When Fox’s third attempt at a Fantastic Four movie flopped, several theories surfaced as to why. Perhaps the Fantastic Four are unlikeable jerks who could never successfully support a franchise. Perhaps the breakdown in communication between studio and director made the resulting film a poorly edited, unsalvageable mess. Or perhaps, as Screen Junkies suggests in its Honest Trailer, it’s because the characters are four inept teenagers who get drunk, take selfies, and stick their hands in alien goo.
Honest Trailers are never more delicious than when they’re taking down cinematic trainwrecks, and this one is no exception. Fantastic Four (or “Fan-Four-Stick,” per the film’s confusing wordmark) has no redeeming qualities—the plot makes no sense, the villain is hokey, and the talents of Hollywood’s hottest young actors are squandered on banal dialogue. (Sample line: “We’re a team now, and there’s four of us, so we should come up with a name for it.” Thanks for that, Reed.) Frankly, it’s shocking Screen Junkies managed to fit everything wrong with the movie into four minutes and 30 seconds.
