Share

cover art for Episode 51: Fantastic Four (2005)

Cinematic Universe

Episode 51: Fantastic Four (2005)

Much derided ever since its original release, does Tim Story's 2005 adaptation of Fantastic Four stand up any better since the Josh Trank one came out? Was it ever even really that bad in the first place? Find out as Joe, Seb and James look back at Chris Evans' first superhero movie. There's also some slightly out of date news (we recorded this one weeks ago, but we thought you might still want to hear what we thought of those Spidey and Justice League trailers), and after fifty episodes with the original logo, we've rebranded a bit! Hope you like the new look.

Timecodes: 00:00 - Intro/Explain a Concept 12:35 - News 38:44 - Movie Discussion 99:30 - Comics Recommendations 106:30 - The Pitch

More episodes

View all episodes

  • Episode #180: My Dinner With Andre (1981)

    02:00:00|
    James, Joe and Rhys take a look at Louis Malle's 1981 movie MY DINNER WITH ANDRE - as well as thoughts on the likes of The Secret Agent, the new Game of Thrones show, Iron Lung and Small Prophets.
  • Episode #179: The Cuppies 2025

    02:23:33|
    Joe, James and Rhys return for our annual look back over everything we covered (and watched more broadly) in 2025. Which of us somehow chose three horror movies as their top three of the year despite not being a horror fan? Will William Shakespeare make it into the Hall of Fame? And is anything this year actually enjoyably bad enough to award this year's Howard T. Duck? All that and more, plus (at the very end) our pick for next month's episode. See if you can guess what it's going to be!
  • Episode #178: Hamlet (1990)

    02:11:09|
    Joe, James and Rhys take a look at Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 movie, HAMLET, based on the Shakespeare play of the same name and starring, er, Mel Gibson. ALSO: Pluribus, Murderbot, Radiohead (!?) and more!You can get this episode ad-free by signing up at http://patreon.com/cinematicuniverseNOTE: We recorded this before the shocking death of Rob Reiner. Suffice to say we're all horrified, and expect to talk about his work and our collective love of it on a future episode.
  • Episode #177: Near Dark (1987)

    02:00:46|
    Rhys, James and Joe return to look at the latest movie news and catch up with Kathryn Bigelow's vampire western, Near Dark - is it the best vampire movie from 1987?We'll be back in a couple of weeks with our next movie (revealed in this episode, and let me tell you: it is an ODD shout even by Joe's standards) before we're back for our regular roundup of the year!
  • Episode #176: Battle Royale (2000)

    02:03:44|
    James, Rhys and Joe return to look at the genre-defining murder-game satire, BATTLE ROYALE.
  • Episode #175: Night of the Living Dead (1968) & 28 Years Later (2025)

    02:15:49|
    Joe, James & Rhys take a deep(ish) dive on both extreme ends of the zombie franchise - George A Romero's originator of the genre, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and Danny Boyle's post-Brexit zombie sequel, 28 YEARS LATER. All this, plus: Ironheart, The Phoenician Scheme, The Rehearsal, and more!Our next movie on the Patreon ( http://patreon.com/cinematicuniverse ) will be - of course - James Gunn's SUPERMAN, which we are expecting to record tomorrow, so you should hear it in just a few days. We'll also be doing FANTASTIC FOUR after that, and our next main episode is going to be BATTLE ROYALE. So plenty to look forward to!If you've seen Night of the Living Dead or 28 Years Later, let us know what you thought in the comments!
  • Episode #174: Sinners (2025)

    01:56:54|
    Rhys, James and Joe take a look at Ryan Coogler's 2025 movie, SINNERS. As soon as we can agree who's hosing the episode. This is an all-Sinners episode because it was recorded soon after our Ghost Dog chat AND there's a lot in this movie to think about. That said, to be completely honest if you don't like talk about spitting I would probably skip this one.You can hear this and many other episodes ad-free on our Patreon!
  • Episode #173: Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999)

    01:35:35|
    Rhys, James and Joe take a look at Jim Jarmusch's 1999 fusion of crime & samurai genres, Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai.
  • Episode #172: Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country (1991)

    02:19:42|
    James, Rhys & Joe return with one of James's favourite movies, Star Trek VI. But what did the others make of it?We also cover Daredevil: Born Again (a little - recording a catch-up of eps 3-6 at the weekend), Severance S2, Dogman, Common Side Effects, Mickey 17 AND the latest Bond news. Enjoy!Catch on Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/cinematicuniverse