“The Fantastic Four: First-Steps” review: an adult shine

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” takes place in the summer of summer superproductions like a square ankle in a round popcorn bucket. The director of prestigious television, Matt Shakman (“Wandavision”) is not inclined to Bretzel himself like the Flexible Reed Richards to please the four quadrants of the Multiplex. Her superhero Staid film plays like a classic science fiction in which adults wearing sweater vests are solemnly reflecting how to resolve a crisis. Looking at him, I felt as adjusted as being nestled at the back of my grandparents’ car in the drive-in.

This restart of the fantastic Four Four franchise – the third in two decades – is closer to “The Day the Earth Still” than epics of frantic and too zero superheroes which came to define modern entertainment. Located on earth 828, an alternative universe that borrows our own atomic age decoration, it does not only look old, it moves old. The tone and rhythm are as safe as Globe Gobbling Galactus, this film deliberately heading in the Alt world of Manhattan. Even its tidy time comes from another era. Less than two hours? Now it’s vintage chic.

“First Steps” resumes several years after four astronauts – Reed (Pedro Pascal), his wife, Sue (Vanessa Kirby), his brother -in -law Johnny (Joseph Quinn) and his best friend Ben (Ebon Moss -Bachrach) – are exploded by cosmic rays that strengthen them with special powers. You may know the tracks better like, respectively, Mr. Fantastic, the invisible woman, the human torch and the thing. For a slight comic relief, they also went around with a robot named Herbie, expressed by Matthew Wood.

Sauté their original story keeps things tight while emphasizing the idea that they are adults installed safely in their capacities to lengthen, disappear, light and clobber. Fans might say that they should be a little more neurotic; The scenario structuralists will be growled, they have no narrative arc. The simple mortals of the Earth 828 respect the team of their brain and their brawn – these are celebrities in a distinguished pre -paparazzi time – but these citizens are also subject to despair when they are not sure that the dad of the work executioner of Pascal will save them.

Lore did it Stan Lee was a married and middle age father aging writing bands when his beloved spouse, Joan, cut him to develop characters who felt personal. The graying, slightly boring Reed was a lambly version of himself: the guy of the ultimate wife with the ultimate woman.

But Hollywood has aged the “picturesque quartet” of Lee, as he called them, at his own risk. Make the four fantastic cool (as the films have tried several times and have not succeeded) and they appear desperately lame. This time, Shakman and the writing team of four people from the script of Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer valued their lameness and restore their dignity. Mr. Fantastic de Pascal is so buttoned that he puts his tie at his dressed shirt.

The scenario is that Sue is preparing to give birth to the first child of the Richards, just like the Herald Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner), alias the silver surfer, the barrels in the atmosphere to politely inform humanity that his galactus boss (expressed by Ralph Ineson) to RSVP-Ed yes to his invitation that he devoured their planet. In a biologically credible touch, the animators added tarnish to its neckline: “I doubt that it is naked,” said Reed uniformly. “It was probably a stellar polymer.”

As a rule, this threat would trigger a crazy crazy Gizmo caper (as he did in the original comic strip). Shakman’s version does not waste its energy or our time on this. It is rather a skinny confrontation between self -control and delicacy, between our modest heroes and a gourmet Titan. It is at the Venn diagram of a cartoon on Saturday morning and a Greek moralist myth.

The film is entirely elegant, from its themes to its architecture to its images. The visuals of the director of photography Jess Hall are clear and punchy: a translucent hand torn from a uterus, a character falling into the attraction of a gaping black hole, a stretched torso like chewing gum, a launch of rocket which cannot peel until we obtain a close-up of everyone by completing their belts. Even in space, the CG is not responsible for dazzling. Meanwhile, Michael Giacchino’s score rises between Bleas of Triumph and Barbershop-Chorus Charm, a combination that can look like a car show revealing the first convertible with tail fins.

There are few fights and less snark. No one presents himself as a budding comic strip. These characters barely raise their voices and often use their capacities on the banal: Sue de Kirby disappears to avoid clumsy conversations, Ben de Mosses-Bachrach, in a nod to his role of escape as master of “The Bear”, uses his powerful fists to hide the garlic. Johnny, the youngest and most literally at the head of the group, is likely to light up when he cannot be disturbed to find a flashlight. He delivers the most nasty joke in a respectful film when he said to Reed: “I take back every bad thing I said about you … To myself, in private.”

Yes, my audience conscientiously laughs at the salads of Jell-O trembling and drools on the Groovy conversation pits in the Richards living room, the only Super Antre in which I lived. The color palette highlights the retro shades of blue, green and gold; Even the extras coordinated their outfits on the fantastic filling. Delighted, when the muscular rocky monster of Moss-Bachrach was walking around the cold meats to buy black and white cookies, he wears a pair of Penny Gargantuan moccasins.

If you want to feel old, the generation of college students who saw “Iron Man” in 2008 on the opening weekend is now starting to raise their own children. Thirty-seven films later, the Marvel cinematographic universe became so unsure of its own mission that it launches films at each level of maturity. The recent “Thunderbolts *” is for adolescents on construction sites, “Deadpool & Wolverine” is the uncle drunk and divorced in a barbecue, and “First Steps” extends a sympathetic hand to young families who identify with the frustration of Reed that he cannot impress the whole galaxy.

Here, for a mass audience, Kirby can resume his under-assured turn to the Oscars in “Pieces of a Woman”, in which she extended a unique 24-minute work scene. This Karaoke extract is good (and even a little opera when the pain makes it dematerialize). I was also impressed by the conscience of the costume designer Alexandra Byrne according to which even the super moms will not return immediately to wear tight spandex. (On the other hand, when Jessica Alba played Sue in “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer in 2007”, the director did not know him to be “prettier” when she cried.)

The most daring of this restart to Progress is that it values emotionally credible performance. Otherwise, Pascal aside, you did not meet this cast for any audiences in addition to criticism and dweebs (me including) which keep a list of racing of their favorite talents at all-tierrain which are ready to unravel at the higher level of their careers while shouting: “It is a time of clicking!”

However, it is not the best role of anyone, and it is an excellent film only compared to Dreck with similar budget. However, it is an exercise worthy of creating something that does not seem nostalgic For an era – it feels of an era. Even if the point of view of the MCU on slow cinema does not sell tickets in our time, I admire the confidence of a film which establishes its own course instead of chasing common wisdom that the public wants 2 and a half years of chaos. Studio leaders continue to insist on nonsense deserve Marvel’s first family to give them a disappointed conversation and send them to their conference rooms without supper.