Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
The first family trip I remember, we all stuffed ourselves into a 1970s panel van and headed to DisneyWorld. My dad drove the van and coordinated with my uncle over CB radio cause my uncle got lost a lot while at the same time loved pretending to be a trucker.
From Mississippi to Florida, we spent over twelve hours in that van packed like boiling lobsters. The summer sun made that thing an oven and I swear the sweat I feel on a hot day forty years later is the same sweat stored up by my body on that trip.
"Got yer ears on?" my uncle's broken voice would come through the speaker over the sound of rattling junk.
"Go ahead," my dad said.
"We're thinking of pulling over and having a break. Becky doesn't want to piss in a bottle." To this day, my Aunt Becky will not pee in a bottle if you can believe it.
"Ten four, next exit," Dad would say, and the next town we came across we would slow down and as a family scan the town for a pawn shop.
We stopped at every pawn shop along the way because my dad collected antique rifles. Those pawn shops have a place in my memory and heart. May the airconditioning in every pawn shop stay at seventy degrees even as the bought and paid for politicians keep increasing the risk of global heat death so oil executives can sleep with their secretaries at night.
Speaking of family adventures, I went down to the local theater to see Fantastic Four colon First Steps, a family action scifi flick based on a comic book. The story revolves around this family of freaks as they work to stop a giant cosmic babynapper.
The babynapper in question, Galactus, stands tall and looks awesome. They got the "awe" of a walking talking skyscraper coming to crush the planet and eat a baby very correct.
Side bit of crazy to explain: In the regular Marvel world with black widows and Thor, the earth is an egg for a giant baby. Captain America fought a red Indiana Jones for it earlier this year. If that's the same as in fantastic 1950s world then yeah, Galactus is there to eat a baby. Also, Galactus does not want to eat the Richards's baby Franklin but make him a replacement world-devouring superbeing. But how does Galactus know that's possible as he says he was the last person alive when his universe ended? Unless he was a powerful baby and himself is the herald of an end to this universe like the Surfer is a herald to him destroying the world?
Anyway, I love a naked woman on a surfboard telling me I'm going to die by her boyfriend while lamenting the death of trillions, don't you?
Johnny sure does. The handsome excitable member of the team gets to show off his linguistic skills here. That's about all he does except show how fire effects have progressed since the days of "pour gas on Steve and light him up." Computers are taking the fun out of movies.
Also taking the fun is Benn Grimm AKA The Thing AKA the orange cook. Not given much to do other than whine about his catchphrase, wear sweaters, and creep on Natasha Leone. I honestly felt a kinship with him. Leaping libraries, he's a rock.
Finally we have Sue and Reed Richards, a powered couple and new parents who have it all. They work together, they raise their kid, and they fantastic dinner every Sunday. Sue handles the emotional beat of the story by solving world peace and asking her husband to stop being himself because it hurts her. Reed solves all the problems in the movie except being himself by inventing some random shit no one else on the planet might be able to use. Together they work to stop their baby from being taken by a space god by talking about world peace and inventing useless shit. Our world could not all wear masks and stay inside for a few weeks, but then again we didn't have a baby scanning whatsit.
Second side note: The global effort rushes to complete structures to teleport the planet only for the end of the story to be "why not teleport the much smaller and dickish Galactus?" I wanted that noted.
All in all, a fun time at the movies. Marvel diehards can see it in the cinema but everyone else can wait the month before the Disney machine puts it on streaming.