Ryan Reynolds has been on a mission to bring his favourite comic book anti-hero to the big screen after the disastrous on-screen introduction of Wade Wilson in 2009’s awful X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This time everyone has been promised that the merc-with-a-mouth won’t have his sewn shut and there will be bloody violence aplenty.

We’ll have to wait until February next year for the final product but in the mean time they have been releasing a whole lot of online videos and viral content to whet our appetites. NSFW warning on this one, folks.

– Break The Walls Down

30 seconds into the trailer and there are already meta jokes, a Deadpool staple, as Reynolds makes fun of his previous excursion on the big-screen as Green Lantern. No green CG costumes indeed.

– References A Go-Go

The nods don’t stop as we’re reminded of the leaked test footage which helped get this movie made in the first place. In fact, it looks like they’re straight up re-doing that test scene in the film. It’s a nice way to thank the fans whose reaction to that video made the difference.

– In The Shadow of…

Yo, who saw it coming that Colossus would be in this movie? Not me!

– Achievement Unlocked

There are a lot of things that point to this being a juvenile film, something which might make you worry that despite it’s 18s rating it is designed for 15 year old boys. But at the very least I expect it to be silly and fun too. Hopefully it walks that fine line on the right side of stupidity.

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Overall: This makes me interested. It will stand out a mile in and amongst the regular dark and brooding Fox and Warner Bros movies, which is great. Will it clean up at the box office? Probably not, but I expect it to make it’s money back and then some with DVD sales alone.

The Fantastic Four. Marvel’s First Family; Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm were forever transformed by cosmic rays into the Fantastic Four! There’s been one failed attempt at a movie, two more that weren’t great and now a brand new reboot from director Josh Trank (Director of the fascinating Chronicle) and written by Simon Kinberg (Writer of X-Men: The Last Stand, Days of Future Past and Star Wars: Rebels). Can these two bring us a unique and awe-inspiring take on the Fantastic Four? Here’s a hint:

 
Highlight of The Trailer

It does not bode well when the Marvel logo (not even the fancy new 3D one) elicits the biggest smile for the next 2 minutes. And what’s with that narrator? I didn’t know Tony Todd was in this movie! (Spoilers: He’s not. Boo-urns.)

Fresh Faces

Here are your Fantastic Four! These young pups are the latest heroes on the scene, given “daunting” new powers after teleporting to a parallel universe. Hoo boy. Let’s run down these cats. Miles Teller (Reed Richards) is known for starring in Divergent, so he’s right at home here, it looks like the same movie. Kate Mara (Sue Storm) was a US Marshal in Iron Man 2 and that’s the only thing I’ve seen her in. Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm), despite the backlash against his casting, seems like a solid actor plus he was in The Boondocks so that wins him points with me and finally Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm. Billy Elliot is The Thing. I don’t even need to make a joke, it writes itself.

Power Play

We all know the powers of the Fantastic Four by now so how do they look from what little we see? Not too shabby! We don’t get much (Johnny being the most notable) but Reed looks stretchy without looking like ropey CGI, Sue seems to have a similar effect to Jessica Alba but it’s invisibility, what can you do? Johnny’s flames are a little more subdued than Chris Evans but that’s not a bad thing and The Thing is not a rubber suit. That’s all I can say because there’s TWO shots of him.

Money Shot

Admittedly, that does look cool. (If a little Mass Effect-y.)

The teaser gives us nothing in terms of plot, just a lot of shots of science and military men looking stern while the narrator tries to make is overdose on gravitas but we get plenty of shots of the heroes and that’s that. I’m probably not going to see this. Mildly interesting familial dynamics and different takes on power sets I’ve seen before aren’t enough to draw me in but we’ll see what the general public things when The Fantastic Four hits screens on August 6th 2015.

An official poster for Fox’s new X-Men film was released to an unmistakable “aw jeez” from the internet community. Bad photoshopping effects and a general lack of anything interesting meant that the geek eyes of the world got a good work out from all the rolling done as a result.

Here it is in all it’s plain glory.

Now it has been pointed out elsewhere that this scene is trying to channel a moment from Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men and while this is a pretty accurate comparison my main question still remains. Why bother? It’s not a good shot. I’ll show you the panel in question.

And yes, it’s a very good mock up of this shot but why use this panel as inspiration? It’s dull. It was important in the comic as it re-introduced the old-style costumes to the team after Grant Morrison tried to get rid of them, but as a solo piece of art it’s nothing special (other than it was drawn by the magnificent John Cassaday, obviously).

If they wanted to emulate something from the comics they had an endless amount of material to choose from. So why choose this? And why choose to do it using terrible photoshop techniques? I’ve seen better fan-made posters mocked up.

Even taking the comics as inspiration and choosing a cover like this beauty from the same series.

If “standing around” was the motif that Fox were going for in creating this poster then this is much more evocative with the same premise in mind. Standing around… with fire! Plus they’re also arranged in a dramatic fashion. This may sound silly but the tiniest amount of effort and positioning and it changes “standing around” from being boring to brilliant.

Speaking of brilliantly standing around, the best example of such is The Usual Suspects. An iconic film poster of men doing nothing.

But there was meaning to this image. It wasn’t posing, they were standing in a police line-up and this was in correlation to the film’s title and plot. If X-Men: First Class had their cast standing around in a school hall, yeah, I’d dig it. Or if they took a leaf out of the comic of the same name…

… think of the poster they could have made.

Long gone are the days of beautiful posters that layered up the action but drew the eye to the main characters. Take a look at this old Star Wars poster. I’d be excited to see this film even knowing nothing about it. Just look! Lazers! Robots! Space battles! Danger! It gave you a taste of what is in store for the viewer.

All the X-Men poster tells us is “people standing around in outfits… and a couple of blue folk”. There is no hint of any action or tension in the film. In fact all the heroes and villains are walking together. Sorry, photoshopped together.

I tell you, nobody makes pretty posters like the old Star Wars ones anymore. Oh wait…

Thanks Marvel! For reminding us that standing around can be cool in movie posters if done right. And thank you Fox for teaching us how to be lame.