

    M-Z 
  • Memetic Loser: Following the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, this film's version of Reed Richards became this due to the fact that when Reed of Earth-838 was introduced as a member of The Illuminati, Miles Teller didn't reprise the role, unlike Patrick Stewart as Professor X or even Anson Mount as Black Bolt. In fact, despite Marvel Studios delving into the multiverse beginning with Loki and even having an Intercontinuity Crossover with Spider-Man: No Way Home, it's a common sentiment to assume that this version of Reed is/will become The Maker, or that the film's universe has already been pruned by the Time Variance Authority or destroyed by an incursion.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "Fant4stic" and similar variations, following the reveal of the film's logo.
    • "Daddy needs to get his rocks off." (in regards to the Thing being naked).
    • Kate Mara's conspicuous blonde wig (particularly how it alternates with her very different-looking real hair from shot to shot) was a frequent subject of mockery.
    • The conversation between Wade and Weasel in Deadpool (2016) featured a discussion about how terrible Wade looks after he becomes Deadpool. The conversation is edited to make similar quips about how the new Doom, Thing, or even the movie itself look.
    • After the film's abysmal failure, and Miles Teller in particular not endearing himself to the fans as noted above, there was some comments that it's now rather more fun than it should be to watch him get slapped around by a guy who delivered one of the greatest portrayals of a Marvel character ever in Whiplash.
    • "We gave you six years and millions of dollars, and you gave us nothing." A line from the trailers, which can be used to describe the fan reaction to the movie. Jokes have claimed that the movie accidentally was Breaking the Fourth Wall to describe itself.Explanation
    • Detractors of the film have also taken to mocking Michael B. Jordan's infamous "They'll go see it anyway!" statement, which was directed at the backlash that the movie got early into production.
    • After Marvel announced Jordan had been cast in their upcoming Black Panther (2018) movie, many joked that playing the Human Torch in a Fox-produced Fantastic Four movie guarantees that you would afterward join the MCU in a better role and movie.
    • A popular image circulating on the internet is a picture of the main characters from Roger Corman's film saying "Finally! We're not the worst Fantastic Four anymore!"
    • Due to the infamous, cataloged Troubled Production of the movie, some people say a movie about the problems that arose from creating this one would actually be a better movie.
    • "Say that again." Explanation
  • Mis-blamed:
    • Some of the early reviewers blamed Marvel Studios for the movie's shortcomings. Many were quick to point out that Marvel Studios had nothing to do with the film and in fact, the only reason why this movie even exists was primarily for Fox trying keep the rights before their acquisition by Disney.
    • There was a lot of argument over whether Josh Trank or 20th Century Fox was more responsible for what went wrong with the film, with good points made for both sides. One issue that Trank got flak for, but was actually the result of studio meddling, was the casting of a white actress as Sue Storm; Trank wanted to Race Lift the entire Storm family to be African-American, but the studio vetoed this, leading to some unintentional stereotypes.
  • Moment of Awesome: One of the few being the Four telling their military superiors that they will not work for them but with them, by being rewarded their own base without government interference. Their response:
    Military officer: What if we say no?
    [Ben crosses his arms]
    Johnny: Say yes!
  • Moral Event Horizon: Doom's rampage through Area 57 and murder of Franklin Storm — followed by his attempt to destroy the world — completely remove any sympathy for the character.
  • Narm: Let's just say that this movie's dramatic moments come across as being less-than-fantastic:
    • The Tag Line "When you change the world, prepare to defend it." It sounds like they mashed up two completely unrelated sentences together.
    • The Character Catchphrase "It's clobberin' time!" being turned into what Ben's older brother says before hitting him borders on Black Comedy that Crosses the Line Twice.
    • For some, the name Victor Von Doom in a film that's meant to be darker and more serious than previous incarnations.
    • The name "Planet Zero" comes across as actually being sillier than the original "Negative Zone".
    • For some reason, the Thing is completely naked, which makes it a bit hard to take his scenes seriously. In addition to that, there's a very jarring Vocal Dissonance with the character in the trailer — he speaks with Ben Grimm's regular voice as opposed to having the guttural tone the character is known for, which also ups the narm-factor (the actual movie has a vocal filter applied).
