Fantastic Four (2015)

The creation of new Fantastic Four films is like some sort of mind-bending thriller plot where they do the same thing over and over again in some bizarre torture-loop. Like, when they become aware of the awful hell they've been subjected to, a switch is flipped and then it's like 'go back to the start, make another origin story, show again how they got their powers. You won't remember any of this when it's over.' Then the screams are drowned out by forcefully canned, "triumphant" opening credits music and the sound of Reed Richards trying to coerce his friends into space again.

This one is the worst one. And probably one of the worst superhero movies ever made at that. Josh Trank, who made the excellent Chronicle, directed this, which is a shame as he deserved more than the studio meddling he got here.

Director: Josh Trank

Starring: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan

IMDb

Co-written with Tony.

I mean, hell, it's barely even a superhero flick to begin with. Calling it a movie is even a bit of a stretch. You start off with like, 20 minutes of Reed Richards as a kid. Apparently he's a creepy little fuck in this who spends all his time making a doorway to another dimension. I love how even the teacher in his class is sarcastic at him and doesn't even support him a little bit. Dude, you're teaching 5th graders, quit acting like you're Simon fucking Cowell, you weirdo.

But to be fair, Reed is the kind of kid who waits in a car at night like a horror movie villain outside the junkyard, where his classmate Ben lives. Ben, being a total idiot, apparently considers this to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. They begin that night using parts from the junkyard to make Reed's science thingy.

Oh and Ben, by the way, is apparently just bullied by his big brother, who says “It's clobberin' time” to him as he's hitting him. That's where that catchphrase came from, kids!

Reed and Ben then go back to Reed's garage and put the finishing touches on the whole dimensional gateway machine that every kid had in their garage back in the 90s – oh the nostalgia. I love that there's really no explanation of why he wanted to make this or, really, what it even does. He could be trying to become the new Adolph Hitler for all Ben knows. Maybe the door to dimensions opens up the door to the DC Film Universe, which would at least explain why this sucks so bad.

Oh, and they shut off power in the entire neighborhood. You would think this would be enough for people to ask questions as to what he was doing. Or for his parents to keep a closer eye on him from then on to make sure he doesn't burn down the house or isn't torturing anybody in their garage. This could almost be an interesting plot point or character moment... WHICH IS WHY WE THEN SKIP SEVEN YEARS AHEAD!

Yup. Seven year skip just out of nowhere. Reed is now closer to college and still making the same dumb dimension door thing, and Ben is still helping, because why would anything change in your life in the most formative years of said life? Everything always remains the same during that time of your life.

Incidentally, a dimensional door, huh? I guess this is how Stranger Things happened... either that, or it's just bland chopped-up sci fi cliché stew, delivered lukewarm, and with a few mysterious hairs in it that make you question whether you're hungry at all.

There's a scene where Victor Von Doom, who is portrayed here as a greasy neckbeard weirdo with a fascination with Sue Storm, and the other dudes all decide to go into the door and fuck around in the other dimension. It goes horribly and they blow everything up. All hail white dude mediocrity, right? I love that they don't even bring Sue with them, but she gets hit by radiation anyway even just sitting back in the regular world. I'd be so pissed. I'd be like 'goddammit, motherfuckers.'

Most of the rest of this sinks into an insufferable muck of boring crap. It's trying to be all dark and “mature,” in the way that only a kid listening to Nine Inch Nails and death metal while mad at their mom at age 15 can be. I guess director Josh Trank had this whole vision that was ruined due to re-shoots, since honestly, all art is always improved by constant last minute tinkering by guys who wear sandals with socks. YOU KNOW BEST, CORPORATIONS!

But it really just comes off as silly. They have a bunch of scenes with them strapped to tables in dark, creepy lab rooms with scientist guys in dark glasses not answering their question. It's like if Stephen King wrote a Firestarter spec script while drunk off his ass. How do you like these scenes for your kids, parents? Don't you love that the happy-go-lucky Fantastic Four have been turned into this vague, dark pile of bullshit? Wasn't THIS how you always pictured these iconic heroes?!

Then they just skip ahead a year again without really exploring the characters or the world. This whole movie is like they just filmed the Wikipedia summary of a plot. There's really just zero character development. They don't bother to explore even the littlest parts of who these people are or why we should care. I know that's like expecting a McDonalds to carry high-class cuisine at this point, but eh fuck it, I'm already critiquing everything else anyway.

They find Victor Von Doom in the other dimension, who got lost there before. He's now turned into some kind of weird fantasy monster, like a shitty D&D creature made by the kid your mom forced you to play with because he didn't have anyone else. He comes back and tries to, I dunno, destroy the world or something? He says some vague things about 'sucking the world into his own dimension and making a new dimension.' This is all a bunch of gobbledegook and the kind of thing a 10 year old would find too lame to even play with his action figures.

They beat him, I guess, and they're really only acting as a whole team for like, what, 10 minutes of the super goofy, lame CGI-fest climax? Otherwise, this isn't a Fantastic Four movie. It's a 'random dark action movie where people have strange, silly powers for no reason.' Hooray for that? Meh.

