Displaying items by tag: Matt Shakmann

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS

US, 2025, 115 minutes, Colour.

Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Egon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, Sarah Niles, Mark Gattis. Voices of Ralph Ineson, Matthew Wood.

Directed by Matt Shakman.

2025 as been a superpower blockbuster movie year, Thunderbolts*, then DC with Superman and Marvel with The Fantastic Four. The latter two performed beyond expectations at the box office in the US and around the world. Still popular!

The Fantastic Four are not as familiar to moviegoers as Superman or Batman. There were two films in 2005-7 and an attempt to revive the franchise in 2017. This film is another attempt – and with the promise that the Fantastic Four will appear in forthcoming Avenger films.

One of the features of the Fantastic Four is that they are a very friendly group, especially likeable for the audience. For anyone not familiar with them, and for those who are, there is a prologue to this film, a TV program, a kind of This is Your Life summarising with clips the personal lives and origins and all the exploits of the Four, their venture into space, their DNA being altered, then becoming superheroes, and very popular with the citizens of New York City and the world.

Reed Richards, played sympathetically by Pedro Pascal, is the scientist, mathematician, intelligent, cerebral in his approach to crises. By contrast, Vanessa Kirby is his wife Sue Storm, her discovering she is pregnant, and she and the family, and the audience, happy anticipating the forthcoming birth. Then there is her younger brother, Johnny Storm, played enthusiastically by Joseph Quinn sometimes brash, literally full of fire, eager to be an uncle. The fourth member is Ben, played by Egon Moss-Bachrach, seen as his ordinary self in the prologue but then DNA drastically altered to some thing of a monster look, but genial behind all that orange granite that forms his exterior.

Casting is interesting because two of the Four are British, Vanessa Kirby and Joseph Quinn. Pedro Pascal is from Chile.

When Earth is threatened by a strange alien, the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), and threatened by the archetypal cosmic villain, Galacticus (voiced by British Ralph Ineson), the Four go into space to confront him.

Part of the drama is their initial failure (though with some spectacular sequences in space, and, emotionally and dramatically, the birth of the baby), the brief press conference where they tell their adoring public that there is no hope, then the determination to find a way of confronting Galacticus who has set his ambitions on taking over the new born child and its powers.

Which means that the second part of the film is the confrontation of Galacticus, the intervention of the Silver Surfer, the giant Galactic is heavily treading through New York City demolishing huge areas (as Lex Luthor did in Superman) intense demonstration of the superpowers by the Four.

And, there is nothing like a baby to elicit audience sympathy – and there is a pleasing preview during the final credits of the baby at four, with his mother, just having spent a day reading Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.

1. The status of the Fantastic Four in the marvel comics, created by Stan Lee? The previous film versions, modest, this version as a new beginning?
2. The basis of the plot, the Marvel universe, the four characters, Reed and Sue, their backgrounds, marriage? Johnny as Sue’s brother? The work with Ben?
3. The opening, a kind of resume of the characters and their superpowers, their activities, their reputation in New York City?
4. The relationship between Reed and Sue? Background of their space mission, the experience, overwhelmed, the changes in their DNA, superpowers? The marriage, Sue, discovering she was pregnant, Reed, the scientist and mathematician, his more cerebral approach, his joy? Johnny and his enthusiasm?
5. Ben, in the television program, his normal self, the space experience, the DNA, the granite and its colour, his size? And his voice, human and humane, his interventions? The encounter with Rachel, the students and his comic behaviour with them, his later going to find Rachel?
6. The situation with Galactus, origins, age, giant, sinister, eager for power, targeting the baby? The Silver Surfer, her appearance, the surfboard, through space, arriving on earth, the warning?
7. The status of the Four, Ed Gilbert and his show, the program, the exploits, the public and acclaim?
8. The decision to go into space, travel, the space ship, the equipment, technical skills, Reed and intelligence? The confrontation with the Silver Surfer, with Galactus, their being caught, the escape, travelling back to earth, the pursuit by the Silver Surfer, her skills, evading capture, each of the Four coping, Ben and his piloting, reading the calculations, Johnny and his attempts with his fire? Their eventually arriving home?
9. Sue, pregnant during the return, her experience, everybody involved in the delivery of the baby, the happy birth? Franklin?
10. The television show, Mary and her friendship, the press conference on return, no hope, the reaction of the public, gradually turning against them?
11. Reed and his experiments with transportation, the plan to move the planet Earth to the outer reaches away from Galactus? Its failing?
12. The determination to resolve the situation, the public learning about Galactus wanting the baby, accusations of selfishness with the family not giving up the baby? The calculations, seemingly impossible? The discovery of the lever, the calculations, the appeal to the public, the television response, the collecting all the materials, the building of the bridges, the issue of electricity, the world collaborating in blacking out to give full power?
13. The plan, times square, the central landing, the ring to trap Galactus?
14. The encounter with The Silver Surfer, her coming for the baby, the dialogue with Johnny, her back story, her experience with Galactus, giving up family for the sake of the planet? Her hostility, her embarrassment and shame, her finally turning against Galactus and sacrificing herself?
15. The help of Harvey Elder, his role in the past, sinister, ruling in the subterranean area, the clashes with the Four, their appeal to him, selfish, but agreeing, taking all the refugees from New York City?
16. The arrival of Galactus, gigantic, walking through New York, crushing the buildings, the tremors for those in the underground? Capacities, voice, penetrating sight to see the baby, his being blinded, the substitute group, but his seeing where it was hidden, the continued pursuit, Ben and his interventions, Johnny willing to sacrifice himself, read in the calculations, Sue and her willpower, forcing Galactus back, almost to the Circle, the machine, the 37 seconds, his destruction?
17. The Four, acclaimed, the public, Ed Gilbert and the program, Mary and the studio, the sudden call and their going out on mission?
18. The preview for the Avengers films, four years later, the baby and reading Charles Darwin, Sue finding the baby with the sinister hooded figure?