    • While he's being experimented upon, Reed bleats out "WHERE ARE MY FRIEEEEEEEEEEENDS?" like he's passing a kidney stone.
    • The hallway massacre scene, while genuinely creepy, is significantly undercut by Doom's dopey-looking outfit. He's called "Crash Test Doomy" for a reason.
    • A brief shot has Reed using his powers to vault over a railing — a short railing he could have easily jumped over like a normal person. Speaking of which, his jumping by stretching his legs and lifting off the ground later in the film looks much goofier than it sounds. It looks like something straight out of a cartoon.
  • Narm Charm: While Doom's costume may look absurd, the scene of him killing people in the hallway is genuinely creepy... at least when there aren't any close-ups of his face.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Goofy costume aside, the scene where Doom walks through the hallway slaughtering scientists and soldiers is genuinely frightening, and comes across like a scene from a completely different (and better) movie. In a funny way, it's almost a predecessor to the infamous Darth Vader hallway scene.
  • Nightmare Retardant:
    • On paper Doom's design was probably meant to look like a gruesome transformation, with him apparently being literally fused with his suit. In practice, however, it looks more like a hobo wearing glowing trash bags. It doesn't help that his face looks perpetually surprised when someone who had molten metal thrown on them should look at least a little pained.
    • Alan Scherstuhl's review argues that the Thing's appearance is this, especially after having been previously shown only in shadow so as to invoke Nothing Is Scarier:
      "When [the Thing is] revealed — well, it's not this particular photorealistic talking rock-mound's fault that it looks ridiculous, as that's the fate to be suffered by all photorealistic talking rock-mounds."
  • Obvious Judas: Which one of the group of friends do you suppose will ultimately be revealed as the Big Bad? Could it perhaps turn out to be the insufferable, Jerkass, Misanthrope Supreme named Dr. Victor von Doom?
  • Older Than They Think:
  • One-Scene Wonder: Deadpool makes a cameo at the end of the movie's final trailer to advertise his own movie. Many fans found it more entertaining than anything in Fantastic Four itself, foreshadowing the Deadpool movie's eventual breakout success. Which is ironic, because Fox pulled the same stunt with Elektra by advertising that the movie would feature the first trailer for the 2005 Fantastic Four movie.
  • Only the Creator Does It Right:
    • Shortly after the movie was announced, fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe declared that a Fantastic Four movie would be better under Marvel Studios. While many such fans are fine with Fox keeping the X-Men rights (or at least until they could be properly introduced into the MCU setting) after X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past were well-received, they also tended to note that Fox's previous two Fantastic Four movies weren't particularly well-liked, so the property would be better back in Marvel's hands. Sony working out a deal with Marvel to let Spider-Man be part of the MCU only increased demand that Fox work something out with sharing the rights to the team. After the movie was eviscerated by critics, the sentiment increased further. Needless to say, fans were elated to hear that Disney bought most of Fox's assets (including, of course, the Fantastic Four).
    • Those who loved the Tim Story films believed that he did better Fantastic Four films and are naturally unhappy with Josh Trank's result.
  • Overshadowed by Controversy:
    • There was a small backlash to Johnny Storm's Race Lift among some fans, especially those in the anti-PC crowd who insisted that Michael B. Jordan was only cast because of his skin color. It was a big enough issue for Jordan to write about it in an op-ed for Entertainment Weekly.
    • People paid a lot more attention to the rumors behind the Troubled Production than the movie itself — especially after it was announced that Josh Trank "left" the Star Wars Anthology movie he was supposed to direct. This exploded once the movie came out, and when Josh Trank said he wasn't proud of the final product. Once the movie was a certified Box Office Bomb, a number of "What went wrong?" articles released afterward popped up, getting heavy traffic online.
    • Many fans thought that a two-hour documentary about the film's troubled production would be more interesting than the film itself, at least in a Jerry Springer kind of way.
  • Pandering to the Base: After a lot of discussion from the filmmakers during the pre-production and production indicated that the movie would distance itself greatly from the source material, Fox's marketing campaign shifted to how the movie was like the original comics in response to the backlash that had accumulated up until that point. However, many were still left displeased by this complete 180-degree turn in their approach, a while after the movie had finished filming, claiming that Fox was sloppily attempting damage control. Naturally, the fanbase wasn't very receptive to the final product.
