Fantastic Four: First Steps for Marvel’s first family

Fantastic Four: First Steps, Superman, Downton Abbey: the Grand Finale. One of these is not like the other two.

It took a few decades, but the Fantastic Four have finally found a landing to stick. I don’t fault the Tim Story versions for not being quite what they could have been, but while they both had elements of fun, they were programmatic and often, sluggish affairs. Fortunately, Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans were on hand to relieve the tedium. 

Going back further, the Roger Corman version is actually kind of okay for what it is. It was done on the cheap so that Bernd Eichinger could hold onto the film rights. His company eventually produced the Story movies, both of which did okay at the box office. Then came the Josh Trank fiasco in 2015, also released by 20th Century Fox. It did not do so well. It was a troubled production (and you can Google for the details) and four years later, The Walt Disney Company got the rights to the FF once it acquired 20th Century Fox.

All of the Corman cast made cameos in the current flick, so there’s a nice hint at a precursor (and of course, we also saw Evans reprise his role as Johnny Storm in Deadpool and Wolverine, or a variant thereof). Now that we have this background out of the way, what do we make of the film at hand?

It’s a hoot. Much in the same way that James Gunn’s Superman understands the assignment, Matt Shakman, whose steady hand guided WandaVision, keeps things popping here. With a story and script by Josh Friedman (whose resume includes the Avatar sequels, Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Spielberg’s War of the Worlds), Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok, Black Widow, Godzilla vs. Kong, and most recently, Thunderbolts*), and Ian Springer and Jeff Kaplan who wrote. The Last of the Great Romantics, FF: FS offers one of the best adaptations of source material since…well, James Gunn’s Superman. 

As with Supes, FF succeeds because the filmmakers lean into the comic bookishness of it all. The stakes are high as Earth (not ours, Earth-828, circa 1964) is targeted by the devourer of worlds, Galactus (this time, getting a fully realized presentation as a big, bad planet-eater and not a cloud as in the Rise of the Silver Surfer). Naturally, all’s well that ends well, except for a post-credits scene that lends a foreboding element and ties into next year’s Avengers: Doomsday. 

But plot aside, FF: FS is all about family. Reed and Sue Richards (neé Storm) are expecting their first child. Ben Grimm, aka The Thing and Sue’s brother Johnny, the Human Torch, round out the team and what works is how grounded this cast feels. The chemistry read between the principals must have been strong from the get-go as Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby feel like they’ve been married and Joseph Quinn as Johnny and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben have a very tangible sense of connection to each other and the material. They’re all pros and it might be expected that their performances would be strong, but without a decent script, it doesn’t really matter. The script is much better than “decent.”

Looking at the pedigree of the screenwriters, it would be difficult to see how they’d whiff this. Both Friedman and Pearson know their way around big movies and set-pieces and both know how, more importantly, to write believable characters. Again, my suggestion that these films work best when the absurdity is leaned into renders plot holes and comic book inconsistencies easier to bear, if not forgive. In the current case, there’s the additional advantage that the film is (until the end credits) independent of the MCU as we know it. Additionally, like Superman, the FF offers aspiration and hope, and in general, a sense that everything is going to work out. I found it a little inspiring that Sue is the CEO of the Future Foundation which has led the world to demilitarize and the world seems to be at peace. Even in our Earth in 1964, that was a distant hope. 

In some ways, FF: FS made me think of Tarantino’s revisionist/revisioning of World War II in Inglorius Basterds or the slave-owing South in Django Unchained. There’s a sense that in an alternative timeline/universe, maybe things do actually work out and in the MCU, at least, humanity has an easier time fulfilling its potential. 

The FF is looked upon as Earth’s protectors and after encountering Galactus’s herald, the Shalla Bal, aka the Silver Surfer (an appropriately icy Julia Garner; gee, she’s good), they are very much called on to fulfill that role. In the 1964 of Earth-828, Reed and company have developed technology for interstellar travel, enabling them to intercept and attempt to bargain with Galactus directly. It doesn’t go well, but they’re able to ditch the Surfer utilizing the gravity from a neutron star and slingshot back to Earth, while Sue gives birth to baby Franklin. Hoo-boy. That might sound either fraught or ridiculous, but the film pulls it off. I felt like I was reading an issue of the comic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Back on Earth, Reed - unable to fib - tells the people of Earth that Galactus is on his way and that they refuse to surrender their newborn to save the Earth, since Franklin’s energy signature showed evidence that he would be powerful enough for Galactus to transfer his gnawing hunger for planets over to the child. Writing that out feels so freighted with either profundity in terms of messianic allusions or comic book silliness of a high order, or really, both.

The Earthians aren’t pleased with Reed’s announcement, but he has a solution. In a remarkable display of humanity coming together, a network of portals are erected around the world to remove the planet to another solar system (don’t, just go along with it), where the Earth could be hidden from Galactus forever…or maybe just for a very long time. Shalla-Bal puts the kibosh on that destroying the tech (except for one, in Times Square). Reed pivots to the idea of using the remains portal as a trap to jettison Galactus billions of light years away into deep space, by luring him to the site using baby Franklin as bait. 

Prior to the Big Guy doing all this, Johnny lures Shalla-Bal to Times Square where he plays recordings of transmissions of planets that she led Galactus to. He fills in the blanks that she became his herald to spare her own world, but while she expresses remorse, she refuses to help Earth and leaves. The upshot is that Galactus doesn’t fall for the trap, and picks up Franklin. After pretty much tossing off Reed (whose stretching ability is well, stretched to the limit here) and Ben, whose physical strength is no match but can’t blame a guy for trying, it falls to Sue to use her force field to knock Galactus into the portal (bridge, Reed called them bridges). Reed gets Franklin out of Galactus’s hands and to safet, but after Sue collapses, Johnny decides to sacrifice himself and push Galactus into the portal (or bridge, if you will). Shall-Bal shows up, knocks him out of the way and finishes the job and both Galactus and his herald are transported to who knows where.

