Agility and fragility are effortlessly married in this, the most lucid and coherent super-hero film since Man invented Marvel & DC.
Let’s cut to the chase. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a treat, a sumptuous treat. It is one helluva good-looking film with charismatic actors pitching in like there is no tomorrow. Which happens to be the literal truth, if we consider that the world is under attack by a space-god named Galactus.
Yeah, yeah, I know. In how many ways is this world going to be saved by the superheroes, right? Give us, and them, a break, will you…
But hold on! This is not the usual Superheroes versus Super-villain saga clogged to the brim with show-offy special effects. There is more here… more emotional velocity, more compelling drama. Most of all, there is a cute baby involved this time, and he must be saved before the world.
I loved the maternal conflict coming into play with the larger interest of humanity. And when the fantastic (pun intended) Vanessa Kirby as the mother comes out in the public view to declare that she won’t sacrifice her baby to save the world, but neither would she sacrifice the world for the baby, I actually sprang out of my seat to applaud her ceetee-scan moment.
How important self-preservation has become, and how to balance our world with the world outside, that’s the theme The Fantastic Four: First Steps nails noiselessly. There is lot more quiet wisdom in this super-hero film that any we’ve seen in recent times.
Director Matt Shakman and his screenwriters Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer spring a sumptuous surprise on us. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is at once spectacular and intimate. The baby steals the show, just as the dog in the recent Superman. Unlike the unsettling (but nonetheless hugely entertaining) hijinks in Superman, The Fantastic Four creates an enviable balance between the spectacle and the emotions.
Admittedly, the aero-dynamics in the film are agreeable and unignorable. But it is not all up in the air this time. The writers have rightly focussed on the human element. This is, at the end of the day, the story of a mother who must protect her baby at any cost. In her epic endeavour, Sue Storm (aka the Invisible Woman) is enthusiastically supported by her husband Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), her kid brother Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) and of course the Thing, an outwardly ugly reptilian soul, humanized by the plot to the extent that he appears to be the most emotional of the foursome.
This is where this segment of the series scores over its 2015 predecessor. This time, the emotions matter. When the superhuman quarter is not busy saving the world it does what we all do: look for spaces to cuddle into.
A remarkable additional character is The Silver Surfer played by Julia Garner, a marvel of motion capture, her journey from a world destroyer to a conscientious evil-buster reminded me of the vamps from Hindi cinema in the past. The cabaret is missing. The drama is not.
There is a traffic of old-world charm swamping the plot. The film’s 1964 setting is never over-emphasized. But the way Times Square is retro-created is a worthy topic for a thesis. So much bang-on nostalgia, so many able actors, so much food for thought on family and the larger community… But my hero, superhero, is the baby Franklin. Can’t wait to see what he does in the next instalment .
