Super, Thanks For Asking
New films starring Marvel's First Family and DC's Big Blue Boy Scout hit theatres a fortnight apart; they have more in common than you might think
If you absolutely must spend a fortune going to the movies, having the staff of Hoyts Botany Downs bring you a BBQ chicken/bacon pizza half an hour into Fantastic Four: First Steps while you recline in the company of someone you love and look down on the mortals below in their bland seats, sensing what it must be like for the upper class even if just for a couple hours.
This is where I found myself on Wednesday night as I took in the latest film from Marvel Studios, Part 37 in their record-breaking, block-busting big screen spectacle, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Fantastic Four: First Steps is the second MCU film in a row that I have thoroughly enjoyed, the first being Thunderbolts* (and I didn’t dislike Captain America: Brave New World, so they’re on a run). Add to that Superman, the first big screen entry to the James Gunn-led DC Universe, which I also thoroughly enjoyed, and it seems like superhero movies are on a hot streak.
Wait. Are we back? ARE WE BACK?!
I think we’re back!
(Heavy spoilers after the jump.)
I’m not going to get into a review of any of these films. I am totally biased - I love superhero movies, I love monster movies, and I love going to the cinema and chowing down on some Maltesers. It makes me feel like a kid again.
What I will say is that Fantastic Four: First Steps does something that Marvel Studios used to do really well. If you go back and watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Spider-Man: Homecoming or Ant-Man, you’ll see a spy thriller, a coming-of-age drama, a heist movie.
First Steps adopts a retro-futurist style in service of a family movie - as in, a film about a family and the interpersonal drama therein. The Incredibles is the most obvious touch-point and it has a lot in common (not least the music of Michael Giacchino). It also features a lot more science fiction than I was expecting, visually aping Interstellar and delivering a story more akin to something like Arrival with the world-building of The Matrix.
It’s the first time in a while that a Marvel movie has felt like it embraced a genre identity (and, sure, some genre tropes) that wasn’t just ‘marvel movie’.
It also has something in common with Superman, the DCU film that dropped a fortnight earlier: both films don’t shy away from working in elements of the comic books on which they are based that it feels like superhero movies have put to the side in the last couple of decades as they sought legitimacy.
That means we get the robot assistant H.E.R.B.I.E. on screen for the first time, and he almost steals the film in a sequence where he baby proofs the Baxter Building. We get the Fantasticar, the flying vehicle the team uses to keep up with Johnny Storm. We get the comic accurate look of Galactus for the first time ever, brought to life by British actor Ralph Ineson. We get a version of Mole Man (played by Paul Walter Hauser in a scene-stealing turn) that is as wacky as the name implies. Giganto shows up in a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo. It rules.
Superman did it big though. Aside from bringing back the suit colour palette from the Reeve movies (it looks amazing, fam), we get a version of Krypto The Super Dog; Metamorpho plays a significant role for the first time in live action; Hawkgirl and Mr Terrific are back for their second turns following parts in the Arrowverse; abrasive Green Lantern Guy Gardner makes his big screen debut complete with his terrible bowl haircut; The Engineer and Ultraman are both here, both for the first time in live action; and the wider staff of the Daily Planet are all here as well, including a small arc for Jimmy Olsen.
We’ve got the countries of Jarhanpur (first appeared in comics in 2002) and Boravia (first appeared in 1939), we’ve got Lex Luthor’s goons, we’ve got pocket universes and black holes and a river of anti-protons and a horrific character named Mister Handsome and a squirrel rescue and a kaiju and a Supergirl cameo and a Peacemaker cameo and so much more.
If you’re a nerd (like me) and love comic books and comic book movies (also like me), these two are a veritable feast.
But more than that, both films boast something that is sorely missing from most superhero movies of the past decade: charm.
With few exceptions, superhero movies in the last two decades have taken their visual and tonal cues from Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy: dark and gritty, consequential, often anticlimactic. The wins come with unexpected costs that force the heroes to make tough choices and confront demons.
Superman and Fantastic Four: First Steps are consequential, and the heroes face tough choices (and in one instance, have to make an awkward decision about a baby; the name ‘First Steps’ doesn’t refer to the Richards’).
Both films confront these things without losing the charm and inherent goodness of their characters. Sure, Superman has always been a bit of a goodie-goodie, and the central characteristic of the Fantastic Four is their cohesion as a family unit. But the writing doesn’t contradict that in any way.
In both cases, I walked out of the theatre feeling really good. Superman and Fantastic Four: First Steps are fun. They’re entertaining. They’re a bit silly at times. But they are feel good throughout. When the chips are down, its the best qualities of humanity - love and compassion - that gets them back on top. And in that way, Thunderbolts* fits too; its love and compassion that wins there, too.
I loved all three films - but especially Superman and First Steps. I don’t know if (or even think) this is the dawn of a new golden age in superhero film-making. But I sure hope this feel-good trend continues.
Thanks for reading everyone - I’ll be back tomorrow.
See you then, Chris xo