SPOILER to an already spoiler recap: Sue dies. But Franklin resurrects her (see? What did I say about messianic themes here?). I should also mention that Manhattan was evacuated to the underground world of Subterranea, the land of the Mole Man, or rather, Harvey Elder, the leader thereof. We fast forward four years and Sue is reading a book to Franklin, gets up to select a new one and when she returns, there’s a figure clad in a green cloak holding a metallic mask, apparently talking quietly to Franklin.

Rereading this, I am again grinning like the idiot I am, because this is very much like a Lee and Kirby piece. Like Thor: Ragnarok, it looks like a comic book, very much rooted in mid-1960s design and withal, all the better for it. If production design on these things errs, it’s very often in attempting to root sets in something like our quotidian reality. Or sometimes, the designs just aren’t inspired. That’s not the case.

A note on Galactus: I’ve waited decades to see ol’ planet-eater on the big screen and wasn’t disappointed visually, but from a perspective of just how badass and dangerous the character is, I have to admit I felt shortchanged. Galactus is a god and would have no problem snuffing Thanos out (which I think he has…a couple of times), but we don’t really get a sense of that here. As with Superman, I almost feel as though Fantastic Four: First Steps is a proof of concept. And here we need to look at that state of the MCU and cast some tea leaves.

At this point, I really am not too sure how invested I am in these franchises. As I wrote earlier in my review of Gunn’s opus, the DCU is off to a fresh start, but Marvel? 

While Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four: First Steps are resets and capture a lot of what made these movies so worthwhile, the incessant and unrelenting world-building wears on one after awhile. I say this as a fan who started out with Marvel at eight years old, only about four years after the Fantastic Four first appeared in print. For the most part, I have enjoyed the choices various show runners have made with the different characters and story arcs and I remain impressed that Kevin Feige has kept the circus going for so long with more hits than misses, but the misses are significant.

Both Superman and Fantastic Four underperformed and this might be more of an issue for Marvel than DC and their respective studios and shareholders. Since both Avengers movies have been greenlit and Avengers: Doomsday is already in post, and the fourth Tom Holland Spider-man is under way, we can assume the accountants are banking on solid returns next year and in 2027. I have some doubts, though.

The international market has dropped off for these things and recently, with China’s Ne Zha 2 taking in almost $2 billion, the competition among foreign markets may be stiffer than before. I also can’t help but feel that the tariffs imposed on so many countries on other goods may prove to foment a kind of soft (or maybe strong) boycott of US entertainment, in which case, both Marvel and DC may receive even more disappointing returns. Regarding the Avengers films specifically, I don’t have a lot of hope.

The Russos’ record has been spotty, at best, since Avengers:  Endgame and while Michael Waldron and Stephen McFeely’s bonafides are solid, they better have an earth-shattering script. Additionally, the Marvel multiverse has grown to enormous proportions and characters have come and gone with whispers or bangs and the small screen series have laid groundwork that either fizzled (sadly, as in the case of Ms. Marvel/The Marvels or poorly, if the fourth Captain America movie is seen as a follow-up to The Falcon and Winter Soldier or very well, in the case of Thunderbolts* as a sequel to that show) or just plain been forgotten (She-Hulk,anyone?) The point is that it all feels unwieldy and one can’t help but wonder if the sequel to Doomsday is going to be a reset for the multiverse as some pundits have said. 

The other aspect of all this is that we are taking about billions of dollars of revenue and IPs that are of significant cultural cachet. The only direct corollary is Star Wars and Harry Potter. Sure, some would say James Bond or Mission Impossible, but neither of those vaunted series have rides at Disney or Universal. I also have to circle around back to just what domestic spending is going to look like next year, never mind the following year. Inflation continues apace and there is enough social unease that it might be very likely that consumer confidence will continue to falter and as people tighten their belts, there may be less spending on nights out at the movies. Streaming will survive, sure, but I can’t see people surging to the theaters, particularly after the box office returns on both Superman and FF: FS. 

But then, who knows? As a moviegoer, all I want is a well-told tale. Hopefully, a movie that entertains or maybe even edifies. I have been around long enough to gauge what to expect from a director or a writer or an ensemble and I’m still surprised by new voices and approaches.

To be sure, I don’t have high expectations for a lot of movies, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t for Gunn and Shakman’s efforts. Neither disappointed. While I feel the returns might not met targets, maybe that’s just the way the market crumbles, so to speak.

In any case, this is the last you will hear from me on either of these franchises, until sometime next year. 

Stray thoughts

Paul Walter Hauser shows up in everything, it feels like! His turn as Harvey Elder/Mole Man was brief but fun, and I wish Galactus had more to do so we could see more of Ralph Ineson’s take on the character. 

Natasha Lyonne!!! As Rachel Rozman, Ben’s love interest!? This could be as good as Rachel Brosnahan as. Lois Lane. But I guess we have to wait and see what comes down the pike.

I wonder if this is one of those cases where a streaming would make more sense. These are much-beloved characters and absent a multi-year build-up toward the next phase, it appears to be a wham-bam, thank you Stan into whatever else is coming. 

On that last note, it does appear that Marvel/Disney is scaling on development. As with the streaming Star Wars series, it seems as though there’s some reluctance to continue to throw money at projects that might not hit as well as desired. As a fan, all. I can say is that it’s a shame; but as a grown-up who is jaded enough to recognize when money talks, well, screw late-stage capitalism.