The Fantastic Four: First Steps — Fourth time's the charm!

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, action violence and mild profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.10.25 

We’ve certainly waited long enough.

 

After this seminal superhero team’s disastrous earlier big-screen outings — in 2005, ’07 and ’15 — Marvel Cinematic Universe fans and long-time comic book nerds were understandably wary of this new attempt.

 

Ben (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) has a polite "discussion" with the Fantastic Four's helpful
robot, H.E.R.B.I.E., regarding the proper way to cook a meal.

Well, worry no longer. Director Matt Shakman and five credited scripters — Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer and Kat Wood — have done right by this quartet of blue-costumed champions.

You’ll be charmed immediately by the film’s look and atmosphere. Production designer Kasra Farahani establishes a retro-futuristic style that evokes the era when writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby debuted their comic book series in November 1961. It’s a time when recordings still are made via vinyl discs and reel-to-reel tape, with fashion, cars and household accessories in a mischievous, not-quite-accurate reflection of what our grandparents wore, drove and used, back in the day.

 

A television documentary-style flashback celebrates the quartet’s fourth anniversary in a kinder, gentler world — this is Earth 828, in the multiverse — where they’re beloved by everybody, and nations peacefully cooperate amid mutual respect.

 

(God knows, this sure isn’t our Earth.)

 

The flashback clips describe how Dr. Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) and her younger brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn) were bombarded by cosmic rays during an outer space mission, granting them unusual powers as, respectively, the stretchable Mr. Fantastic, the super-strong Thing, the Invisible Woman and the Human Torch.

 

Scenes of the quartet saving civilians during natural disasters are intercut with battles against more ambitious foes; longtime comic book fans will smile when the FF’s first issue cover image monster and villain — the Mole Man — are referenced. Reed and Sue subsequently married, and the quartet established a fancy headquarters in New York’s iconic Baxter Building.

 

Moving to the present day, Shakman and his scripters take their time with the first act, focusing on the quartet’s “down time” behavior and interpersonal dynamics: the “human element” that immediately set Marvel Comics characters apart from their DC competitors (Superman, Batman, etc.). These four people are messy, and they struggle with relatable problems.

 

Reed, the resident scientist, agonizes over decisions big and small, constantly second-guessing himself; Pascal displays the right blend of analytical sharpness and emotional befuddlement. Sue, the group’s heart and calming influence, also is an accomplished diplomat for world peace; Kirby delivers a performance that radiates warmth, caring ... and a ferocious degree of protectiveness.

 

To the casual eye, Ben and Johnny are like squabbling brothers, the latter forever trying to get under the former’s rock-hard skin. Quinn emphasizes his character’s sloppy and often reckless behavior, particularly during a crisis. Moss-Bachrach’s Ben, finally, is the group’s tragic member: forever trapped in an oversized orange body that may delight children, but is a constant reminder that he’s unlikely to enjoy the sort of romantic relationship shared by Reed and Sue.

 

These folks are fun, behind the scenes. They’re like family.

 

The Bad Guys 2: Animated mayhem

The Bad Guys 2 (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for mild rude humor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.3.25 

This madcap adventure is even more fun and crazed than its 2022 predecessor.

 

Director Pierre Perifel definitely knows how to pace an animated action comedy, and he has ample support here from co-director JP Sans, elevated from his previous role as head of character animation for the first film.

 

The Bad Guys — Mr. Wolf, Mr. Shark, Mr. Snake, Mr. Piranha and Ms. Tarantula —
triumphantly confront the owner of the prized item they're about to steal.

The script, by Yoni Brenner and Etan Cohen — once again drawing from Australian author Aaron Blabey’s popular children’s graphic novel series — contains the same blend of visual slapstick and subtly sly adult humor. (As co-producer Diane Ross suggests, in the production notes, the goal is an homage to complex heist films, with a soupçon of Quentin Tarantino.)

As before, this romp takes place in an alternate universe with humans existing alongside anthropomorphized animals, where an oversized shark can successfully impersonate a man half his size. (It’s all in the costume and attitude, donchaknow.)

 

Rather than open precisely where the previous film concluded, we first get a flashback prologue that shows our quintet of bestial baddies — Mr. Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) and Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina) — operating at their larcenous best, stealing a one-of-a-kind sportscar from a vain gazillionaire’s heavily guarded mansion.

 

The resulting vehicular pursuit — totally breathless — showcases Jesse Averna’s imaginative smash-cut editing.

