05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Metropolis Japan
The Fantastic Four
By Don Morton
An analog good time
I haven't bothered of late with superhero movies. The genre has devolved from its comic-book roots into a bewildering mishmash of sequels, prequels, origin stories, re-imaginings, super-groups, remakes and reboots, and they're all cross-connected, so you have to remain current with all of them if you hope to understand the latest. That, and I simply have nothing to say about them.
Yet, I fondly remember back in the '70s when my college buddies and I, all arguably proto-nerds, eagerly awaited each new Spiderman, Hulk, Superman or Batman comic. So the door remains ajar, and I'm always open to new takes on this most escapist of genres.
This is not the first time this quartet has been adapted to film, but it's the first shot at it that works. Roger Corman made a hilariously bad attempt in 1994, and the less said about Josh Trank's 2015 train wreck the better. So not a real high bar here for director Matt Shakman.
I had some time, and the theater was air-conditioned, so I went to see this one and was pleasantly surprised (this doesn't mean I won't skip the inevitable sequel(s). Most obvious is its faithfulness to the source material. While the term 'comic book' is often used pejoratively as an adjective for movies, implying a certain lack of sophistication, this one instead embraces the aesthetic and runs with it. The action takes place in a kitschy retro-future (think fedoras and flying cars). The heroes and villains are of course exaggerated and somewhat ridiculous. Kind of like, you know, in a comic book.
And it's not even an origin story. It opens four years after Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic, superpower: elasticity, scientific genius), his wife Sue Storm (invisibility, force fields), brother Johnny Storm (flaming and flying) and their friend Ben (smashing stuff) gained their powers in an outer-space accident (Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach respectively). They are now established, respected crime-fighters in the city. Then the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) shows up with the news that Galactus, Devourer of Planets, is on his way and Earth is on the menu.
So I've said all the good things I have to say. It is, after all, a superhero movie. It follows the expected story arcs, and the ending's a tad anticlimactic. But it's positive and upbeat, relatively intelligent, and a good time at the movies for the whole family. Big screen, of course.
