After being shrouded with a slew of negative buzz for the past few years, Fox’s second reboot of the Fantastic Four, one of Marvel’s longest-running series, is finally hitting theaters. Though some of the trailers were somewhat promising, it’s difficult to ignore the reports which described reshoots and other complications on set. With all that said, the production problems of Fantastic Four are supremely evident, making this a disappointingly sloppy mess of a comic book movie.

Released into theaters Aug. 7, this contemporary re-imagining of the famous superhero team stars Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell as the titular group and is directed by Josh Trank, who previously made the surprisingly fresh found-footage movie, Chronicle. The story centers on the creation of the Quantum Gate, a device that has enabled inter-dimensional travel. After an expedition to another dimension goes awry, the four, along with fellow scientist Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), gain strange abilities and must learn to cope with them. But when Doom decides to use his powers to eliminate the earth, the four must harness their powers and stop him from doing so.

This is an extremely talented young cast who all deliver great performances and have a terrific dynamic with one another. Everything also looks top-notch, with the exception of a couple weak special effects in regards to Reed Richards’ elasticity. Also, some of the characterization, especially in the first half when Reed and Ben are kids, is pretty interesting. Unfortunately, that’s about everything positive Fantastic Four has going for it.

A truly incredible superhero movie is only as good as its villain, and this incarnation of Dr. Doom, arguably the best villain in the Marvel universe, is excruciatingly terrible. He never has a particularly menacing presence and his costume design is laughable. Also, he never once poses any kind of threat to the heroes and is defeated in perhaps what is one of the worst finales in a superhero movie.

Not only is the big final battle completely suspense-free, it ends in flash and is mind-bogglingly anticlimactic. There is absolutely no sense tension or struggle as these heroes fight to save the earth, and the conflict itself is totally unexplained. Though it’s apparent as to what Doom’s intentions are, the way in which he manages to carry out his plan makes little to no sense, as does the way in which he is stopped. There’s no real action or logic to what’s happening, which makes the eventual payoff ultimately unsatisfying.

There are elements here that could have and should have made an awesome comic book movie, but they never quite come together and end up being sadly uneven. Once the characters actually become the Fantastic Four, that’s where the film starts to fall apart, and when the problem of a superhero movie is the fact that the superhero aspect is weak, then there’s a big problem here.