On an alternate Earth from the regular MCU timeline (Earth 828, if you're interested), the Fantastic Four: Reed Richards (Pascal), his wife Sue (Kirby), her brother Johnny (Quinn), and Reed's best friend Ben (Moss-Bachrach) are the preeminent superhero team. Indeed, if there are other superheroes, we don't see them. They've brought the world fantastic technology and world peace, and on the four anniversary of their historic space flight that gave them superpowers, a silvery woman on a flying surfboard (Garner; the woman, not the surfboard) shows up and tells the world that Galactus is coming to eat the planet.
The Four, of course, follows her into space, despite the fact that Sue is super-pregnant at the time (which you might think is irresponsible, but I wouldn't leave the most powerful member of my team home, either). They follow her all the way to Galactus (Inseon), who tells them he'll spare the Earth if they give him the baby, whereupon Sue goes into labor.
They get back to Earth and Reed, having all the guile of a three-year-old, tells the world of Galactus' offer, and the world very reasonably responds "yeah, that sucks, but dude if the world is eaten YOUR KID DIES ANYWAY SO UM". But the Four know what genre they're in and come up with a plan to teleport the Earth away (which the Surfer fucks up) and then a plan to teleport Galactus away by using baby Franklin as bait (which the Surfer winds up aiding).
I was reflecting last night that this movie should have had a much bigger emotional impact than it did. I mean, every parent in the theater should have been squirming in their seat. Hell, my daddy alarm went off during Snakes on a goddamn Plane, but not once during this movie. Why?
Something Michelle said last night after we watched the movie and we were poking around online about (often after we watch a movie we'll both look up fun facts about it) gave me a clue. She said that a lot of the on-set effects were practical, but then covered by CGI in the final version. And, I dunno, there's a polished, almost sanded-down vibe to the movie in a lot of places? Like, it feels cartoony in a way that most of the other MCU movies don't?
But on the other hand, it absolutely has its own aesthetic, it's different from the previous Fantastic Four movies (thank god), and the chemistry between the cast is fantastic (lol). Pascal is great as always, and I like the take on Reed as being the guy who thinks of all possibilities, even the unthinkable ones. The standout is Kirby as Sue. Sue's an interesting character; she was very much Girl in the older comics, but the version of Sue I know is from stuff like Fantastic Four vs. X-Men where she's legit a badass. I wish we'd gotten to see the scene with Mole Man (Hauser) that was cut from the final version, just because it's cool seeing her do something without the rest of the family. Quinn and Moss-Bachrach as Johnny and Ben are likewise good, Quinn is maybe the weakest of the four performances, but he's not bad, he's just not written as interestingly.
The look of the movie is impressive, and, like I said, very distinctive. The superhero action is OK; I kind of wish we'd gotten a little more of it or gotten to see the Four doing some heroics that weren't related to the main plot (they filmed a sequence with John Malkovich as Red Ghost and we only get to see a couple seconds, which is a bummer).
I dunno. I like this movie, but it feels like a placeholder, just to get the Four (and Franklin) into the MCU so that they can be in Doomsday. That doesn't mean it's bad or even unentertaining, I just feel like it maybe could have hit harder.
My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium-high
Rewatch Value: Medium-high
Next up: Frenzy
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