Release Date: April 4, 2017
Film: Fantastic Four (2015)
Tagline: With the Fantastic 4 constantly being botched on the big screen, is this the one that’s the absolute worst?
This review contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Invoked. At a scene where Mr. Kenny (Dan Castellaneta), Reed Richards' high school teacher, balking at his dream of creating teleportation, the Critic dubs into the former suggestions for alternative jobs with the voice of Homer Simpson.
- Call-Back: The review begins with the Critic, Malcolm and Tamara reminiscing about their time as the "Adequately Impressive Three" from the review of the first Fantastic Four film. Like that time, however, they simply go watch a Netflix series (in this instance, Jessica Jones (2015)) instead of doing superheroics, with the only change being their Darker and Edgier style makeover. Naturally, Rob is still none too pleased, later theorizing that they were "inspired" by watching this film.
- Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Parodied: the "Adequately Impressive Three" don't use their superhero names anymore because they're 'too edgy for them' now."Oh! We didn't have to say it out loud, but you still had to take a movie with a guy named Von Doom seriously! Piss off!"
- Contrived Coincidence: The Critic's reaction to government-sponsored scientist Franklin Storm happening to be in the same high school science fair where Reed and Ben Grimm demonstrated their teleporter.
- Damned by Faint Praise: The Critic thinks it's sad that the 1994 Roger Corman version is, even with its many glaring flaws, still a much more accurate portrayal of the Fantastic Four than this film.
- Darker and Edgier: Parodying the film itself, the Critic, Malcolm and Tamara re-assume their "Adequately Impressive Three" guises, but in a grittier, more poorly-lit setting and watching Jessica Jones (2015) instead.
- Dull Surprise: The Critic mocks the way Reed says "It's beautiful." upon seeing images of the parallel dimension with "You can tell by the investment in my voice."
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Malcolm and Tamara remember their tenure with the Critic as the "Adequately Impressive Three" after a montage of clips from the review of their first Fantastic Four film.
- Malicious Misnaming: The Critic makes no effort whatsoever to hide his hatred of the movie, referring to the superheroes as the "Fantastic Bore" and the film itself as "Fant-Snore-Stic''.
- Running Gag: The Critic clapping to dim the lights in his studio, parodying the low lighting prominent throughout the film.
- Sanity Slippage: With each passing minute the Critic is being driven increasingly mad over the film's abuse of low-lighted scenes. By the time the portal-in-the-sky cliché plays, the Critic collapses on the ground.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: At the end of the review, the Critic doesn't even bother to finish his closing Catchphrase, saying he's had enough of the film.
- The Adequately Impressive Three try to do this when Iron Man and Spider-Man invite them to sneak out, only to be stopped by Mr. Fox, who reminds them that he owns them.
- Shout-Out:
- During the "Adequately Impressive Three's" Darker and Edgier makeover the Critic summarizes the movie's obsession with conversations in dark rooms by quoting Lydia's line of "My life is one big, dark room" from Beetlejuice.
- Following 20th Century Fox's Logo Joke where the "F" of Fox is the last to fade (as they did to the "X" for the X-Men films), the Critic tries to put his spin:
- Young Reed sounds so much like Dexter, the Critic dubs into him lines about how he's going to create the perfect DeeDee-proof security.
- After Franklin tries to assure Victor that his research work was not stolen, the Critic dubs into the latter lines about how he's annoyed that his looks were stolen by Borat Sagdiyev and Peter Dinklage.
- When Dr. Storm explains that the parallel world he discovered may save Earth, the Critic assumes that the world is being drained of its color by Murky and Lurky.
- Reed, Ben, Johnny and Victor's planet-walk suit is compared to the uniform of Sub-Zero.
- Johnny discovering his fire-based powers is compared to an intense origin story of Flame Princess.
- The ease with which the characters converse in dark rooms has the Critic wonder if they had the same upbringing as Jack Newsome.
- When Rob finds the Critic collapsed on the ground after the portal-in-the-sky cliché is used in the film, he tries to bring the Critic back to his senses, while both converse in the style of an intimate conversation between Sam and Frodo after the latter successfully destroyed the One Ring.
- When the Critic has to explain why Dr. Doom wanted to destroy the world, he gets interrupted with a clip of Mrs. Crocker screaming "Who cares?!
" from Screwed. - The scene where Dr. Doom starts to suck in Earth into his parallel dimension is accompanied with a clip from Spaceballs of Dark Lord Helmet, Colonel Sandurz and President Skroob chanting "Suck! Suck! Suck!" as Mega Maid sucks the air out of planet Druidia.
- Upon hearing Victor's "There is no Victor. There is only Doom." line, the Critic contemplates using the "There is no Dana. There is only Zuul." clip from Ghostbusters (1984), but ultimately relents against doing so, thinking it's not worth the effort.
- Special Effect Failure: Invoked when the Critic mocks the chimp the teleporter is being tested on as "an unrendered model from Space Chimps."
- Subverted Catchphrase:"I'm the Nostalgia Critic and... I'm just done."
- Take That!:
- A flashback of Reed in school has the Critic quip that great ideas die in American high schools.
- Reed's small plea to his teleporter to not blow up is reinterpreted by the Critic as an allegory to what the producers are praying for the film.
- A monkey being used to test the teleporter is so blatantly CGI that the Critic thinks it was an unrendered model from Space Chimps.
- Doom is compared to the infamous version of Deadpool from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, questioning Fox's obsession to turn both these characters into "Slipknot crash test dummies".
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Just like in the 2005 film, the gang seems to spending most of their time testing and admiring their new abilities, and very little of it fighting crime.
- Worst. Whatever. Ever!: The Critic not only condemns the film as the worst of the Fantastic Four film adaptations, but also claims that it is a prime example of how not to do a Darker and Edgier reboot.
