There are many things wrong Josh Trank's 2015 Fantastic Four superhero film. Mostly, the film can't seem to find a solid tone and veers from fun and funny to dark or scary, often without any clear rhyme or reason. There's an element of wonder as Reed Richard (Miles Teller) finds a way to travel to alternate dimensions, but the film is also oddly cynical and weak. Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell). The film even spends some time pretending to be a Cronenbergian horror movie as the Fantastic Four discover that their superpowers mutate their bodies.
Then there's a brief period of superhero deconstruction as the Four realize their powers are being used as military tools for death and destruction. Pretty quickly the movie turns cartoonish and silly as Doctor Doom (Toby Kebbel) plans to take over the world in some sort of way. Apparently, Trank was pushed too hard by 20th Century Fox, and “Fantastic Four” eventually broke up with studio records. While I have no problem with the Fantastic Four being reimagined as youth prodigies or Doctor Doom no longer being the dictator of Latveria, I do have a lot of problems with Fantastic Four being so poorly drawn.
Critics agree. The film had only a 9% approval rating About Rotten Tomatoes (based on 259 reviews). It wasn't even a huge box office hit, grossing $167.9 million on a $120 million budget.
Also, did you recognize Chet Hanks in the mix? Probably not. Chet Hanks, the more troubled son Hollywood superstar and classic sci-fi fan Tom HanksIn Trank's film, Bell makes a cameo as Jimmy Grimm, the older brother of Bell's character. Jimmy, in this version of the Fantastic Four story, is a mean bully.
Chet Hanks played Ben Grimm's older brother Jimmy Grimm in Josh Trank's Fantastic Four.
Chet Hanks, before going any further, is somewhat famous for some criminal activity. In 2015, he trashed a hotel in England under the influence of cocaine and ended up in rehab. Then, in 2021, he broke up in a very public and potentially criminal way when his ex-girlfriend Kiana Parker sued him again for domestic violence. He also charged Parker with burglary, assault and battery. That same year, Chet Hanks also came out against the COVID vaccine and hated it.
Hanks Jr. worked as an actor and even appeared in the movie The Greyhound with his father Tom, but many may know him better for his rap career. He sang “White Boy Summer” and “DAMN!” in 2021.
In Fantastic Four, Hanks can be caught in the opening scenes of the film. Future superhero The Thing, Ben Grimm, is only 12 years old (and played by Evan Hannemann) and lives in a junkyard with his violent, impoverished family. When young Ben returns home from school, his older brother Jimmy is seen playing baseball with his friends. Jimmy asks Ben to do a job and Ben refuses. Enraged, Jimmy chases him inside and angrily hits his little brother several times. Fortunately, the boys' mother quickly appears and puts an end to the violence. It's not a big scene for Hanks, but it effectively conveys how miserable life is for young Ben. It's understandable why Ben would want to spend time with ambitious engineer Reed Richards instead.
Of course, since interaction is one of the main selling points of modern Marvel movies, it's now safe to assume that Chet Hanks is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or at least has the potential to be. Maybe his version of Jimmy Grimm will be one of the many characters that appear the upcoming “Avengers: Secret Wars” … but it's probably better not to believe it.
