In one of those odd moments of synchronicity, just as fans were learning that Josh Trank would not be at the panel at Star Wars: Celebration where he was supposed to discuss his upcoming movie in the “Star Wars Anthology” series, the new trailer for “Fantastic Four” arrived online.
This is the trailer where fans are finally going to get to see the things they've been curious about, and it gives some indication of what you can expect from the finished film. I'm still not sure what to think. The things I've been hearing about the film from source after source after source make me nervous, but there are things I like about this trailer. It's mainly just small things, interplay between the cast or the way they handle Reed's stretching as an effect, but that's all you can ever really take away from a trailer.
More than anything, what this trailer suggests is something I'd already been hearing, that this is a fairly small-scale film as superhero movies go. For audiences who have been watching the entire superhero cycle escalate to the point where we're getting movies now like “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” and the upcoming “Justice League,” it feels almost radical to make a movie that is primarily about the people without a giant action set piece every ten minutes.
I love these characters, and more than anything, I just want to see them treated with some care and some dignity this time. Those Tim Story films genuinely offend me, and I'm glad to see that this film looks like it was approached with serious intent. Will that approach pay off in a film that works?
We'll find out when “Fantastic Four” arrives in theaters in August.