We finally have a, well, fantastic ‘Fantastic Four’ movie
‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ is perfectly cast. PLUS: Late-night TV rallies after Colbert cancellation, trailers for ‘Predator: Badlands’ and ‘One Battle After Another,’ and ‘Ted Lasso’ rises from the dead.
Wow, how is this already the final Friday edition of Popculturology for July? And how is Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps already in theaters? It feels like we’ve been talking about this film — rights issues, casting rumors, the repeated release changes — and now it’s here for us all to watch.
I never owned the original Game Boy (I really need to track down my sweet translucent purple Game Boy Advance somewhere in my parents’ house), but thanks to Lego I can pick up the brick-built equivalent. It’s just not the same without Tetris being bundled with the Game Boy, though.
Anyways, here’s hoping you all have a better weekend than the Chuck E. Cheese mascot who got perp walked out of one of the chain’s locations ...
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Marvel’s first family is home
Two decades after the Fantastic Four first jumped onto the big screen, we finally got a movie featuring Marvel’s first family that’s worthy of their place in superhero history.
It’s been a long time coming.
It took 2005’s Fantastic Four and its sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 2015’s rebooted Fantastic Four and the purchase of 20th Century Fox by Disney to finally make it happen.
Director Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps is not only the best MCU movie we’ve gotten in awhile, but it’s also the first one since Black Panther to really feel like its own standalone feature. (And with Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman had already been introduced as T’Challa in Captain America: Civil War.) Marvel Studios loves to boast that some of its post-Avengers: Endgame films didn’t require viewers to “do any homework,” but that’s absolutely and honestly the case with First Steps.
If you’ve never seen an MCU movie and wanted to jump in, this is the movie for you. (I can’t promise what comes after it will make any sense, though.)
Like with James Gunn’s Superman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps wisely passes on being an origin-story movie. When we jump into First Steps, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm have been the Fantastic Four for a convenient four years. This jump lets the movie focus on the chemistry between the characters — a chemistry that Marvel’s casting team once again nailed by bringing Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach together.
Pascal is a perfect Reed, struggling under the weight of his genius. Kirby is the core of the team. And Quinn and Moss-Bachrach nail the buddy/uncles vibes as Johnny and Ben.
First Steps is a brisk movie, clocking in at 1 hour and 55 minutes, but I left the theater feeling like a ton of ground was covered. The film even had time to give Paul Walter Hauser’s Mole Man, the Wall-E-inspired H.E.R.B.I.E. and Ben Grimm’s bard a fun amount of screen time.
We’ll next see these characters next year in Avengers: Doomsday. (Do make sure you stick around for the scene right after the main credits.) I can’t wait to see these actors enter the larger MCU and get to mix it up with folks like Chris Hemsworth and Florence Pugh.
- 📖 How Fantastic Four: First Steps Heals a 30-Year-Old Betrayal: “The Curse Is Broken” (Anthony Breznican, Vanity Fair): “After Fantastic Four was finished, Eichinger bought out Corman’s investment, then struck a deal with Marvel Comics producer Avi Arad to sit on it indefinitely. Arad told journalists in 2002 that he had paid “a couple million dollars in cash and burned” the original film, according to Los Angeles magazine.The ploy had worked: though the cheap-o Fantastic Four was never released, Eichinger, who died in 2011, remained tied to the franchise for the rest of his life. He was a credited producer on the first two Fox Fantastic Four features, released in 2005 and 2007.”
