“Your planet is marked for death.” Silver Surfer (Julia Garner)
Finally, a super hero film I fully enjoy—Fantastic Four: First Steps. Overarching the entire adventure is the motif of family centrality, one most superhero films aspire to, but it surely comes home here. Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal) and Invisible Woman Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) are with child, the object of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a planet gobbler who would save earth if it gives up the baby.
The movie is a simple one that without cellphones and computers (set in 1960) relies on the actors and script to draw us in to the adventure and their characters. While the graphics are ancient, the characters are alive with spirit and bravery.
Kirby’s Mrs. Richards reminds us of her 24-min childbirth scene in her Oscar-nominated Pieces of a Woman when she fights zero-gravity in a black hole to give birth to Franklin, the baby desired by bad boy Galactus. The opening shot of her on the commode testing for pregnancy is a part of the film’s enduring commitment to realism despite the ‘60’s space age ambience.
Pascal’s TV triumphs in The Mandalorian and The Last of Us prepare us for the heroic role here of devoted husband and dad—no wonder he’s been tagged on the Internet as “Daddy.” This couple is the most romantic twosome in recent film history that can also kick serious butt when necessary.
This spirit of family love pervades The Fantastic Four: First Steps in hot-headed Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), the blazing hero Human Torch and brother of Sue Storm, who can fall for Galactus’s enforcer, Silver Surfer, while willing to sacrifice himself to the bad ones to save the planet. Johnny’s best friend, Ben Grim (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), brings to life loving humanity even though he’s a pile of rocks.
Surfer is one of the most intriguing bad girls in all the canon, covered in form-fitting silver with not a small echo of the robot in Metropolis. As in life itself, she is one whose motives are ambivalent and changeable and therefore fascinating.
Nicely integrated in the family motif is the sometimes-ambivalent populace, who expect F4 to save them yet eventually realize giving up the baby is unacceptable. The adventure’s emphasis on cooperation to survive has been done before but not as warmly in the face of annihilation.
For an end of summer, the whole family could enjoy in an air-conditioned theater and plush seats, I offer no more, other than all of us joining this super-hero family and its warm humanity.
“Whatever life throws at us, we'll face it together, as a family.” Sue Storm