Take 26: Fantastic Four: First Step

Marvel’s first family tries to break the F.F. Curse and hope that this FOURTH attempt will be the charm. Set in the 1960s of Earth- 828, this interation of the Fantastic Four taps into all to the best elements of the fanchise: Celebrity, adventure, exploration, and family. The team encounters the Silver Surfer, harbinger of Galactus who is on his way to Earth, to consume it. When the F.F. attempt to head off the threat of Galactus, he offers to spare the Earth from his plate in exchange for the immensely cosmically powerful unborn child of Reed and Sue. Unwilling to sacrifice their child, the team must find another way to thwart coming threat otherwise they and the planet are doomed.

This time around, Pedro Pascal is Reed Richards is the leader of the team, Vanessa Kirby, his wife Sue, the Invisible Woman and the driving force behind most of the action. Joseph Quinn is the Human Torch and Ebon Moss-Bachrach is the ever lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing (my favorite member of the team and one of my favorite characters of all.) As far as casting, is solid. Pascal was a better Reed than I expected. Kirby was a good enough Sue. Quinn was pretty much an unknown to me prior to this but made a pretty good Johnny (Torch), but Moss-Bachrach was a little too subdued for me. I can say for me ,the cast of the 2005/2007 films don’t get enough credit because, with the exception of maybe The Torch (Chris Evan works better for me as Captain America), and I kinda missed those versions. Jessica Alba was never on my radar prior, but I found Kirby’s to be a little aloof. Chiklis was perfection and his version of the Thing LOOKED more the part to me except for the head/face—- yeah, this version DID get it right, even down the ridge above his eyes. Unfortunately, the CGI was painfully obvious in parts so I can’t say that it was the clear improvement it could and should have been.

There was a lot to like: the 60’s vibe was fun and totally worked for me. The Ed Sullivan talk show stuff was fun and felt right. I loved the montage and mentions of early F.F villians and the quick recreation of the first cover of Fantastic Four #1 was not lost on me. And had you told me they’d actually include the Mole Man and that he’d be the the highlight that he was, I would have thought you were pulling my leg. The female Silver Surfer worked just fine for me. Giant Galactus was a definite improvement over cloud Galactus. They really pushed the family aspect in this was present almost all of the others but probably the most fully integrated here. I mean, we got Franklin Richard’s for crying out loud. Quality stuff.

But with so much right, why did it miss the mark for me? I am always rooting for a good super hero movie, Marvel and DC alike. Where I felt that SOMETHING with Superman’s couple of weeks ago, there felt like something was lacking here. Could it be action? Yes, we got characterization, but there wasn’t a lot of excitement. Ben and Sue are easily my favorite two, and yes, Sue got her due, but as a Thing fan, I can’t I was awed. And they definitely established Galactus as a powerhouse but this seems to have been completely forgotten in the final battle where he was dispatched pretty easily and it wasn’t even due to the teamwork or ingenuity. It was the equivalent of learning a powerful combo in a fighting game and repeating it until the fight is over. With us finally getting an legit Galactus, so it should take more than just hitting buttons really hard…

I liked it, but didn’t love it. I definitely want to revisit, not so much because I enjoyed it the first time, but more because I want to see what if I can see what I missed in my initial viewing. The end credit scene was fun so I am confident about the future going forward. But as a “First Step”, it was a bit of a stumble.

My score: 7.1

What did you think.Does my next step need to be to into moving traffic or where you just ‘whelmed’ too? Tell me in the comments. And until next time…