  • Questionable Casting:
    • The most prominent example in the film would have to be the casting of the Storm siblings due to the Race Lift involved. Many people were confused by black actor Michael B. Jordan being cast as Johnny Storm/Human Torch while Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (his sister) was announced to be played by white actress Kate Mara. It's been confirmed that Sue is indeed adopted, though as the Broken Base entry explains above, critics are of the opinion that Jordan's casting would've made more sense if Sue was also played by a black actress and that making the Storms adopted siblings rather than biological siblings is an unnecessary change that completely alters the dynamic of the characters. It also doesn't help that Michael B. Jordan didn't even have to audition to play Johnny, and was picked by Josh Trank as his first, last, and only choice for the role. People have argued that if they had switched Michael B. Jordan and Miles Teller's roles, there wouldn't be an issue about the actors fitting the characters (see below).
    • Miles Teller, as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, was controversial as well. A few were surprised that Teller (who had been primarily known for playing characters of the frat boy/jokester archetype in teen comedies/coming of age stories) was selected to be the scholarly Reed Richards, instead figuring that he would be naturally more suitable for Johnny Storm. Some even figured that this would've helped solve things if Michael B. Jordan and he had switched parts (seeing as how Jordan is typically much more understated as an actor and this would have assuaged the racial headscratcher). However, given that he strongly resembles Reed Richards, his casting generated less confusion than the casting of the other characters.
    • Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm/The Thing has also been contentious. While Bell was hired for motion-capture purposes that the character would require post-transformation, a few people think that Bell was simply too short and skinny to convincingly play "the muscle" pre-transformation (as the trailer puts it).
    • Why is Reed's elementary school teacher also his high school teacher? And of all the people to cast as said teacher, why Homer Simpson?
  • The Scrappy:
  • Sequelitis: "Reboot-itis" in this case, but the effect is still there. The movie is rated more negatively than the Tim Story movies that Fox was trying to distance themselves from, or the Roger Corman movie that never saw the light of day (outside bootlegs, if you're willing to count that).
  • Signature Scene:
    • The team suffering varying degrees of Body Horror after getting their powers has been cited by numerous critics as easily the best part of the movie, as well as the only scene where the special effects don't disappoint.
    • Ben Grimm sky-bombing onto the scene to close out the trailer was admitted to be one of the main highlights that got people hyped to see the movie. However, it didn't make the final cut of the film.
    • Doom walking through the facility blowing people's heads up Scanners-style was praised for being genuinely creepy and for being the only time the character acts anything remotely like his comic-book counterpart. It's the closest this movie gets to having a Moment of Awesome.
  • So Okay, It's Average: Some of the more forgiving reviews of the film stated that the film fell into this category; for instance, the Reelviews review states that the film "falls into the "adequate" range of the spectrum — neither memorable nor forgettable".
  • Special Effect Failure:
    • In the first trailer's shot of Mr. Fantastic stretching, if you look closely, you can see that the same rock is copied and pasted to his left and right (but given slightly different lighting).
    • The four themselves consist of a Mr. Fantastic pulled straight from the director's night terrors, a Human Torch that can't keep all his flames lit (or composited properly), and a pitiful attempt at Sue's force fields. The only one that's even remotely passable (in comparison) is The Thing, and that's saying a lot.
    • In general, much of Planet Zero looks like an extremely unconvincing greenscreen.
    • The Final Battle was filmed during the period of reshoots close to the end of post-production, and it shows:
      • In addition to the greenscreen issues described above with Planet Zero, some of the cast appear to be digitally edited into certain shots (since not all of the cast were readily available in post-production).
      • Furthermore, the digital effects of the characters using their superpowers in the battle also come across as sloppy and unfinished.
    • The Thing's face looks different in terms of structure and physical appearance from shot to shot.
    • The introductory shot to the Baxter Building is very conspicuously digital.
    • In one of the trailers released, at 1:29 the Thing throws a tank turret only for it to completely disappear in an explosion. One second it's there, the next it literally just turns into a fiery explosion.
