Marvel Studios and 20th Century Studios have produced The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a lot better couple of hours, ten years after a Fantastic Four film that wasn’t.
Although the jet age streamlining of the time is sleekly alien, it takes place in the mid-1960s. Outcome? Fedora-wearing extras share crowd scenes with a Manhattan cityscape that is peppered with well-known monuments, such as the Chrysler Building, as well as some rather amazing structures and design elements reminiscent of the Jetsons. A production designer working in the Marvel film universe usually has little chance against the effects work, digital compositing, and overall greenscreening. The Fantastic Four is not like the others. The film’s conflicting objectives are complemented by production designer Kasra Farahani’s humorous visual swagger: a little fun over here, the typical concerns of world extinction over there.
The Fantastic Four is handled more leniently by filmmaker Matt Shakman than the contemporary James Gunn Superman, which is worthy despite its neurotic mood swings and from-here-to-eternity action scenes. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm adjust to their Earthbound life with a few additional bullet points for their collective resume after returning from their space trip with cosmically altered DNA. Richards, sometimes known as Mister Fantastic, is incredibly flexible and stretchy and can outstretch Gumby Gumby. The soaring Human Torch is one of the Storms’ alter egos, and the Invisible Woman is the other. Grimm makes his way back to Earth as The Thing, a moving rock pile.
What is it all about, then? It’s about a starving tourist who wants to eat one more time before he can finally sleep. So declares Galactus, the world-eating monster whose herald is Silver Surfer and for whom noshing entails planets. In return for Sue Storm not consuming Earth, Galactus wants her soon-to-be unborn child. As the New York crowds hide refuge in the underground lair of Harvey Elder, the notorious Moleman, the Fantastic Four’s approach to dealing with Galactus ends with Manhattan evacuated, close to Times Square.
Avoiding antagonist overexposure is one of Shakman’s film’s strong points. For instance, Paul Walter Hauser’s clever portrayal of auxiliary more-misunderstood-than-bad Moleman leaves you wanting more. In fact, Galactus is such a massive metallic being that a little of him is plenty.
Here, the Fantastic Four are in charge. The ample, laid-back amount of hangout time that filmmaker Shakman’s picture devotes to establishing and demonstrating family dynamics and mediocre banter won’t appeal to everyone. For others, it will be a welcome diversion from the solemnity of some of the recent Marvel films, both successful and unsuccessful.
The emotional burden leans slightly in favor of Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm as she navigates the challenges of impending parenthood and worries with her husband about the well-being of the child of DNA-scrambled superheroic parents, even though Pedro Pascal, also known as Mister Ubiquitous, makes for a strong, sympathetic ringleader as the constantly muttering Mister Fantastic. Like Joseph Quinn’s Johnny Storm, a boyish horndog who targets the first female Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) on the screen, I wish Ebon Moss-Bachrach had stronger material as The Thing, but he’s ingratiating company.
A major advantage is the superb and delicately rangy musical composition by Michael Giacchino. Less so are Alexandra Byrne’s costumes. Indefensible personal taste enters the picture here. Without a doubt, Byrne’s designs blend in perfectly with The Fantastic Four’s general retro-futurist aesthetic. However, the color scheme that dominates the clothing and is incorporated into many aspects of the production design is incredibly blue.Trulyblue. The film is more effective than Buddy Hackett during a 64-hour act in Vegas.
There aren’t many people who dislike the beautifully crafted shades of French blue that are so common here, but I can’t help myself. I can say this: I’m thankful that the film’s familial issues and complex moral quandaries about saving the world are sufficiently serious to remain cohesive. The Fantastic Four is good enough, but it’s not terrific superhero film—whether that’s even conceivable at the Marvel Phase 6 era of our lives is still up for debate.
The Fantastic Four: Initial Actions Three stars (out of four)
MPA rating: PG-13 (because to some provocative content and heavy action scenes).
Duration: 2:05
How to watch: July 24 is the first day it opens in theaters.
Michael Phillips is a critic for the Tribune.
