Fantastic Four, while it had many flaws, and some positives as well, the thing that I want to criticize it for here is the lack of superpowers in the superhero movie. Mister Fantastic stretches approximately three times in the entire film, and there’s basically no action where his power is relevant except in the final showdown for two minutes. That ain’t right y’all.
Compare to Terminal Engagement, the most recent book in the Wearing the Cape series (which I touched on a week or so ago). In that, a stretchy superhero rolls up, wraps himself bodily around an opponent and physically restrains his enemy. To follow that up, he reaches his arm down the throat of his opponent and tries to pull out the guy’s lungs.1 That is how you do stretchy superheroes.
Even if that’s a bit much for you, there’s so much more that you can do with a guy who can stretch his body at will. Does he need to get somewhere fast? Stretch his legs to lengthen his stride. Needs a tool? Maybe his arm doubles as a screwdriver. Needs a shield? I feel like an extraordinarily large and thick thumbnail might to do the trick. Needs to get his teammate somewhere? The man is a living slingshot. Party vibe falling? Tie yourself into slipknots and then ‘pop’ you’re back to normal, pretty cool!
Human Torch should have the bonfire of the century to draw from and torch the baddie with the fire of, if not a thousand suns, then at least a thousand furnaces, and should probably be invisible while doing it. At least he gets to do something.
That’s a pretty big contrast to The Thing. Bro is a rock and can lift all sorts of crazy stuff. He’s running through concrete pillars. I feel like he could materially contribute more than copiloting a spaceship with a sentient VCR.
The big fight at the end of Terminal Engagement has Astra show up with every trick in the book, and few that we haven’t seen in the books yet. She’s cookin’. I don’t totally agree with the power-scaling choices made, but their execution is pristine. Fantastic Four’s finale? Very little of interest. The information that seems like it might be useful isn’t capitalized on, nothing novel is done with powers, and the fight hinges on a plot device which doesn’t make a lot of sense.2
Incredibles did it better.