Best Foot 4Ward

The Fantastic Four : First Steps marks the third cinematic imagining of the first family of superheroes (not counting the unreleased Roger Corman movie of the 90's) and their introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Well, sort of.

It's sort of because the story takes place in a separate dimension from the rest of the films. This is Earth-828, where the Fantastic Four are seemingly the only super heroes. More than heroes, in fact, they are the de facto most important people on the planet and via science and diplomacy they have ushered in an era of worldwide peace and unity. The world itself is a fantastically realised retro-futuristic version of the 1960's, something like Fallout crossed with the Jetsons or, closer to home, a live action Incredibles. The Four consists of; Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), brilliant scientist with stretchy powers, his wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), who can go invisible and create force fields with her mind, her brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn), who can fly, turn into flames and seemingly control fire, and Ben "The Thing" Grimm ( Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who is made out of super tough organic rock and is very strong. The movie opens with the team already having defeated and/or made piece with most of their comic book rogues gallery (except the really famous one who's name is in the title of an upcoming Avengers movie) and they are soon looking forward to becoming a quintet when Sue announces she is pregnant. Jubilation is short lived however, as a different arrival puts the world on notice. The Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) carves into town to let everyone know her boss, Ralph Innesin's Galactus, plans on having the planet for Sunday dinner, plunging team FF into a race against to time to protect both their planet and their child.

Setting things away from the main MCU story was defiantly the right move, no need to have watched umpteen hours of previous superhero shenanigans to be up to speed here, the opening few minutes tells you everything you need to know and the super stylish world is the star of the show, even if we don't get to see as much of it as we would maybe like. There is also an all round visual polish that is often missing from Marvel movies of late. In terms of story, things are kept simple and the action is used sparingly, with two big (literally) set pieces. The focus is on the family bonds and even the world ending stakes are folded into a more personal family dilemma involving their new baby. This absolutely works in terms of getting the characters across even if it means some liberties need to be taken with how excepting the general population are with their heroes choices. A fair bit of the humour misses the mark, a running joke about The Thing's famous catchphrase just isn't funny, but enough lands to keep the tone lighthearted.

The characters all work well and give a different flavour from the frat bro adults that have become the staple of Marvel's cinematic offerings. Pascal brings his usual understated charm to Richards but also plays him as a man who is burdened by his massive intellect, if he is smart enough to see everything then anything that goes wrong is by his logic, his fault. Johnny and Ben are the ones there to provide the patter but there is a sincerity to them both. There is a side plot around Johnny earning respect for his intelligence that probably had more to it in a longer draft of the script. Vanessa Kirby has the most challenging role as Sue. We are told about her diplomatic skills and when it comes to super power, she is shown to be the strongest, but in terms plot character she mostly boils down to supportive wife and mamma bear. It works in terms of this particular story but hopefully she is given more in future outings. The villains aren't the. most complex but they both look cool and a great job is done of making Galactus feel scary and imposing while still sticking to Jack Kirby's iconic original design.

Unique visuals aside, First Steps is a vey safe and solid film. Some may have been looking for a bit more adventure but using the biggest addition to their film franchise in quite some time as a well package entry point for new or lapsed viewers is a shrewd move on Marvels part. Sometimes just making a good movie anyone can enjoy is the right call. Who'd have thought.

7 cosmic babies out of 10

Comments

2025 Halfway Ranking

2025 is halfway done so its time to get ranking. Only films I've seen for the first time in the cinema are eligible and we are talking UK releases from 1st January to 30th of June. If your favourite film of the year isn't here, I didn't see it on the big screen. If it is here but low, feel free to tell me how wrong I am. 39. Hurry Up Tomorrow When a musician decides to write and star in their own movie the results are often pompus nonsense, so the problem with this effort from Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye isn't that its ridiculously self-aggrandizing (although it very much is), its that its unrelentingly dull, hideous to look at and worse to listen to. The star should have just made a concert movie. 38. A Working Man Jason Statham is the perfect Hollywood action man, able to look cool shooting guns, punching peoples lights out or driving fast cars. Sadly, the meandering script and piss poor production values on display here give him no chance to shine and leav...

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

When James Gunn was placed in charge of rebooting the ailing DC cinematic universe the move came with a declaration, from now on the focus would be on creating great individual movies with loose connections, rather than to obsessively cram everything into a convoluted cinematic continuity. With that in mind, here is the first of their new films, DCU : Phase 1 : Gods and Monsters : Superman . Glibness aside, it is just called Superman, and while there is certainly some filling out of the world going on, it does all seem to be in service of telling the story. A brief bit of text fills us in on Gunn's world, letting us know super powered people are fairly common place and Superman is the strongest of them all, before we are introduced to a bloodied Supes, his dog Krypto and his robot staffed Fortress of Solitude. The plot has plenty going on, with a potential war, revelations about Superman's parents, citizen's mistrust of the Man of Steel and interactions with "The Jus...

Summer of Discontent

Unlike say, Final Destination, I Know What You Did Last Summer is not an idea ripe for remakes and sequels. Once you've told the story of a group of people leaving someone for dead, only to be hunted down a year later in grizzly revenge, there isn't really anywhere else to go while sticking close enough to the formulae to warrant being a successor. Its not a major surprise then that this sequel to the 1997 movie of the same name does little more than tread most of the same water as its precursor while trying to reference and acknowledge the original at every opportunity. This time round, the central cast are a little older than the high school graduates of 97 but still act like teenagers. Some of the clunkiest exposition dialogue of recent memory attempts to fill out their back stories but you're left with a group of characters you can't wait to watch die. This would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that, for most of the runtime, the inept hook wielding killer ...

