Fantastic Four: First Steps
Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn
Writers: Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan
Director: Matt Shakman
Four astronauts go up in space, are hit with some sort of gamma rays and are giving yada yada. You’ve heard this before. The Fantastic Four has always been the O.G. of the superhero genre that it’s a bit surprising it’s taken Marvel that long to make a movie about them. It’s understanding why they started with Iron Man and Thor as their sort of test movies first instead of their well known properties. They really should have rebooted Howard the Duck first, but that’s a discussion for another article.
The Fantastic Four’s members include Reed Richards(Pedro Pascal) A man who can stretch all part of his body great lengths. Sue Storm(Vanessa Kirby), a girl who can become invisible and move large objects with her mind, Johnny Storm, Sue’s brother who can become a fireball that flys and Ben Grimm(Ebon Moss-Bachrach) a guy who is turned into a big rock creature. The movie wisely skips the origin story which is great but in doing so. You miss out in seeing the problems and frustrations having these powers can do. In this movie, it looks like all four of our heroes are just fine with it and have no problems at all. There is one scene when Ben aka The Thing is talking with a cute school teacher(played by the beautiful Natasha Lyonne) where you can see he’s not happy with the way he looks to people. But the movie never explores that further.
Taking place in a futuristic 60's ala The Jetsons. Our main story is about Reed Richards and Sue Storm’s new child named Franklin. A baby so great that a powerful intergaltic being called Galactus(Ralph Inesson) threatens to destroy earth if he doesn’t get to have the infant himself. When the citizens of earth hear this they are all mad at Sue and Reed for not sacrificing their son. Like, not one person in the world could understand why a mother would give up her child. After an inspirational speech is giving, everyone is back on team Fantastic Four to devise a plan to defeat Galactus.
One thing this movie does differently is that it changes the gender of The Silver Surfer. There actually is a female character called Shalla - Bal(Juila Garner) in the comics with the same powers. However,her origin story in this feature is taken directly from her male counterpart. I’m not against any sort of gender swap but they could have done something different and unique with that character. When Johnny Storm becomes attracted to the hearld of Galactus. They could have kept the gender as male and just have Johnny be gay. Better yet, it would have been really progressive of Marvel if they made that character Trans and cast a trans actor portray them.
For a movie that takes its main plot from Ghostbusters II. Fantastic Four: First Steps is a fun enough movie for your summer viewing. The cast is all good together and the action is fun. I wish I had more time with them as a team before the baby is introduced. I’m not against the use of kids in stories, but to have it begin with that felt off to me. It’s like the writers couldn’t think of anything so they just added this other character to it. Before I get any comments, yes I’m aware that the child is in the comics but just because something works in one media doesn’t mean it should be in another. As much as I had some issues with the latest Superman from James Gunn. Im looking more foreward to what the DCU is doing than I am the MCU.
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