A Marvel character you may have forgotten was played by Chet Hanks

There are many things wrong Josh Trank's 2015 superhero movie Fantastic Four. Mostly, the film can't find its way to a solid tone and veers from fun and funny to dark or scary, often without a clear rhyme or reason to do so. Reed Richards (Miles Teller) finds a way to travel to alternate dimensions, but the film is also oddly sarcastic and depressing, complemented by a four-part cast (which, along with Teller, includes Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell). The film even spends some time acting like a Cronenberg horror film, as the Fantastic Four discover that their superpowers have changed their bodies.

This is followed by a brief phase of superhero deconstruction as the four realize that their powers are being used as military instruments of death and destruction. The movie then turns cartoonish and silly pretty quickly as Doctor Doom (Toby Kebbell) plots some sort of dimension-hopping world conquest. It seems that 20th Century Fox did a lot of talking to Trank, and “Fantastic Four” eventually pulled the plug on the studio. While I have no problem with the Fantastic Four being reimagined as youthful prodigies or Doctor Doom no longer being the dictator of Latvia, I have a lot of problems with the Fantastic Four being so poorly made.

Critics agree. The film only had a 9% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 259 reviews). It wasn't a huge box office hit either, earning $167.9 million on a $120 million budget.

Or did you recognize Chet Hanks in the mix? Probably not. Chet Hanks, his most troubled son Hollywood superstar and classic sci-fi fan Tom Hanksmakes a cameo in Trank's film as Jimmy Grimm, the older brother of Bell's character. Jimmy is an evil bully in this version of the Fantastic Four story.

Chet Hanks, before we go any further, is somewhat infamous for some of his criminal activities. In 2015, he threw out a hotel in England under the influence of cocaine and ended up in a rehabilitation center. He then went through a very public and potentially criminal divorce in 2021 when his ex-girlfriend Kiana Parker sued him for repeated incidents of domestic violence. He also sued Parker for theft, assault and battery. That same year, Chet Hanks also spoke out against the COVID vaccination, earning him scorn.

Younger Hank has worked as an actor and even starred in the movie “Greyhound” with his father Tom, but many might know him better for his rap career. He was the one behind “White Boy Summer” and “DAMN!” in 2021.

In Fantastic Four, Hanks could be caught in the early scenes of the film. Aspiring superhero The Thing, Ben Grimm, is only 12 years old (played by Evan Hanneman) and lives in a junkyard with his abusive, poor family. His older brother Jimmy is seen playing baseball with his friends when young Ben returns home from school. Jimmy asks Ben to do some homework and Ben refuses. Jimmy, enraged, chases him inside and angrily punches his younger brother a few times. Fortunately, the boys' mother quickly appears and stops the violence. It's not a big scene for Hanks, but he effectively communicates that young Ben's life is miserable. One can understand why Ben wants to hang out with ambitious engineer Reed Richards instead.

Of course, since relatability is one of the main selling points of Marvel movies today, it's now safe to assume that Chet Hanks is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or at least has the potential to be. Perhaps his version of Jimmy Grimm will be one of the many, many characters to appear in it upcoming “Avengers: Secret Wars” … but probably better not to rely on it.