2025, Matt Shakman (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) -- download
Part of me/him wonders whether the writer/director were taking this piss, in how the plot is presented, at superhero movies and Marvel movies in particular.
For the pedantic Marvel fans, the first scene identifies this as Earth 828, vs the prime MCU which is Earth 616, which in turn lifts its designation from the comics. So, no John Krasinski here. The movie kicks off with flashbacks to the origin story, of four friends & family who get zapped by cosmic radiation while on a space mission. The movie has Reed refer to the crew as "the most brilliant scientific minds on the planet" but that has got to be sarcasm, right? Other than Johnny "working the problem" in trying to figure out what the transmissions from space are, we never see any of the others, other than Reed that is, do anything remotely scientific. I almost felt as if Reed was truly saying, "Other people would take trained astronauts and scientists, but I am more than enough brilliance for them all, so I will take my family, whom I trust implicitly." Yeah, it doesn't work out for him, and its the focus of the rest of the movie, as grumpy, depressed Reed Richards constantly berates himself for not being smart enough.
But no matter, after they came back from space kind of weird, they became the planet's superheroes and we get a newsreel style recap of their best adventures including kaiju and The Mole Man, ala Jack Kirby styles. This also affords us a look at the Silver Age styling to the world, which looks like a mish mash of 40s, 60s and far future. Other than Reed's smarts, there is no commentary on why things are so futuristic, but it seems normal life. And this should be wonderful, but its... all empty backdrops? Like glitzy painted sets, this really neat bit of world building should have been entrancing but its barely window dressing. I was more enthralled by the similarly retro-future look to the Loki show than I was this.
Other than the newsreels we don't really get to see them being super-heroic before flaming rocks fall from the sky and a silver lady on a surfboard with a brushed back coif shows up heralding doom & gloom, i.e. Galactus. Not sure how I feel about Jennifer Garner being the Herald of Galactus, but she is the current It-Girl of the moment so not surprised she got the role. And let me be clear, no issue with her per se or the gender bent choice for the character, but I am not sure she got to bring anything to the role. With today's technology, you could literally have no-one play the role and its CGI status would have worked just as well. Anywayz, time for Reed to work this next problem -- who is this Galactus guy and why does he want to destroy the planet. And that leads to space travel.
Space travel does not go well. They FTL to a place where Galactus eats a planet, get grabbed by him, recreate the Superman scene with the weird glowy river, piss him off and barely escape. Oh, and Sue has her baby, in space, a baby that Galactus senses could quell his hunger. He offers to exchange Earth for the baby and, of course, everyone yells, "NO FUCKING WAY DUDE !"
My pith masks my mirroring of what Kent said ("I really wanted to luxuriate in the aesthetic of the film, but it so quickly becomes background") in that these space scenes could have been so (cough) fantastic ! I think of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and its very basic but enthralling visuals of space travel -- everything just has a cool factor, while the depiction of scifi space here strikes me more as a YouTube scifi mood board collage. I just wanted more "oooo" and "ahhhhh" but all I got was, "yawn, OK go on." As for the team, the encounter makes only nodding referential use of the character power set.
Back on Earth for act three brings Reed again getting all mopey as he devises a plan to Save Earth without giving up his baby. And guess what, taking a flagrantly annoying note from Spider-Man: No Way Home the entire planet turns on them because they won't exchange one life (baby life) for that of the planet. I mean, I get it, they are afraid, but how quickly they turn on the supposed saviours of the planet... Of course, Reed's first solution, after he has reminded the entire planet of how his family has always saved them, fails completely, but not due to him but due to failure of other humans, i.e. Dr. Doom. Its a cute nod. In the end, they do save Earth but via an unexpected turn of events, a more hands-on approach actually making use of their power set, and a hail mary.
But again, it didn't do anything for me. It was "basic MCU film making". It was just OK. It was "punch in the algorithm" scenery generation. It could have been so much more, and it wasn't and that is pretty much my statement for much of MCU in the ... last few phases? Again, I stopped paying attention to the phase concept after they got derailed and mashed together and abandoned and retooled and and and... Hopefully the coming Beyonder pulls a comic trick and REBOOTS THE ENTIRE MARVEL PARADIGM.
For the sake of completion, the characters are as follows. Reed Richards is played by Pedro Pascal (Wonder Woman 1984), Sue Richards nee Storm by Vanessa Kirby (The Frankenstein Chronicles), Ben Grimm (aka The Thing) by Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Punisher), and Johnny Storm by Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things). The Silver Surfer, or Shalla-Bal, is played by Jennifer Garner (Weapons) and Galactus himself by Ralph Ineson (Ludwig). And because I love to point out Dr. Sharon from Ted Lasso, Sarah Niles (Heads of State) is the Fantastic Four's attache.
Oh, we agree.
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