The Fantastic Four: First Steps should have been called The Flat Four: Standing Around. It is further proof that the Marvel film machine has become the equivalent of a vast bureaucracy that values the process more than the product.
Marvel Films isn’t making movies anymore. They are simply shuffling paperwork from one workstation to the next to justify their existence and hope the money coming in is enough to keep everyone above the law so they can continue to hunt homeless people for sport.
Let’s look at this film in greater detail with minor spoilers.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
It doesn’t matter who directed or wrote The Fantastic Four: First Steps. It could have been Orson Welles and Robert Towne, but we all know that at the end of the day it comes down to the whims of the machine. Throw in test screenings and reshoots, and viewers get what Marvel deems they are worthy to receive.
The plot of The Fantastic Four: First Steps is thus:
The Fantastic Four is busy being the idea of a family that was likely conceived by someone with two moms. Reed and Sue are expecting a baby, probably due to artificial insemination because it is a far stretch to believe they were ever physically intimate. Meanwhile, Silver Surfette shows up and says Galactus is coming to eat Earth. The Fantastic Four must figure out how to stop him without shooting a blue laser into the sky.
The Fantastic Four Themselves
Pedro Pascal is Reed Richards. Reed Richards is super smart and dots all the Ts and crosses all the Is. He is uptight about always being perfect for those around him.
You’d think that would include shaving the leprosy hair off his face, which would be totally within character, but that would require Pedro to be cleanshaven onscreen, which he vowed to never do again because he didn’t like how he looked in Wonder Woman 1984.
Stuff like this lets you know Pedro was totally dedicated to the role.
Vanessa Kirby is Sue Storm. She can turn invisible, which is so neat that she does it like twice: once to avoid talking to a man she doesn’t like, and I forgot the other time. She also can shoot a force field at things that looks like a 3D movie in the old red/blue format. Otherwise, she spouts moral guidance to all those who waver in their convictions.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach is The Gentle Yellow Giant. He is super gentle and likes to cook and be sensitive. Sometimes he flies a spaceship. He talks to a girl a couple times, and he is really gentle and yellow with her. He runs through some building pillars at the end of the movie. I didn’t like that part. It made him too scary.
Joseph Quinn is The Human Torch. One time he is in a spacesuit, and if he uses his flame powers it will use up all his oxygen. Then he will die. That sounds exciting. He does that. He doesn’t die. Mostly, he coughs a little bit. Otherwise, he flies after the Silver Surfette a few times, and he learns to talk to her because he has recordings of space transmissions.
Here’s the thing…they have zero chemistry together. An onscreen team should have chemistry. Their affection is aspartame. The sweetness is artificial. The banter is forced. The film is so busy presenting them as a family that it forgets to make them fun. Again, it seems like whoever put these people together has zero idea of honest family dynamics. One feels like they are watching a Mormon sitcom when The Fantastic Four is together.
The Fantastic Four Story
The beginning of the movie does a montage of The Fantastic Four fighting various villains from their history. Any one of the stories used in the montage would have been a better choice than what the movie went with.
Things start out okay. Stakes exists. Stabs at excitement are made. Then the film bogs down in moral handwringing. If you came to watch Sophie’s Choice, you’re in luck. If you came to watch a grand adventure, you’re probably better off with Jurassic Park: After Birth.
See, Galactus is established as being a timeless force, but it just so happens that Reed and Sue’s baby are exactly what he needs to stop being a timeless force. He then gives the Fantastic Four a choice. Give him the baby and he will spare earth.
Couldn’t he just take the baby, you might wonder? He literally has the Fantastic Four captured and at his mercy. He has a tractor beam so they can’t escape, and he is way stronger than them. It should be a simple matter for him to do whatever he wants to do under the circumstances.
Yeah, he doesn’t do any of that because the movie has to happen.
As for Silver Surfette, she is there to speak English to characters, except when she doesn’t speak English to characters for one phrase, so they can figure out her language and make her feel bad.
That’s about it, really…
You Don’t Look Marvelous
The Fantastic Four: First Steps looks cheap. The Gentle Yellow Giant looks especially flat when wearing a white shirt. It is boggling how things continue to go backwards visually. It looks like most of the film was created digitally, and it shows.
I was initially greatly excited about the 60s aesthetic. I thought it would give the film a unique look. Now I’m under the suspicion it was done to hide the seams.
I was stuck in a hotel all weekend, and I caught various snippets of older superhero films: Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Chronicle. It was jarring to see The Fantastic Four: First Steps within that context. Say what you will about Batman Returns, but that film looked incredible. To even put The Fantastic Four: First Steps next to it is laughable in comparison.
I also watched a snippet of Happy Gilmore, which also brought the film’s storytelling into focus. Say what you will about Happy Gilmore, but that story is tight. White trash hockey player inserted in uptight golf world. Must save grandma’s house. Snobby villain. It writes itself. The sweetness and chemistry happen organically out of the whole.
For example, take something as simple as Happy Gilmore signing a hot girl’s chest. Then an old lady comes over to have her chest signed, as well. Think about that moment. It turns something low-brow into something oddly wholesome. The Fantastic Four: First Steps has nothing even remotely close to that even though it tries to be Sophie’s Choice. It’s heart is 100-percent artificial.
On the plus side, the Galactus stuff is cool. I enjoyed those parts. The film could have used more of him, but Galactus onscreen probably equals money being spent, so he had to be limited.
I think I also caught a glimpse of the cast from Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four movie.
Those are the highlights.
The Fantastic Four: Final Step
The final step is to give The Fantastic Four: First Steps a rating. My mom is terminally nice. I inherited that gene. I want to say the problem is me, and the emperor does, in fact, have nice clothes, but I couldn’t wait to get out of the theater.
I’m sure there was an end credits scene, but I was heading for the door as soon as the credits came up, especially since the movie refused to end when it should have ended. It just couldn’t help itself to shove more “family” type stuff in my face.
One caveat exists to consider. I am not much for comic book films. I like Spider-Man and have a general interest in Batman. Otherwise, I am ambivalent to all other comic book characters (except Dolph Lundgren’s The Punisher; that movie is great). I have not even seen Age of Ultron yet. Actually, I don’t think I saw all of the first Avengers movie. Nothing snobby about this fact exists. Superhero movies simply don’t trip my radar much. So, maybe a bunch of Fantastic Four lore showed up in this movie that fans can appreciate. Maybe they can say, “Hey, The Gentle Yellow Giant is wearing that outfit!” and be glad. I’m just not that target audience.
One star for Galactus. One star for the cast of Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four.