The Brothers Grim

The Iron Claw is a heavy film. Zac Efron's body is heavy with muscle. His character, Kevin Von Elrich, is heavy with the weight of family expectations. Come the end of the film his heart is heavy with loss. A jolly couple of hours in the cinema this is not but it is very watchable and notable as an eye catching debut from writer/director Sean Durkin and for some top notch performances. The film is based on the true story of the Von Elrich brothers. In addition to Kevin there's Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), David (Harris Dickinson) and Mike (Stanley Simmons). Their father Fritz took wrestling so seriously that he changed his family name to that of his character but was never able to capture the most coveted titles and demands that his sons either finish what he started or achieve sporting excellence in some other way. He holds no truck with the old adage that you shouldn't play favourites with your kids, happily telling them what order he ranks them in, with potential Olym...

Dance of Death

John Wick spin off, Ballerina , swaps out Keanu Reaves (mostly) for Ana de Armas but almost everything else remains pretty similar. We still have the intricately choreographed fighting in a dark gloss colour palette, minimal plot propped up by ridiculous lore and the same waffling dialogue. Series die hards rejoice, but for someone who zoned out somewhere during Chapter 3 and was distinctly unimpressed with John Wick 4, these films are becoming something of a chore. Eve Macarro (de Armas) is orphaned at a young age when assassins break into her home in an attempt to abduct her and her father (also an assassin) dies fighting them off. She is then raised by the "Ruska Roma" (more assassins, roughly 40% of the worlds population are assassins in the world of John Wick), who train her in the arts of both ballet and murder. After somebody from the faction that killed her dad attempts to off her, she embarks on a revenge quest, despite being explicitly forbidden from doing so by R...

2022 So Far

Halfway through the year and it's time to have look back and rank the movies of the year so far. To keep the list manageable I'm only including films I've seen in the cinema. If it ain't here I didn't see it on the big screen. 19. 355 Too stupid to be a serious spy thriller, too boring to be a fun romp. Also, for a film that is supposed to be about agents from different countries coming together, an abundance of lazy stereotypes give it a low key racist vibe. If you are looking for a fun female ensemble action movie check out 2019's Charlies Angels reboot instead. 18. The Matrix Reserection Empty follow up starts out like it might have something interesting to say but soon settles into the cynical, corporate mandated sequel it mocks in its first act. You'll be begging for it to end long before the drawn out finale reaches its conclusion. 17. Jurassic World Dominion A plodding script and phoned in performances from the returning cast make this a limp end...

Romancing The Shark

Dangerous Animals features a psychotic Jai Courtney feeding unsuspecting tourists to sharks and videoing the carnage for his (and possibly other peoples) pleasure. It's an unhinged performance and the film has some of the same sweaty ickiness that permeates classic Australian horror movies. Unfortunately, proceedings are hindered by some cringeworthy dialogue and focus on a hard to buy romance. The film opens with an unsuspecting couple of travellers hiring Courtney's shark diving boat, despite the fact he instantly identifies himself as shady (he literally checks with them that nobody knows where they are), and sure enough, one of them is soon dead and the other a prisoner. We then cut to a meet cute of sorts between hard shelled American drifter Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) and local real estate agent Moses (Josh Heuston). They are stereotypical opposites, her cynical and untethered, him a romantic and stable, but bond over a love of surfing and end up having a one night sta...

Nightmare Allley is Quality Street

A hard film to talk about given the trailer gives so little away. It's essentially a tale of grifters and how far you can take a con wrapped in Del Toro trappings that make it feel like a horror. The story itself isn't anything particularly new and could be forgetable in lesser hands. Fortunately there is no danger of that happening here, with the talent behind the camera you know its going to look great and the quality and confidence of the script means everything unfolds at just the right pace. When you have actors the calibre of Toni Colette and Willem Defoe filling relatively small roles you know your cast is of the highest calibre. Bradley Cooper is probably too old to play the ambitious young upstart but he's so committed and charismatic that it doesn't matter and Cate Blanchett is perfect as his final accomplice come nemesis, glamorous/alluring and cold/menacing in equal measure. Doesn't reinvent the wheel but when the wheel turns this smoothly why would you...

Can't Surf On Our Turf

The Surfer is a 70's style, psychedelic, psychological thriller set entirely on a beach and adjoining car park. Nicholas Cage is the eponymous character who may or may not be losing (or already have lost) his mind. It is simultaneously playfully fun and ickily unpleasant. Cage (his character is not named) takes his teenage son surfing, his plan being to show off the fancy clifftop pad he is in the process of buying, which also happens to be the house he grew up in. He doesn't get the chance however, as a group of alpha male surf bros have taken over the beach and declared it for local use only. His son returns to school, but Cage stays in the car park, determined to finalise his house deal and find out what is going on with Julian McMahon and his cult like band of beach thugs. Suffering a series of mishaps, he ends up stranded in the car park, and the baking heat, for days and begins to resemble the local hobo more than the successful businessman he began as. Two thin...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog