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.

 

No Hard Feelings: Not so sure about that

No Hard Feelings (2023) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual content, graphic nudity, brief drug use and relentless profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.23.23

Director Gene Stupnitsky’s bawdy entry can’t decide what it wants to be.

 

At times, it displays the energetic, no-holds-barred raunch typical of classics such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Bridesmaids and There’s Something About Mary. A scrappy beach fight scene here is the stuff of cinema legend.

 

After an enjoyable day at the local boardwalk, Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) is
delighted by the prize that Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) has won for her.

But at other times we’re expected to empathize with the two primary characters as authentic people, with credible feelings and angst.

It’s almost impossible to achieve both goals; the former too frequently undercuts the latter … particularly given the mean-spiritedness of Stupnitsky and John Phillips’ script. The line between funny and cruel is very thin, and this film too frequently slides onto the wrong side.

 

Maddie Barker (Jennifer Lawrence), a longtime resident of the Long Island village of Montauk, is appalled by how incoming rich jerks have transformed her community. Rising property taxes are threatening the house in which she grew up, and which holds the memory of her late mother. Maddie’s jobs as bar maid and Uber driver no longer keep up with the bills, and — as this story begins — her car is repossessed by former short-term lover Gary (Ebon Moss-Bachrach).

 

Now reduced to getting around on roller skates, and lacking the additional Uber income, the situation rapidly becomes even more dire. Then Maddie is alerted to an unusual Craigslist job listing from wealthy helicopter parents seeking somebody to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, and bring him out of his shell before he leaves for Princeton in the fall. The payment: a free Buick Regal.

 

The quotation marks around the word “date” are telling.

 

Although the set-up smells uncomfortably like pimping, Maddie is desperate … and pragmatic; her love life has been limited to a long string a short-timers and one-night stands. How different could this be?

 

She therefore arranges to meet Laird and Allison Becker (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti, both deadpan hilarious), who live in a cluelessly privileged world. Their son, Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman), has no friends, rarely leaves his room, and hasn’t learned to drive; his parents worry that Princeton will eat him alive.

 

Although their ad specified a woman in her “young 20s,” Maddie argues that her 32-year-old self is guaranteed to be “more sensitive” to the situation. (Lawrence is indeed 32.) Laird and Allison accept this rationale, and caution that Percy must never know about the arrangement. (Well, no kidding.) They explain that he volunteers at a local animal shelter, and suggest that Maddie visit as a potential dog adopter.

 

At which point, this film goes off the rails for the first time (and certainly not the last).