 

Back in the present day, however, the former Bad Guys — having gone straight as the first film concluded — are finding it impossible to obtain gainful employment, since everybody associates them with their larcenous past. The only bright spot is Gov. Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz), who helped secure the group’s freedom, and now maintains an arm’s-length flirty relation with Mr. Wolf.

 

The world still doesn’t know that Foxington formerly was an elusive master thief known as The Crimson Paw.

 

Local law enforcement — headed by the anger-prone Police Commissioner Misty Luggins (Alex Bornstein) — is baffled by a series of high-profile burglaries conducted by an elusive and never-seen culprit. The most troubling detail is that this mysterious individual has been using some of the distraction gimmicks once employed by The Bad Guys ... which turns Luggins’ attention to them.

 

Realizing it’s in their best interest to help identify the actual criminal, Mr. Wolf employs his detail-oriented observational skills to suss out the likely next target for theft; he realizes that all stolen objects were made of a precious metal dubbed MacGuffinite (and there’s a sly joke for long-time movie buffs).

 

Alas, in an increasingly complex escapade laden with double, triple and even quadruple-crosses, things often aren’t what they seem. Except when they sometimes are.

His Three Daughters: Tense, touching and tragic

His Three Daughters (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and drug use

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.20.24

The fact that this film’s title isn’t Three Sisters is telling.

 

Writer/director Azazel Jacobs opens his story in what feels like the middle of the first act.. Katie (Carrie Coon), Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) are gathered inside their father’s New York City apartment. He has neared the end of a battle against cancer, and has just entered hospice care.

 

Nervous exhaustion leads to an unexpectedly tender moment between, clockwise from
top, Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), Katie (Carrie Coon) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne).

The three women, clearly uncomfortable in each other’s presence, cope in ways that enhance the friction between them. 

What follows takes place over the course of three volatile days.

 

Katie, the eldest and most practical, adopts an authoritative, take-charge manner that involves lists, schedules, phone calls, food for each meal, and “behavioral suggestions” that feel more like commands than requests. (She must’ve been hell to grow up with, as a bossy older sister.) Being useful is her way of coping ... but, ironically, she has no control over her teenage daughter back in Brooklyn.

 

Rachel, a casually sloppy, failure-to-launch stoner who spends all her time sports gambling, does her best to stay out of the way ... and particularly away from Katie’s gaze. 

 

The holistic and somewhat shy Christina, who gamely tries to run interference between the other two, chatters constantly about missing her own young daughter, Mirabelle, back at their West Coast home. She calms herself via yoga, and sings Grateful Dead songs to their father, much to the bewilderment of the other two women. Olsen makes Christina a bit too radiant; we halfway expect to see her surrounded by an aura.

 

Being thrown together by this tragic end-game is uncomfortable enough; it’s even worse because the apartment is so claustrophobic. Jacobs and cinematographer Sam Levy filmed in an actual apartment — not a film set, with moveable walls — which further enhances the tight closeness. (I wondered, at times, where the heck Levy put his camera!) The film stock is warm and slightly grainy, which adds a sense that we’re eavesdropping via a lengthy and painfully intimate home movie.

 

The result feels very much like a stage play, and possesses the same dramatic intensity.

 

The tableau opens up only when Rachel goes outside for a fresh toke ... and to escape Katie’s tight-lipped disapproval. This exasperates the building’s security guard, Victor (Jose Febus), who fields complaints from other tenants unhappy about the smell of smoke. (Not marijuana per se, but any smoke.) 

 

Victor’s amused annoyance notwithstanding, he and Rachel clearly are fond of each other.

The U.S. vs. Billie Holiday: A missed opportunity

The U.S. vs. Billie Holiday (2020) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated R, for strong drug content, nudity, sexual candor, violence, lynching images and considerable profanity

By Derrick Bang

J. Edgar Hoover has a lot to answer for.

 

He’s name-checked but never actually seen in director Lee Daniels’ harrowing study of jazz chanteuse Billie Holiday’s final tempestuous decade, available via Hulu. But Hoover’s spirit hovers over an early back-room meeting that includes Sen. Joseph McCarthy (Randy Davison), Roy Cohn (Damian Joseph Quinn), Congressman John E. Rankin (Robert Alan Beuth), Congressman J. Parnell Thomas (Jeff Corbett) and a gaggle of other sclerotic, racist martinets determined to make America safe for their wealthy white friends and colleagues.