    • The scene of Human Torch flying through an airplane features some questionable flight effects, and part of his flames outright disappear for a moment when he flies through debris.
    • The "organic" test for the matter transporter has an obvious CGI chimpanzee that is far less impressive than the ape effects used by Rise of the Planet of the Apes from the same studio. As Brad Jones pointed out in his review of the film, given the time, money, and manpower needed to make a CG chimp, it would've been cheaper to just get an actual chimp.
    • Numerous critics have pointed​ to Reed Richards using his stretching powers to put on a disguise, and then morphing back to normal, as being some of the worst CG ever put on film, which looks almost as if it was put together in the 90s while they were still trying to perfect the technology.
    • Not even the practical effects were spared, as several people pointed out that Doom's costume now looks like it was made from discarded tinfoil and garbage bags.
    • The kid playing the young Reed is saddled with some quite fake-looking scars to match Miles Teller's real ones. It's especially weird since Reed could have easily been explained to have gotten them during the Time Skip.
    • The wig Kate Mara wears during the film's reshoots is glaringly obvious. It looks more like something from Samurai Cop than a major studio release.
  • Spiritual Adaptation:
    • From the information that was released about the film and numerous statements from Fox employees, the film seems to have more in common with Chronicle than the Fantastic Four. This is a rare case of this trope being considered a bad thing, as many felt that Josh Trank just exploited the film as an opportunity to make his own personal pet project rather than adapt the comic series more faithfully.
    • Trank himself also described the movie as being what a David Cronenberg superhero movie would look like, citing Scanners and The Fly (1986) as influences.
    • As Diamanda Hagan points out in one of her reviews: "Fan4stic is Zoom's gritty reboot."
      Diamanda Hagan: In both this and it, Kate Mara plays someone who gets powers she didn't ask for and is sullen about it. She ends up stuck in a base working for the military and learns to control her powers. Then she and three others become a family over the course of the film, half about a good-guy turned bad who returns from where the fuck he was and has to be punched into an energy thing to defeat him.
  • Spiritual Successor:
    • Josh Trank claimed that the movie was this to his first film, Chronicle - the movie explores the consequences of young people with superpowers and what they would choose to do with them.
    • Upon release, some have taken to comparing the movie to Hulk. Both films largely focus on the backstories of the characters over the superheroics themselves and are grounded in science.
    • Interestingly, an argument could be made that it's one to The Fly (1986). Both films revolve around a scientist or group of scientists inventing teleportation machines, testing it themselves, and suffering slow Body Horror that also grants them superpowers after a disastrous first demonstration of the teleporters Gone Horribly Wrong. Victor essentially serves the role of the Seth Brundle character, who turns into a horrific mutant that wants to take revenge on mankind after he sees the woman he loved being driven into the arms of another man. The decision by the scientists to test the teleporters personally is even made while they're three sheets to the wind, just like Seth Brundle.
  • Strangled by the Red String: Reed and Sue are kind of hooked up without any explanation as to why they're attracted to one another, other than presumably the fact that they are the Official Couple in the source material, which even then there should be build up.
  • Strawman Has a Point: Dr. Allen is presented as being in the wrong for not letting Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Victor go on the first human exploration of Planet Zero and saying the Baxter Institute should send NASA astronauts through the teleporter instead, but he's actually right because:
    • The four protagonists are literally the brains behind the operation and are absolutely vital for the successful operation of its linchpin, the teleporter. If they were to go and die in an accident on the other side — something they very nearly do — then the Baxter Institute would lose very key personnel, and thus lose the knowledge that made such a technological accomplishment possible (and this is later proven after the time skip, in which Area 57 can't recreate the teleporter without Reed).
    • The scientists don't have the kind of survival training necessary to go into an alien environment and survive, while trained astronauts would be better prepared in every possible way.
    • The scientists don't even have a real plan of attack when they go into Planet Zero; an ideal plan for a first journey would be to step outside the teleporter, make a few visual observations without touching anything, and immediately return home to then process the data in safety, as real astronauts would do. Since there's no looming time limit for the Planet Zero investigation, the Baxter Institute could rinse and repeat the process until they've safely got all the data they need. However, since our protagonists are both mostly drunk and trying to steal the glory of having first contact over actual scientific procedures, the scientists decide to mess with things that they shouldn't be messing with, which nearly gets them all killed.
