Not Quite Their "First" Time 🔥
Dear Moviegoers,
Come one, come all—girls and boys, children of all ages. Marvel Studios has released their latest feature film product(ion) with the fairly anticipated return adaptation of the superhero team, the Fantastic Four. After three previous iterations, one of which was never officially released, we finally have before our eyes and ears the cleanest and likely "best" version of the comic book characters, or so other reviewers suggest.
Slick, sleek, and with a retro space-age look, The Fantastic Four: First Steps goes a long way in using setting and appearance as proper footing for a heroic adventure fantasy. It looks different, feels different, and is different from previous bland-ish efforts from the near-powerhouse movie outfit and franchise. Superhero fatigue? Loss of luster? I say that there's plenty of creative material to plunder, and First Steps is a wonderful example of how to stand out from the crowded bloat.
It's action figure cinema at its most entertaining, rubber and plastic at one-hundred percent capacity. Playtime for the kids, nostalgia for the man children, and a fine afternoon out for the adults. Seriously, the movie captures what's right and true about its genre.
The recent Superman film, from rival DC Studios, rewound these kinds of movies to an optimistic righteousness that early ones had. Does First Steps follow along? Yes. Surely, there's a fun, weekend morning cartoon atmosphere to the body of its story, from attitudes to villain.
Attempts by Mr. Fantastic (played by a stoic but exhausted Pedro Pascal) and the team to reason and negotiate with the world-eating Galactus fail to work as an initial act of diplomacy, leaving the crew to their next strategy of further non-violence. This is refreshing to witness, especially since the movie features The Thing, a member of the team who is made of rocks and stone, whose popular catchphrase, "It's clobbering time!" is embedded in our real-world collective memory (it's frequently used in the entrance of WWE wrestler CM Punk).
Going along with the theme of fighting as a last resort, The Thing is always reluctant to use his iconic exclamation. Only as a final option for a given situation. Such restraint is a "thing" of screenwriting and performance bliss.
All positivity aside, First Steps feels like a very good idea that's packaged in a sleight of hand, tricking audiences into thinking it's momentous when, actually, it's a stepping stone. A "first step," so to speak.
And that's ok, to once more use a phrase that I've written into the ground. However, overblown expectations of this movie as being "the best superhero film ever" or a return to form for Marvel Studios soured my thoughts. It's a lovely film, but it's not grand.
The editing and scene transitions look rushed at times, cutting around unfortunate revisions to subplots and characters, like The Mole Man, played by a briefly used but standout Paul Walter Hauser. I'd be willing to bet there was more of him in an earlier cut, but for whatever reason, his turn was mostly removed (committee thinking?). Detrimental and sad.
Entertaining as a popcorn-munching exercise, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a proper cinematic turn for these once-cursed figures, and yet I contend that Roger Corman's production, the unreleased one, has a heart of gold that is missing from the remaining efforts. Still, don't be put off by that. Go see it and go enjoy it.
The carnival barker in me approves. 3/5
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now playing in theaters.