 

Despite having been assured by her attorney that she'll be sent to a rehab hospital,
Billie Holiday (Andra Day) is horrified to hear the judge sentence her to "a year and a day"
at West Virginia's Alderson Federal Prison Camp.

By — in this case — removing Holiday from the equation.

 

Not a difficult task, given that her well-publicized heroin habit dovetails nicely with the “war on drugs” championed ruthlessly by U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger (Garrett Hedlund, much too young for this key role).

 

The concern — a primary focus of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’ screenplay, adapted from a chapter in journalist Johann Hari’s non-fiction dissection of the war on drugs, Chasing the Scream — is that Holiday’s signature song, “Strange Fruit,” is “stirring up the masses” (Black and white, it should be mentioned).

 

And, Lord knows, we can’t have that.

 

Daniels’ film is anchored by star Andra Day’s all-in, absolutely mesmerizing portrayal of Holiday: as astonishing an impersonation as could be imagined, even more so given that this is Day’s starring debut. And yes, to anticipate the obvious question: She does all of her own singing … and her replication of Holiday’s ragged, whiskey-soaked, gravel-on-grit delivery is equally impressive.

 

That said, Day isn’t similarly well served by Daniels’ slow, clumsy film, or by some of the odd narrative choices in Parks’ script: most notably a weird framing device involving flamboyantly gay radio journalist Reginald Lord Devine (Leslie Jordan, as a wholly fictitious character), which sets up the flashback that bounces us to February 1947. 

 

It’s a celebratory evening, with Holiday performing before an enthusiastic sell-out crowd at New York’s Café Society, the country’s first racially integrated nightclub. The audience includes Holiday’s friend and occasional lover, Tallulah Bankhead (Natasha Lyonne); her husband Jimmy Monroe (Erik LaRay Harvey); and worshipful ex-soldier Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes).

 

Backstage, we meet Holiday’s loyal family unit: stylist Miss Freddy (Miss Lawrence); hairdresser Roslyn (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), also charged with caring for Billie’s beloved dogs; trumpeter — and frequent heroin partner — Joe Guy (Melvin Gregg); and saxophonist Lester “Prez” Young (Tyler James Williams, all grown up from his TV days in Everybody Hates Chris).

 

The care and attention they pay each other is genuinely touching, throughout the entire film. They’re far more attentive and compassionate than husband Jimmy: merely one of many examples, as we’ll see, of Holiday’s lamentable taste in men.

Irresistible: Aptly titled

Irresistible (2020) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, and perhaps too harshly, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.26.20

Scathing. Savage. Shrewd. Smart.

And hilarious.

Having decided to enter the local mayoral race, Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper, left) proudly
introduces a sheepish Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell) as his wildly over-qualified
campaign manager.

Everything a biting political satire should be.

Writer/director Jon Stewart’s well-timed broadside is a deliciously blistering indictment of the win-no-matter-what mentality that currently polarizes our country. As with all perceptive parables, the message is delivered via a premise and setting writ small: the better to make the point inescapable.

Add a brilliantly assembled cast, and the result is, well, irresistible.

An opening montage breezes through a series of carefully crafted, insufferably staged photo-ops that place past presidential candidates in cozy Midwestern settings: all intended to demonstrate that, no matter their über-wealthy lifestyles, they’re still “one with the humble folk.” The final shot places Democratic National Committee strategist Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell) in the midst of the Trump/Clinton fracas, which — as we know — ends quite badly for the latter.

Much to the delight of Gary’s arch-enemy, Republican National Committee strategist Faith Brewster (Rose Byrne, deliciously snooty).

Elsewhere, times have grown tough for the small rural community of Deerlaken, Wis. When Mayor Braun (Brent Sexton) and the town council reflexively enact cuts that target the local undocumented workers, this proves one callous act too many for Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper), a retired Marine colonel who runs a dairy farm with his adult daughter, Diana (Mackenzie Davis).

Jack, clearly not comfortable with public speaking, nonetheless interrupts the town council meeting with a brief, stirring statement advocating that “We all need to look out for each other.” The moment goes viral via social media, and quickly comes to the attention of Gary, still licking his wounds.

Tantalized by the possibility of winning back voters in America’s heartland, Gary flies across the country and makes an unscheduled visit to the farm, hoping to persuade the apolitical Jack to run for mayor.