    • The scientists have absolutely no supervision or support crew whatsoever on their impulsive expedition, which is monumentally reckless for their own safety. While Sue at least comes in at a later point to help the others get back to the ship, she would be hopelessly inefficient in taking charge of the operation on her own, even if she had been there from the beginning. Again, astronauts would have this via a large dedicated team at their mission control.
    • The scientists bring a regular civilian (Ben) along, who — without the necessary knowledge of the technology he's using — is in even worse shape to be going on the expedition than the others are. Astronauts have actually tried this, and it went horribly, horribly wrong, so they have not tried it since.
    • And again, all the characters but Ben (who was carrying the Idiot Ball while the others at least had the excuse of being drunk) should know about all of the above, due to their knowledge in science and engineering.
  • Tainted by the Preview:
    • The leak, in this case. A lot of people were unimpressed with the way Doctor Doom looked, with some joking that it looks like he was wearing a trash bag uniform.
    • The actual preview (the teaser trailer) seemed to zig-zag this, as some actually liked it and others thought that the movie looked too generic and failed to capture the essence of the team.
    • And then the final trailer was met with disappointed reactions. Although it had some defenders, it was seen as the worst trailer of the bunch by a few people.
  • Tear Jerker:
    • Six days after the untimely passing of Stan Lee on November 12, 2018, Josh Trank issued a public apology for failing him, and also for not allowing the legend to see a good movie based on the Fantastic Four while he lived. While he was partially responsible, the final product was the result Executive Meddling. And yet Trank still took the blame for its failure to heart in spite of doing his best to honor Lee's greatest creations.
    • Though most of the cast were able to escape from this film unscathed, Toby Kebbell's job offers reportedly dried up a bit after this film, which is pretty depressing considering his acclaimed turn as Koba in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes that even got some Oscar buzz for his work.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Nearly everything in this film was changed from the source material (outside of most of the characters' names and Mythology Gags) and this has been met with derision from a number of fans.
    • Reimagining the title team from the independent superhero team that they are usually portrayed as in the comics and most versions into a spec ops unit for a good chunk of the movie was not well-received.
    • A lot of the changes that were made to Doom — ranging from his last name to complaints that were present in the Tim Story iteration of the character (removing his skills in magic, not using the Doombots, and having his skin turn into metal instead of being armor). The only similarities that he had with his comic book counterpart and most versions were his name and his antagonism towards Reed.
    • Turning Ben's older brother into an abusive Big Brother Bully didn't sit well with fans. Plus, changing the Thing's cheesy signature battle cry "It's clobberin' time!" into a phrase said by his big brother before he beats Ben up makes the whole thing even worse.
    • Leaving out Sue from the super-empowering expedition has been widely criticized.
    • There are the facts that Johnny received a Race Lift, the film had a darker tone than the source material, and the designs of the characters (particularly the fact that the titular team did not have the number 4 anywhere on their costumes), all of which were not well-received and accordingly criticized.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Fear of this trope taking effect after Harvey Elder was underused most likely contributed to his name-change to Dr. Allen. Killing him essentially would have cut off Fox from using one of the most recognizable Fantastic Four villains, Mole Man.
    • Doom. Prior to the accident, his characterization is very inconsistent. At the end, he becomes a full-fledged Generic Doomsday Villain who has no properly defined reason to be evil, let alone try to destroy the entire planet with himself on it. He only appears with powers in the last twenty minutes of the movie, and then he gets killed off without any hint towards his survival.
    • Sue Storm comes off as being so irrelevant to the people around her that they didn't even bother to bring her on the initial trip to Planet Zero.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • Many critics note that the movie sets up a number of interesting ideas that never get fully explored. Given that Josh Trank was taken off of the project in post-production, many of these critics believe that his cut of the film would have at least been more interesting to watch, regardless of its quality.
