2015's Fantastic Four: Another Look

I recall being, if not pleasantly surprised, then at least intrigued by Josh Trank's Fantastic Four when I first saw it. There were aspects I was dubious about--the young adult turn in the characterizations, for one, and the inconsistency of the tone--and yet there were others that did interest me.

On a recent (if casual) reviewing of the film I was more impressed by those aspects, not least the film's handling of the scientific research at the heart of the story. The film does make concessions to silly, outworn Edisonade convention in having a high school student working with scavenged junk happen on a key part of the solution to the problem of interdimensional travel. But afterward the film displays, to a far, far greater degree than most of what comes out of Hollywood, a striking awareness, and acknowledgment, of the realities of Big Science. Its agendas and politics, which have the Suits, not the scientists, calling the shots. And the reality that science is not nerd-magic, but a lot of hard work--collaborative, protracted, at times grueling hard work that builds on the bits of the puzzle others have solved, most of that by people unlikely to get any of the glory.

Such things, small as they seem, are rare enough and significant enough that they appear to me to rate an honorable mention.