‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps' Review: A Newborn Franchise
This new 'Fantastic Four,' coming a decade after the doomed reboot of the forgettable mid-aughts originals, throws us right into the action, essentially skipping the team's origin story and opting instead for a highlight-reel summary of how cosmic rays gave four astronauts superhuman powers and turned them into protectors of Earth-828, an alternate version of our world. That narrative evasion is no grave sin, and in fact, the immediacy with which the film immerses us into the tactile, fully formed retrofuturism of this world serves as its greatest delight.
But after the brief introduction to our ensemble and this alt-planet, the film, directed by Matt Shakman, locks quickly into the mode of a superhero family sitcom that partly defined the original comics: Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) as the signature superhero couple, Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) as the playfully antagonistic third and fourth wheels. But the party is quickly broken up when the mysterious Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) arrives and declares that a planet-eating god named Galactus (Ralph Ineson) is on his way to destroy Earth, prompting the four to suddenly go into space to confront this new villain.
It all makes for an introduction whose pacing and tone operate as if on top of the pre-existing groundwork of a previous movie. We're often left wondering who these four heroes are exactly and why we ought to believe in the emotional or comic resonance of them as a family. To help us buy in, the film mostly relies on the polish of this retro universe and its premium cast (who turn in uneven performances, save for Moss-Bachrach), along with one's faint familiarity with the iconography of the heroes, to do the legwork.
But those pieces sometimes are sufficient to keep this a smooth-enough ride that can even be periodically thrilling. Most of all, there's the accompanying relief that this Marvel movie has an interest in actually building a sensibility, aesthetically and thematically, that is entirely its own, without the invisible hand of an extended universe pulling its strings.
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Josh Brolin on ‘Weapons,' ‘Dune 3' Teases, and Why He Hates Modern Marketing
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Brolin is not usually a second choice actor though, so we talked about if he had any hesitation coming into the role as well as what Cregger brings that reminds him of other filmmaking legends. From there, we touched upon the film's marketing, his thoughts on spoilers, as well his involvement (or lack there of) with Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Three. He got honest about Goonies 2, the cancelation of Outer Range, and more. Check it out. Germain Lussier, io9: The press notes for Weapons said you didn't immediately decide to do this, but that you just kept coming back to it. What was it about the film that made you finally decide to do it? Josh Brolin: No, I just think I'm a skeptic anyway. I mean, there are very few things in the last 20 years, like [the Coen Brothers] or Denis, where it was like, 'Hey, do you want to do Dune? We'll send you the script.' And it was like, 'Yes,' before I even read it. You know, it's one of those things. But I think Zach had done one movie, and I know somebody had dropped out of this movie, and then they called me. 'Do you want to read the script?' And I was really taken by the design. It's just a very smartly designed script. It's a very smart script in a genre that's always perceived to be only cosmetic. And I think something's changed recently with a couple of filmmakers, with Get Out and Sinners and all this kind of stuff, and they're mixing it up. And I just think it's timing. I don't think they're all kind of playing off each other. And oh, we got a copycat this and all that. But I think Zach is a very unique, very emotional guy who is using the horror genre to his benefit in a lot of ways. And using the sketch comedy that he did, and incorporating that somehow. So it's a very unique voice in a very tired, or seemingly tired, genre. io9: You mentioned some of the fantastic directors you've worked with. Even though this is just Zach's second feature, is there anything about him that makes you think he could eventually get to that Coen Brothers, Denis Villeneuve level? Brolin: I mean, he reminds me of the Coens in that he embraces absurdity. He embraces this idea of how we get in our own way. And how kind of, for lack of a better word, 'stupid' we are sometimes, making it way harder than it needs to be. And that has nothing to do with the kids disappearing and all that. But you have Julia [Garner]'s character, who's an alcoholic. You have Alden [Ehrenreich]'s character, who's going out with this married woman. You know what I mean? It's like what we do to just make chaos out of our lives in order to what? Feel like we're living a full life when we're actually doing quite the opposite. And then he takes this massive subject to what's the thing that you value the most, and what if that was taken away from you? Are you going to come back to a self that's actually reliable? Or you're going to have to work yourself through all that chaos in order to get to a place that is valuable yourself. Then if you finally get that valued thing back, then suddenly you treat it differently than you had before. And I think that's what happens with Archer. He's a changed man by the end. io9: You've done a lot of movies, especially of late and this one is no exception, where you can't really talk about a lot of the spoilers before release. So I'm curious, what are your feelings about this kind of fear of spoilers that's become so incessant in the last decade? Do you think knowing beforehand things about the movie will ruin the experience? Brolin: I do. I think it totally ruins your experience. And that's a new thing. If you look back at some of the promotion of the '70s and the '80s and even the '90s, it created a mystery. The whole thing with PR is it pulled you in and gave you hints of what was to be. And then there was some, like, saturation. 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If they made one with different kids, then it becomes a different thing, and I think it taints the original one. I think people get excited, and people who were in the original movie, they get excited about being able to work with that group again because it was such an amazing experience. So do I think it should be done? I don't know, man. I love it just standing like it does. io9: Last non-Weapons thing is I work for a sci-fi site and we were really big Outer Range fans. Were you okay with how it ended, leaving so many things open, or you wish you'd had some more time with it? Brolin: I was mad when it happened. I didn't agree because that show got better. If you look at it again, from a business sense, and you look at it was like a 78% approval rating to a 92%, and we did it for way less budget and all that kind of stuff, it only makes sense that you would try and hold on to that and explore it more. I love that it was a big swing. I love that we got two seasons out of it. 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2 hours ago
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Zendaya Offers a Rare Glimpse of Her Engagement Ring While Walking Dogs With Tom Holland
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