4 Reasons Fantastic Four Is Anything But

by Tony Dayoub


I take no pleasure in piling on a bad movie, but a lot of us who grew up reading "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine," as Fantastic Four was sub-titled for many years, are mystified by the fact that not one of its movie iterations has been successful. It shouldn't take rocket science to re-calibrate the property to reflect what made the Marvel Comics' flagship title and a template for the superheroes that would follow. Take one look at director Josh Trank's version, though, and one starts to wonder if even the team's gifted scientist, Reed Richards (Miles Teller), could work out the formula needed to make Fantastic Four truly live up to its name. Here are four reasons Fantastic Four was anything but:

Movie Review: Whiplash (2014)

by Tony Dayoub


In recent years, the American independent film has become as much a genre onto itself as it is a label distinguishing it as a work made outside the Hollywood system. The Sundance Festival movie in particular was burdened with all sorts of expectations which over time created a stereotype called the "indie." Featuring a cast of young up and coming actors, peppered with a few veterans working for little pay in the hopes of breaking out of some sort of career rut, the worst kind of indie generally recalls a special moment in a young man or woman's life, weighted with a deep, life altering lesson, all under an acoustic score by some folkie/emo instrumentalist who possesses enough street cred to sell some soundtrack albums. Where "independent" once connoted originality, "indie" now simply means lo-fi. That's why Whiplash is so refreshing. 2014's Sundance U.S. Audience and Grand Jury Prize winner is a vibrant, jazz-inflected drama that's also an anti-indie. As it goes into general release this week, Whiplash is poised to take awards season by storm.

Movie Review: Divergent (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

You want Divergent to be a better movie than it is, if only for its up-and-coming young star, Shailene Woodley. With its Twilight franchise gone and nearly forgotten, Summit Pictures has been grooming a couple of Young Adult novel adaptations as potential money-making successors. The first, Ender's Game, was a complex, male-oriented sci-fi war picture burdened by the troublesome politics of both it and its author. The second, Divergent, has the luxury of showcasing a new female star even more appealing than Jennifer Lawrence, the lead of its most successful rival, The Hunger Games. It's also helmed by possibly the most talented director a YA movie series has attracted yet, Neal Burger (The Illusionist). Even with all of these winning components in place, Divergent still feels half-baked.

Movie Review: The Spectacular Now (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

"Have you turned her into a lush yet?" That's the pertinent question Cassidy (Brie Larson) asks her ex-boyfriend, Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) in James Ponsoldt's The Spectacular Now. Cassidy's concern belies the fact that she's referring to Sutter's new girlfriend, Aimee Finecky (Shailene Woodley). Is she trying to protect the naïve Aimee from the perhaps alcoholic Sutter's charming sort of peer pressure? Is Cassidy warning Sutter not to lose his new love the way he lost her, by refusing to look past the present? Or is she mindful of her own unresolved post-breakup feelings over Sutter's inability to simply subsist without an oversized plastic cup full of spiked soft drink in hand to sweeten the day? This unpretentious but loaded line of dialogue is representative of the kind of complexity that makes The Spectacular Now feel like a teen romance with an old soul.