Fantastic Four

I don't think people's dislike of Fantastic Four is part of a backlash against superhero films. There may be a backlash against superhero films, but this is a bad film on its own merits.

A few people are going to be reasonably exempt from the criticism that follows later. Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey and Tim Blake Nelson are in a much better film about the tragic fall of Victor von Doom which we see bits of in Fantastic Four. I'd much rather have actually watched that film.

Jamie Bell. You know how Thor 2 has about half an hour of Malkeith stuff they couldn't fit in and Days of Future Past had a Rogue sub-plot that they cut because they couldn't get it to mesh with the rest of them film, I have to assume that there's been a lot of Ben Grimm stuff cut. Because he appears as a child, is interesting, appears as an adult, is interesting, vanishes, only to be recalled for one scene and then gets turned into the Thing, after which he appears for three scenes.

Michael B. Jordan, who is a lot closer to my darling Johnny Storm than Chris Evans ever was. When he's given anything to do, he does it well.

On to the film itself:

The promotional material makes a big thing of having the same producers as the X-Men. Well they brought the wrong people over and should have gone for the writers. When First Class first came out there was a promo where someone, who I think was Matthew Vaughan, said that because they'd been given (relatively) little money, they'd had to focus on the characters more and he thought that resulted in a film people liked more. And I think he was right, and that was what Fantastic Four was missing.

That, and it had some of the worst dialogue you have ever heard. George Lucas would have said that that's not how people actually talk.

You know there's a problem when Victor von Doom is your most sympathetic character.

( Details and spoilers follow )

All that being said the film isn't too bad before they go through the portal the first time ( although (one science problem) )

Even the first scene through the portal is good and I love that they focus on the body horror of the transformations.

( It is after that that it all goes to pot and the writers seem to forget who their characters are )

Here we come to an area of disagreement between D that I saw the film with and I. He felt that the film was horribly drawn out, while I thought that the ending was rushed.

( Back to the spoilers )

TL;DR version

Film is bad. Cohesive but bad.
It relies too much on bad CGI.
Main problem is that they don't seem to know who the characters are.
Also the terrible dialogue.
Needs more Ben Grimm.