The Fantastic Four: A floating and often dazzling return to form for Marvel

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Directed by Matt Shakman

Written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer

With the leading role Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Ralph Ineson, Julia Garner, Paul Walter Hauser, Natasha Lyonne, Sarah Niles

Classification Pg; 117 minutes

Opens in theaters July 25

In a brutal bit of The Fantastic Four: First StepsReed Richards tries to explain the multiverse, a concept that can cause a moan in this surprisingly satisfying return to form for Marvel.

The super stretchable scientist, played as adorable rigid by the favorite leading man of the internet, Pedro Pascal, gives a science class in Bill Nye style to a studio audience of children. The subject is parallel dimensions. Reed, also known as Mr. Fantastic, explains that there is an earth like that of itself that could exist elsewhere (with, as you know, his own set of superheroes).

The children respond with yawn. Mounted by their boredom, drove the enthusiasm of his audience by inviting them to witness a great explosion.

This is of course The fantastic four The fourth wall break, with an excavation about the state of affairs in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), who lately has difficulty keeping our attention span. In the five years since then Avengers: End gameThe bloated and complicated stories of the studio is cut under the weight of all the multiverse shenanigans they have thrown into their films and TV programs, which contributes to a general feeling of superhero tired Avengers Movies.

But Marvel scored a critical hit with the relatively modest Thunderbolts* Earlier this year. And now The fantastic four Is here for a good reset – a floating and often dazzling, who makes up for the failed film adjustments of Marvel’s first family from the past.

I should point it out, with the risk of tiring the public, the new Fantastic Four is quite scarce with his explosions and actually takes place in an alternative dimension – neither in the same empire nor timeline as Iron Man or Captain America. It is a necessary move, (even if only) all the narrative baggage from the world of the other MCU films. And it makes the space free for Matt Shakman’s delicious retro futuristic reinvestion of Manhattan built in the sixties around his Fantastic Four.

Shakman (Wandavision) gets so much The Jetsons and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey As well as the original strip panels from Jack Kirby. Slim and shiny space -Nealle tower above Manhattan’s Art Deco Skyline, filled with historical details such as the Pan Am Building, RKO Palace and Billboards for 7UP and Coppertone. The bright blue costumes of the superheroes cut through the earthly trench jackets, bowlers and tweed suits of everyone, just like their rocket aircraft.

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The aesthetics on this clear as optimistic alt-earth as in the room next to shiny black holes is usually more complicated more more detailed than the characters themselves, who do not get the most room to breathe between scèneters, monologues and the action.

Reed, his disappearing woman Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Solid-As-Literal-Rock Best Friend Ben Grimm (The bear‘S eBon Moss-Bachrach) and flammable brother-in-law Johnny (Joseph Quinn, who looks and behaves like a young Robert Downey Jr.) are introduced three years after exposure to space radiation, making them mutant super heroes. A Kitschy period suitable newsreel catches us quickly before the plot experiences the heroes on their intergalactic adventure. They are opposed to the planet goals of Schurk Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his humanoid Minion, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). This happens because Sue expects her first child, on whom the big bad guy sets his ultrasound.

If the characters are outlined thinly – in a script that is credited to four writers, that tends to support on well -known tropics – you would hardly notice it, because the cast fills them beautifully. There is an inviting chemistry in their smallest beats, nuanced glimping in their eyes and a reassuring warmth that does not come from the page. This is all exponentially true for Kirby, who, as a radiant mother who is supplemented Sue, not only carries the film, but it often struggles to just be a miracle again.

But there is a less generous way to view the story of Sue: you could see her pregnancy as a cute and calculated way to scatter humanity on a shiny new toys of a film of a mega village. A funny enough assembly where the R2-D2-like robot of the Fantastic Four the house baby-proof the house-in-home a walking fire hair is certainly in that direction.

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But the enormous presence of SUE – especially if she dives about the way in which drove can be deformable in the light of hardships – is sufficient to dispel cynicism. She even gives the action some weight.

The moment she starts giving birth, while on a rocket hunting through a worm hole, it is just as entertaining as Marvel gets. And the required leveling of Manhattan, in the now known climatic battle with a towering CGI villain, did not quite wear, because Kirby can sell the bet (all cute 18 pounds).

It is just enough to let me want more, what words I will probably eat. The next time we see this Fantastic Four, in next year Avengers: DoomsdayThey will leave their wonderful world and join their colleagues from the (great sigh) Multiversum.