Fantastic Four director Josh Trank should give himself an extra star for self-awareness and self-deprecating humor. I don't really know why he chose this moment to review his much-maligned 2015 Fox Marvel movie on Letterboxd, but not only did he do that, he tweeted out a link to it (then made it his Pinned Tweet) as a statement to the world.
Josh Trank gave his "Fant4stic" movie two stars, which is one more than most critics. Fantastic Four has a 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 254 critics and an 18% audience score from 137,571 users.
The whole review is spot-on. If Fantastic Four had been as fun to watch as the director's review is to read, there wouldn't be a problem. Here's just a portion:
The movie is ALRIGHT.I was expecting it to be much worse than it was. I literally haven’t seen it since like two weeks before it came out, and I was in a heavily fucking traumatized state of mind. Why? Eh, save that for another time.Anyway, movie review:Great cast.Everyone in the film is a great actor, and overall there is a movie in there, somewhere. And that cast deserves to be in THAT movie. Everyone who worked on Fant4stic clearly wanted to be making THAT movie. But.... ultimately... It wasn’t.
That's when Josh Trank gets reflective, trying to figure out if he made the movie the cast deserved to be in or not.
What I can tell is there are TWO different movies in one movie competing to be that movie.Is there a #releasethetrankcut?Doesn’t matter.I’m not Zack Snyder.Zack Snyder is a storied, iconic, legendary filmmaker who has been knocking it out of the fucking park since I was in high school.Me? Then?I was 29 years old, making my 2nd film, in a situation more complicated than anything a 2nd time filmmaker should’ve walked into.
Josh Trank came to Fantastic Four after directing the well-received 2012 movie Chronicle, which also co-starred Michael B. Jordan. However, Trank adds in his review that he doesn't regret any of the Fantastic Four experience. It's a part of him and his story.
And I just hope Peyton Reed makes the next Fantastic Four and crushes it. And that I get a cameo.
That's it, other than his own version of a post-credits scene -- a P.S. noting his girlfriend said he should’ve reviewed more of the film and less about himself. His answer? A shrug emoji.
To me, that's a four-star review for a movie that ... well, yeah, it deserved to be rated 2 stars at best. He's right to rate it low, but now that almost five years have gone by, time has healed the wounds enough for fans to be more magnanimous.
Fantastic Four had a lot of problems behind-the-scenes. After the harsh reviews started coming out, Josh Trank tweeted that, a year before the release, he had a fantastic version of the movie that would've gotten great reviews ... but you'll probably never see it.
So maybe that's why he's doing this now -- piggybacking on the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut wave that may actually help Zack Snyder get his cut of Justice League on HBO Max or wherever.
Josh Trank has kept a light attitude about Fantastic Four in the past few years. When Captain Marvel had a big opening and someone tweeted that no superhero movie fails, Josh Trank replied with a perfect "hold my beer" response. He also dragged himself shortly after that to promote Us.
At least Fantastic Four isn't the biggest box office bomb of Marvel's Fox universe, since it was recently dethroned for that unfortunate title by Dark Phoenix.
Will Josh Trank get his wish, and Ant-Man director Peyton Reed will make the next Fantastic Four movie? After the Disney/Fox deal, Marvel's Fantastic Four characters are now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige hinted to the Fantastic Four in Phase 5, so we'll have to see where things go from here.
