Fantastic Four First Steps is just the latest target
Online, the current bandwagon to jump on is spewing hate for the MCU. Phrases like Superhero Fatigue or MCU is dead are found everywhere you look. And to be totally fair, there is evidence to support that. Lots of evidence. I’m not going to cite the long, extensive list of MCU’s parent company’s failures (except for the Acolyte, which deserves to be shamed at every opportunity). We are all aware of Disney’s skydive sans-chute over the past few years. So, a healthy skepticism is absolutely warranted. It’s earned.
In Defense of Disney (and that ain’t easy)
Thankfully, it seems at least a little hopeful that Disney has finally gotten the hint. The types of content they have been farting out over the past half decade have cost them billions and someone on the higher floors of the Disney Tower of Isengard* finally took notice and changed course. DareDevil: Born Again was good. Mrs Average Dude and I LOVED Skeleton Crew. And I personally thought Thunderbolts was the best superhero movie so far this year. So yes, they’ve heard the siren call of their lost revenue, and that call is too strong to resist.
And that brings us to the long-awaited Fantastic Four First Steps. There are a small army of reviewers out there that have been using the wretched post-Endgame MCU to predict more comic book heresy. Your humbe Average Dude is not one of them. I get why they do it. They’re chasing clicks. Everyone wants to get the latest gossip, and when there’s so much chatter about the decline of Disney, people are gonna click.
Yeah, they dug their own grave, but grace
So sure, mistakes were made and Disney is trying to climb back out of the grave they dug. If you’ve been burned too many times to want to try them again, I get it. I’m not there yet. And I’m for sure not going to hate on their product before I even see it. So I saw it. And guess what? I thought it was pretty good. And especially compared to the tragedy of the 2015 Fant4stic, this movie was amazing. Perspective, people.
Galactus. Finally.
To put to rest all of the doom-criers and nay-sayers, Fantastic Four First Steps was not very woke. Yes, Sue Storm seemed to be the focal point of this team. Sure, Reed was portrayed as more of an egghead than a leader. I wouldn’t necessarily call that wokism. And finally, FINALLY, we get the Galactus we’ve been waiting for since the first FF movie way back in 2005. And they nailed it. Almost. There’s a little too much emotion in the cosmic entity that we grew up with, a little too much pettiness from one who is supposed to be so disconnected that murder on a planetary scale does not affect him. Other than that, they crushed it.
Marvel’s First Family, as the saying goes
As with the comic in its origin, The Fantastic Four are first and foremost about a family. That element came through from the very start and that was satisfying. We can mention the retro-world of Earth 828 (remember that) as being stylishly different and cool. We can ignore that Johnny Storm was as much a brain as he was a ladies man (huh?). And we can overlook that they removed Ben’s classic angst over being transformed into a Thing. We can even tolerate the Shalla-Bal version of the Silver Surfer (never actually called that in the movie). Oh, and lest I forget, the baby playing Franklin Richards was aDORable.
In the end, we got more than the click-bate critics predicted from Fantastic Four First steps. We got a solid, superhero family adventure on a cosmic scale. Not uh, fantastic, but certainly better than we had feared. A good summer blockbuster, nevermind the imperfections from we comic book purists.
So, after a very VERY long wait (because the FF was first hinted at way back in Phase One or Two), I am giving Fantastic Four First Steps a most agreeable 4.3 out of 5, barely edging out Superman but falling short of Thunderbolts. This Fantastic Four will one day be added to the Average Dude movie library, no doubt. Go and see it in a theater and on the very biggest screen. The arrival of Galactus deserves no less.
*The Tower’s name is Orthanc, for you non-LotR nerds out there.
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