Analysis: Why ‘The Fantastic Four’ casting reports gets thumbs down from many comic fans, but team could still be powerful

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Miles Teller (Mr. Fantastic), Kate Mara (Invisible Woman), Michael B. Jordan (Human Torch) and Jamie Bell don’t resemble the Fantastic Four on lunchboxes ... for better or worse.


It’s clobbering time! Many comic fans have been upset over ‘The Fantastic Four’ casting reports

Is the casting of "The Fantastic Four" secretly one of Doctor Doom's nefarious plots?
Within minutes of the bombshell reports that Fox has found its titular superheroes in the Fantastic Four reboot, naysayers flamed on social media to pick apart the reported selections of actors Miles Teller (Mr. Fantastic), Kate Mara (Invisible Woman), Michael B. Jordan (Human Torch) and Jamie Bell (The Thing) .
Complaints ranged from the good points (Teller's track record of one-liner spewing parts is a poor fit for the super-serious Reed Richards) to the bad (Mara isn't blonde) to the ugly (Jordan is not Caucasian like the character in the comics).
Assuming all four are on board — since only Jordan and Mara have officially confirmed their commitments — the presumed casting at the very least shows director Josh Trank is not reverential about the original source material created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961.
The Internet had not seen such rancor since — well, since Ben Affleck was fitted for Batman's cape and cowl.

 

(From top l., clockwise) Kate Mara, Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell were reportedly cast as the titular superhero family in ‘The Fantastic Four.’

Casting directors do have a relatively good batting average in the genre — Henry Cavill certainly fits the tights as Superman, and Chris Hemsworth looks like he was pulled out of the panel of a Thor comic book, to cite two examples. In hindsight, it seems ridiculous that Robert Downey Jr. was considered a risk to be the man behind the Iron Man mask; now it's impossible to imagine the 2.0 version when Marvel Studios inevitably has to recast the role to keep the franchise going past "Avengers 3." Samuel L. Jackson is the spitting image of the Ultimate line version of Nick Fury — not surprising since that character's look was patterned on the real Jackson. And can anyone picture original first-choice Dougray Scott as The X-Men's Wolverine instead of Hugh Jackman?
There are, however, plenty of holes in their swings. Exhibit A: Keanu Reeves proved he could capably play a super-powered champion in "The Matrix" movies, but was completely miscast in 2005's "Constantine," based on a very British character that creator Alan Moore patterned on Sting. Reeves just couldn't capture that punk vibe that made the character beloved among comic fans. It showed a complete disconnect with the source material.
There's a noticeable difference when filmmakers get a great piece of source material right ("Batman Begins") and when they don't ("Batman and Robin").
Giving Trank the benefit of the doubt, it's hard to argue that Bell ("Billy Elliot") looks the part of the human rock-pile known as The Thing, the way Michael Chiklis (goofy makeup not withstanding) did in previous "Fantastic Four" movies.

 

They will be replacing (from l.) Chris Evans as Johnny Storm, Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards, Jessica Alba as Susan Storm, and Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm from 2005’s ‘Fantastic Four’ and 2007’s ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.’

Chiklis also brought some geek cred to the reading table, having grown up a huge Ben Grimm fan himself. That's one of the reasons I never understood all the vitriol leveled at Affleck, since the two-time Oscar winner a card-carrying comic nerd who clearly didn't sign on for just a paycheck. He may not be able to live down 2003's "Daredevil," but quality issues on that movie aside, he wasn't blind about what made the character a fan favorite.

Such reverence goes a long way.
That being said, a great actor can act the part even if they don't know their Elongated Men from their Plastic Men. "The Dark Knight Rises" Christian Bale told the News in December that he didn't gravitate toward comics as a child, but he eventually found his way inside Batman's mask anyway." Whatever concerns purists have about Jordan not looking the part, there's no disputing the "Fruitvale Station" star can act. Like a good superhero teammate, he'll elevate the material and the other actors around him. His on-screen sister, Mara, is fresh off a critically lauded turn on “House of Cards.”
Plus this isn't exactly Shakespeare being rewritten. Lee and Kirby originally wrote this stuff for 10-year-old boys. If you can buy the idea that four people could commandeer a rocket, fly into orbit and get super powers from cosmic rays, it's not any sillier that Bell would morph into a walking pile of orange rocks.
The bottom line is the bottom line. Fox can't have a blockbuster with next year's "The Fantastic Four" if those purists are the only ones buying tickets. At the very least, this version of Marvel's First Family has a little bit of traction with 20-something moviegoers. So forget a mutant factor, Teller, Mara, Jordan and Bell have an "it" factor. As angry as some hard core fans may be, the track record of the genre shows we're going to file into the multiplex no matter who they put into the spandex. The studio now needs to fill the rest of the seats.
This may not be the Fantastic Four lineup I had in my head, but it still deserves a chance to save the universe.