Going in, I was pretty sure this F4 origin story reboot couldn’t be worse than that 2005 turkey. Well, wrong again, Morty. For a movie based on an action comic, there’s precious little action and virtually no fun going on.

The promising young cast (Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell) is swallowed up in a dark and dully downbeat story that never really goes anywhere. This cynical, even panicky (on the part of Fox) attempt to restart a franchise is such a clear setup for an increasingly unlikely sequel that it resembles more than anything else the world’s longest pre-credits sequence. (100 min)