The 2005 film version of the comic book quartet Fantastic Four rather put the lame in “Flame on!” – the Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw once ranked it as the time when he got a positive review most badly wrong. It did decent enough business to get a sequel in Rise of the Silver Surfer, but the franchise slunk away as X-Men and the Avengers heaved into view.
Now the Marvel quartet is back in – guess what? – an origins story. Helmed by Josh Trank who made great found-footage thriller Chronicle, and who is next going to take on a standalone Star Wars movie, it also features the buzzy cast of Miles Teller, Michael B Jordan, Jamie Bell and Kate Mara.
As is so often the case in comic book land, our heroes gain their powers after something science-y goes badly wrong, rumoured in this case to be an attempt to jump across into a parallel universe. And lo, four ordinary people with grittily complex backstories become SUPER-people with grittily complex backstories: Human Torch, the Thing and Invisible Woman, all led by the campily monikered Mr Fantastic.
The first trailer reliably ticks all the cliches off: serious voiceover, plinky piano turning to gnarly blooms of brass, muscle car driving across cornfield to who knows where (spoiler alert: it’s destiny). Pensive staring and plodding around spaceports builds to our foursome gazing up at big bit of dangerous-looking light. What does it all mean? Answers will be forthcoming when it’s released on 6 August.