This movie sucks and anyone who likes it, I strongly think is a foreign agent against their own government. Be suspicious of them.

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47 Meters Down (2017)

47 Meters Down is yet another 'shark horror movie,' and I should be annoyed with them by now. But honestly, there's something strangely endearing about the optimism here, of people thinking they can still do better than Jaws after all these years without massively changing up the formula.

To be fair, this does offer a different take on a shark movie. In this one, they're trapped underwater in a shark cage and are running out of oxygen surrounded by bloodthirsty, serial-killer-ish sharks, each ready to devour them whole. But strangely, they barely even do too much with THAT concept. It's a weird waste of potential. "Here's an original idea," I can imagine these writers saying, "now, just fart out a script. I am gonna take a nap."

Director: Johannes Roberts

Starring: Mandy Moore, Claire Holt

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This starts off with our main characters Kate and Lisa, on vacation at a ritzy, gorgeous looking beach in Mexico. There are several pointless but nice-looking scenes that end very quickly, looking less like a horror movie and more like a travel agency's commercial. Or a hotel's commercial. Whatever it is, you know looking like a commercial is very much against what most horror movies should be about. Hint, guys – they're supposed to make you want to stay AWAY from places.

I guess we find out that Lisa's long-term boyfriend Stuart has just dumped her and that's at least partly why they're vacationing. They talk about how he got bored and left... I guess he had the attention span of a tiny baby. Did you try waving car keys in front of his face? Also, it's weird that they have all these short, pointless scenes and are just now dumping this on us. What prevented them from just opening with it? Maybe the contract for the cinematographer included 'must film footage that looks identical to a travel commercial in case this horror movie thing doesn't work out.'

Then they meet some guys late at night at a bar, partying and stuff, and the guys invite them to go shark diving the next day. As far as the movie shows, they barely exchange two words before agreeing to this. Later on, we see that Kate, the younger sister, is super adventurous and has a penchant for doing crazy stuff. I guess in this movie, that means she just agrees to whatever the weird guys in the bar invite her to do. Good thing she didn't talk to the OTHER guy at that bar who wanted her to play Russian Roulette. Or the third guy who was just a fucking rapist.

The next day they all go do exactly that, shark diving. There are a few scenes where the crew on the boat seems slightly suspicious and weird, like maybe they'll do something creepy and horror movie-ish. Nope. It's just a normal shark diving trip, with all the lack of regulations or rules that an off-the-beaten-path beach in Mexico promises... this movie just has such a lack of any imagination. It's barely even trying to tell a story. We were just waiting for something super creepy to happen, like right before the girls went under, one of the guys leans over and whispers that they've been stalking the girls for weeks. But nope. I guess that was too much to ask. Or, really, anything remotely interesting.

I'll throw the movie a bone here: it's pretty cool when they actually get underwater. It's a dark, isolated and gloomy setting. There isn't much else quite like it for horror. Most movies would wimp out and set a lot of it above the water, but this one, to what little credit I can give it, creates a definite mood by setting the entirety of the movie way deep down underwater.

Too bad they barely make use of it! There's very little in the way of scares. Most of this is just them talking in frantic tones about how to escape. There's a few scenes of very mild suspense that might make a nursing home grandma who's never seen a horror movie jump. Otherwise it's all a big old flatline. Like oh, really, they want to get out of the ocean? Tell us more, Shakespeare. Regale us with these mindblowing concepts.

They don't utilize the setting very well and there's maybe one scene where they go off and explore the darker parts of the ocean in any way. The sharks are bad at being serial killers and don't sneak up on them well or provide much tension either. Maybe they should've looked this up on WikiHow. Overall this is a limp tension-free slog much like the feeling of a deflated balloon.

They start running out of oxygen, though much later than I had thought. They get in touch with the douchebag who got them down there to begin with, who sends down some new tanks. The problem is, because they've been down there so long, they might start to hallucinate. Now, this was the point where I thought things might finally get cool and interesting. Here was an opportunity for the movie to truly show off its creativity and put in some badass, insane hallucinations under the fucking water...

Nope! That doesn't happen. Instead, Kate gets attacked by a shark and then Lisa manages to get free from the bars of the cage pinning her leg down and save Kate. Then the both of them ascend from the water on their own – which was really an option the whole time and I'm not sure why they didn't just try it even in spite of the danger...

...then it turns out all of THAT was all a hallucination and they WEREN'T saved! But don't worry, the national guard was coming down right at that time and saves them for really real.

Wow. That is some weak ass “horror.” You had the option to have fucking hallucinations under water and you did jack squat with it. This should have been a fucking freak circus like the climax of The Shining set underwater, with hallucinations used to their full effect and escalating until the characters lost their mind. I wanted to see the darkest recesses of their psychology. I wanted to see gore-streaked apparitions and creepy figures lurking in the shadows of the sea.

But nope. Nothing. There's no imagination here. This kind of stuff is the reason why nobody ever took horror seriously for years in the 2000s. All in all, I recommend just going diving in open water with sharks rather than watching this silly stuff. I'm gonna go watch Jaws again instead.

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