Article by Hannah
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting after hearing how “bad” it was. I liked it better than the 2004 one.
Fantastic Four First Steps was not what I was expecting after hearing how it was the worst superhero movie ever and Woke. But then I’ve learned to do my own reconnaissance where modern media adaptations are concerned. I usually expect the worst, and I’m rarely surprised. However, critics and reviewers get it wrong at times. Despite everyone saying Disney plus’ Percy Jackson was better than the movies, it was actually worse. On the other hand, this movie was actually better than the 2004 Fantastic Four.
It Was the Opposite of Woke: The movie starts where the Fantastic Four have already been heroes for four years (get it, four years?) so it’s hardly their first steps, but I feel we’ve seen enough origin stories so I was fine with jumping right to it. They still do a recap on how they got their powers and everything. My sister and I were waiting for the so-called Wokeness but instead we got a realistic wholesome family dynamic. The film is set in the 1960’s in an alternate reality so this could be why.
In the start of the film Reed Richards and Sue Storm are already married, and in a very authentic scene discuss how she’s now pregnant after having tried unsuccessfully for a long time to have a baby. This scene promotes marriage, parenthood, and having a baby, for once, as a good thing. In the 2004 film, Reed and Susan simply dated in college and she broke up with him when he didn’t want to live together outside the confines of marriage. They never made sense to me and aren’t a stellar example of a relationship, especially when Susan seems to be leading Dr. Doom on at the start of the film. She says, “there never was a me and Victor,” yet Victor’s ready to propose to her and she’s having dinner dates with him, so something’s going on.
The whole plot surrounds the idea that to kill Susan’s baby to save the world is–wrong. Galactus, the devourer of worlds, wants Susan’s child in exchange for not eating the earth. Susan and her family don’t even consider this as a possibility, except for Reed because he’s so logical and even he doesn’t seriously think of doing it. Still, just mentioning how he understands where other people are coming from in wanting Susan to give up her baby gets him into a fight with his wife. This was a good scene because it wasn’t so much an argument about pro-life (this movie was very pro-life whether they intended it to be or not) as it put on display Reed’s character flaw and how he and his wife resolve conflict between each other. We often do this with people we love. We say things that come off the wrong way due to our personalities and we need to be told how we sound and explain what we really mean.
- The only unrealistic part about this plot point is that Susan is able to talk sense into an angry crowd and convince them that taking her baby isn’t the answer. I was torn about this because while it would never happen in real life (people murder babies for less than the fate of a whole planet), I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what would really happen. The people would have tried to storm the building and take her child or have turned into an angry mob and attacked her when she came out to speak to them.
The family dynamic was refreshingly realistic yet fun. Johnny and Ben don’t bicker the whole movie with Johnny playing practical jokes on Ben like in the 2004 version where they magically become friends at the end. Ben is like an older brother to Johnny and they have controlled banter. Johnny is also not simply a dumb womanizer. I know this got a lot of criticism from people. I wasn’t sure how to think about it at first because I disagreed with the premise from the writers. The claim was: womanizers are not fashionable or liked anymore. I would like to say this is true, but unfortunately women like playboy types. They like Dean Winchester and Damon Salvatore etc. Also, whether this is true or not, it is a part of the original Johnny Storm’s character. I let it slide because Johnny was only a teenager in the original comics and they still included him having some kind of flirtation with the Silver Surfer who they made a woman. I also appreciated how they made him actually smart in this version. In the 2004 film I don’t know what recommended Johnny to be a part of the special flight into space other than nepotism.
-It was good to see different members of a family support and interact with each other: Brother and sister, husband and wife, brother in-laws, and best friends. None of the men were made fun of unnecessarily or put down to make women look superior. I feel the need to say this because it’s not taken for granted in movies anymore where the men are increasingly losing all usefulness and independence (i.e. Lost in the Woods Men and I’m Just Ken Men as I have begun to refer to them).
Areas Of The Plot That Were Underwhelming Or Could’ve Been Done Better: In the 2004 Fantastic Four the plot is basically the characters acting out college hi jinks for half of the film until Dr. Doom reenacts the villain arc from Toby Mcguire’s Spiderman. In this movie, Galactus and Silver Surfer are solid choices for a plot, there’s not a lot of wasted frat boy scenes, and having Galactus want Susan’s baby adds a personal stake, but the delivery was lacking in certain areas.
I agree with critics that the movie in most areas lacked a sense of urgency and the pacing was slow. The energy felt like it ran at about 70% or less. Not as bad as Percy Jackson but still not operating at 100%. Scenes could’ve been snappier in the delivery of dialogue and tension could have been raised by tone of voice, music, and directing differently. It honestly reminded me of a Netflix series that starts slow and takes a bit to get going. The whole movie could have been a two part opener to a Fantastic Four show and I would have kept watching, but as a movie it felt weak.
I didn’t mind the gender change for Silver Surfer. My rule is if you are going to do a gender switch on a character they still need to possess the core traits and functions of the original. I also thought it was interesting to have a romance between Johnny Storm and the Silver Surfer. My only criticism is that they didn’t explore the idea far enough. Johnny finds the Silver Surfer attractive but has to fight her because she’s trying to steal his nephew. Later he deciphers her language and forces her to listen to various transmissions from planets she’s helped Galactus destroy. She cries out and flies away in guilt. The scene was good but they didn’t take advantage and follow up on it later. The Silver Surfer disappears until the end of the movie where she saves Johnny’s life. It felt kind of random for her to do that. I would have had them meet up again and talk after she flew away. Johnny also doesn’t seem depressed by her sacrificing herself to save him. We just forget about it and no one mentions what she did.
I didn’t understand Susan’s death at the end or how she came back. That wasn’t clear and the acting was underplayed.
There was the small part played by Mole Man who was really only there to provide a place for the people of New York to evacuate to. His acting reminded me of the comical path Marvel’s characters have taken. Thankfully, he was the only one.
Lastly, and I’m not sure this counts as a plot critique but it needs to be said, the superhero costumes don’t look that great. They don’t flatter the actors who look fine out of costume in regular clothes. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
To sum things up, the movie was by no means a stellar 10/10 but it wasn’t bad either. We enjoyed it and actually finished the whole film, which is more than I can say for other contemporary movies and tv shows we gave a chance. I would have preferred the pacing as a tv series with a little more ingenuity in the plotline but it was certainly more enjoyable than the 2004 Fantastic Four.