    • The entire movie is an Origins Episode that spends a huge bulk of its running time on retelling the story of the 2005 movie with a lot more Technobabble and much slower pacing (while the 2005 movie spends 25 minutes setting up the Super Hero Origin, this movie takes nearly half its running time for the Four to even get exposed to what gives them superpowers in the first place). There's barely any story to the movie by the time it's finished; say what you like about the 2005 and 2007 films, but at least they had actual narrative arcs and a proper beginning, middle, and end.
      • One thing that was heavily criticized is that the movie suddenly jumps a year ahead in the narrative right after the characters get their powers, and barely any scenes of the characters figuring out how to control said powers are included. Critics note that this would have helped justify the Prolonged Prologue and would have helped with the pacing of the film overall, considering that the Body Horror elements were actually fairly well-received.
    • The implications of Sue being an adopted sibling, and what it means for her character dynamic between Franklin and Johnny, are never explored.
    • Ben's anger toward Reed is more justified considering he was never meant to be a part of the expedition in the first place (as he didn't actually work on the project) and that Reed effectively ruined his life... but he puts his enmity aside because the plot structure tells him to, and this plot point is given no resolution whatsoever.
    • In general, all of the four main characters spent most of their screen time hating each other, sometimes with no justified reason (such as Ben and Johnny). Sue doesn't get to interact much with the rest of the team either, which undermines the critical foundation of the Fantastic Four franchise and ignores the main selling point of the source material, to begin with. This is a big reason that the conclusion comes across as an Esoteric Happy Ending as opposed to a genuine resolution.
    • A number of fans have noted that Jeremy Slater's script (covered on the Trivia page under "What Could Have Been") would have made for a significantly better story and a more engaging superhero movie overall than what Simon Kinberg and Josh Trank revised the script into and filmed, though this may not be saying much considering what we ended up with.
    • Victor mostly joins the project because he fancies Sue and wants to get closer to her, and seems to be getting jealous of how she and Reed are, for want of a better term, 'bonding'. Once more, after the first trip to the planet, this is never mentioned again, beyond Doom saying at the climax that he had different plans before trying to kill her.
    • Reed abandoning the group makes him a Designated Hero, yet a way of avoiding this was very evident. Do not have him instantly leave the group, spend time showing the four in the military base then have Reed decide that he wants to go back to Planet Zero in order to find out a way to reverse their powers and bring the other three along with him. That way, not only would Reed's abandonment make sense story-wise, but he would be more heroic and less unlikeable since he wouldn't just be leaving the other three behind like a Dirty Coward.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: One of the most heavily criticized aspects of the film is that it's almost completely bereft of the sense of optimism and bombastic adventure the comics were known for, something even the previous adaptations tried to capture (for the most part). Furthermore, the lack of any real bonds between this iteration of the FF by the end of the movie — or the perception that the characters themselves are underdeveloped — are also heavily maligned, as some critics argued that the Darker and Edgier tone would have worked if the characters were actually interesting or worth rooting for in the first place.
  • Too Cool to Live: Franklin Storm, the most popular character in the movie, gets killed off in Doom's rampage.
  • Took the Bad Film Seriously:
    • In a movie where most of the actors were apparently told to give the flattest performance possible, Reg E. Cathey manages to give a decent performance as Franklin Storm in spite of the shortcomings in the script.
    • Toby Kebbell seemed to be legitimately excited to play Doctor Doom leading up to the release of the movie, even if his actual role in the film essentially reduced his character to being a Generic Doomsday Villain.
    • Critics were split on whether the cast playing the Fantastic Four actually tried making the most out of what they were given or if they just phoned their performances in. Of course, Josh Trank allegedly told the actors to give the flattest performances possible — apparently, they tried to act but Trank felt a dull and emotionless monotone equaled Darker and Edgier — so it's possible that they're not entirely to blame. Generally speaking, Michael B. Jordan was hit with the least amount of flak on the matter of his performance because he makes it clear that he wants to be there, and Jamie Bell's performance was similarly hit with less criticism for him putting a visible effort into playing his character (although his version of the character is otherwise criticized for not behaving much like Ben Grimm). Later, Kate Mara was also given some slack after reports came out that Trank was especially abusive to her on set, as well as the fact that she was the most vocal actor to denounce the film.
