Josh Trank's 'Fantastic Four' Finally Has A Trailer, Check It Out Here

To be honest, I’ve never been a big Fantastic Four fan. It’s not that I dislike them, they’ve just never been one of my favorites, and it’s been a comic that I’m rather indifferent to, so I’m less emotionally invested in the adaptations than others. For instance, I care far more that the Daredevil movie sucks so bad rather than that the last two FF movies are terrible. Don’t get me wrong, I do really want Josh Trank’s upcoming version to be good—he’s a filmmaker I’m curious to watch develop, it has a great cast, and I like good superhero movies—but if it isn’t, I won’t lose any sleep over it, and from this first trailer, I’m not so sure I’m sold.

People seem to be pretty stoked on this, especially given how early in the morning it dropped, but while it’s interesting, it leaves me a little bit flat. This is, of course, just a first tease, and we have seven more months until we actually see the damn movie, so there is definitely time to convince me, and while I am still looking forward to this, it’s going to take something more to get me really, truly excited. That’s all.

What we have here is very serious and dour, without a whit of humor to be found. You get glimpses of the origins of the four heroes, where they started before they gain their superpowers, and how they’ve changed after the fact. It’s just all very glum, and they’re definitely going for ominous and brooding—what, with that voiceover, the dark visuals, and the overall tone—rather than adventurous. That’ll all come later, I’m sure, which is fine, but for now it certainly feels like they’re going for a Dark Knight vibe. I’m not opposed to that, but it’s not something I normally associate with Fantastic Four.

Doctor Doom is nowhere to be found in this footage, but at one point you can spy the number 23.21.190.125 on the screen, which, if you plug into you web browser, takes you to the Wikipedia page for Latveria, a fictional nation he rules in the comics. He’s supposedly a hacker in this version, so this little Easter Egg makes sense.

There’s some cool imagery in this, especially when Johnny Storm lights up in that darkened hallway, and there is definite potential, but, like I said, this just isn’t hitting the right notes for me at the moment. That could very easily change between now and the August 7 release date, and you can bet this is one I’ll be keeping a close eye on.