    • On the production side of things, Philip Glass and Marco Beltrami managed to crank out a good-to-great score, all things considered, and it received very positive reviews, unlike the movie itself.
  • Trailer Joke Decay: The television spots constantly showed the gag of Johnny adjusting his seat and the failed fist bump with Reed, taking the humor out of them.
  • Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
    • The scene of Reed altering his face, going from one obvious CGI model superimposed over Miles Teller's face to another obvious CGI model. It almost looks like something out of The Mask.
    • The Thing's eyes. The rest of him looks about as cartoonish as you would expect a giant orange rock monster to be, but his eyes are very detailed and very human, giving his whole face an unnerving appearance.
  • Uncertain Audience: One of the numerous reasons often given for the film's failure is that it wildly shifts between tones, mixing Cronenbergian Body Horror (an approach that many fans considered to be completely wrong for the wacky, campy and colorful source material) that's too scary for the kids and families that have usually formed the Fantastic Four target audience while simultaneously offering up desperate, flailing lip-service at being a fun, lighthearted superhero movie like its distinguished competition; an effort that in turn alienated horror fans who might have appreciated the darker and scarier elements by making the film look too quippy and fast-paced. Consequently, the climax note  ended up pleasing no one, neither being exciting enough for the fans wanting a traditional superhero beatdown or providing any closure for the people who were actually interested in the darker plots it set up but never paid off while also taking so long to be reached that the film ended up feeling too slow and boring for general audiences.
  • Vindicated by History: Not the Film Itself, as it is widely agreed to be one of the worst comic-book movies of all time. Rather this is the case for the director. Josh Trank got a lot of the blame for how the movie turned out, even though most of the post-production overhaul — which completely replaced the second half of the movie — was handled by writer and producer Simon Kinberg. After the release of Kinberg's directorial debut with Dark Phoenix (which was also heavily panned by critics and audiences and flopped at the box office), some of the heat for the film was taken off of Trank himself, since it's something of an open secret that Kinberg had way more of a hand in the reshoots than Trank. The fact that Trank made a minor comeback of sorts with another small-scale independent movie also helped, with some theorizing that Trank was probably in over his head managing a big-scale movie during this film's production and had no idea what he was doing.
  • Wangst: While Ben's angst is justified like every other Fantastic Four adaptation, it gets cranked up in this film to the point where it overtakes his entire personality, becoming the character's only notable trait until the last 15 minutes of the film, when he suddenly gets over it.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: One advertisement airing on a children's network tried to advertise the movie as one about a world where people could do anything with superpowers. Hope the kiddos like a movie featuring Body Horror and exploding heads!note  The film also somehow wound up on Disney+ in 2020, despite its visceral tone and content.
  • WTH, Costuming Department?:
    • Mr. Fantastic's "slinky arms" are a source of mockery.
    • There are those that think it makes no sense as to why the Human Torch would have vents on his outfit when he already has a skintight suit that would negate the heat he is generating.
    • The Thing is naked and has no visible external genitalia. The only explanation for why this is the case is that the Thing is supposedly indestructible and does not need a containment suit, but there were still many that argued for the implementation of Monster Modesty.
    • There were a lot of complaints that Doom looks like a homeless person wearing burned trash bags after his transformation (it's a bit justified in-story considering that his "armor" is actually the burnt remains of his suit, but many were hoping for a costume closer to the source material.) There were also complaints that the movie was going for the "metallic face" explanation as opposed to actually giving the character a mask (oddly enough, the 2005 movie had both of these things.). The complaints were even worse after the scene where Doom rampages through the halls, at which point people started claiming that he looked like a crash test dummy.
    • Kate Mara is very obviously wearing a wig in the scenes that were added in during reshoots. While this isn't standard for this trope, it leads to some blatant continuity issues in the film, which alternate between cuts of her natural hair and cuts of the wig, especially since such techniques have been done much less conspicuously in other movies.
    • Reed's suit heavily resembles the leather bodysuit that Hugh Jackman wore for the first three X-Men movies, which just looks strange, especially considering that the previous Fantastic Four Movies managed to give him a modern take on his suit and still be accurate to the comics.

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