PG-13 on Disney+, 2025
“End of days. We all gotta learn how to laugh.” Well said, Mole Man—sorry, Harvey Elder—after throwing an astute jab at every one of the Fantastic Four.
In a 1960s-styled future, a world of art deco comes to life with as many real (vs CGI) sets as possible and anti-sexist pokes that might make Betty Friedan at least snort with amusement before critiquing the minutia.
The director says in an interview that the era “of optimism, of looking to the stars” guided choices for props, sets, wardrobe, news clips, etc. by limiting options to what was available to filmmakers in the 60s. Michael Giacchino, who also did the score for Star Trek: Into Darkness, said he got to put a lot of hope and optimism into this soundtrack, which he noted is a rare pleasure.
Enter the four astronauts—a couple, Sue Storm and Reed Richards, and two friends, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm—who encounter a cosmic storm on a trip to space and return with altered DNA and superpowers. The Silver Surfer’s arrival gets the main plot rolling as she hails Galactus who will devour Earth unless Earth turns over the baby… in Sue’s womb.
The dynamics and tensions between the group of four prod at all kinds of human community: not just marriage or siblinghood (Sue and Johnny) or friendship, but, for example, their protectiveness for each other; Ben’s (the Thing’s) wrestling with and making good of what he can’t change about his body (what makes him still human?); Johnny’s attraction to a dangerous outsider (the Surfer); and Reed’s sense of guilt for their superpowers and the troubles they bring.
Sue as a mother is front and centre as she navigates living with these three men: husband, brother and friend. She gives voice to a mother’s instinct to tread a middle ground that many of us haven’t had the words for: “I will not sacrifice my child for this world, but I will not sacrifice this world for my child.” In other words, she tenaciously clings to hope for a better solution than giving up her child.
We should observe closely as the three men take their cues from her instinct, which means stepping past instincts for violence: “I invite the worst possible scenario into my head,” Reed says, “to figure out how to hurt them before they hurt us.” There’s a line to make you think about the psychological cost to those who feel left with no choice except violence to protect those they love.
That said, the movie follows the stereotypical superhero trope of winning by either outsmarting or overpowering the villain. Is that the only solution? On the other hand, it’s a mother’s angry protectiveness who plays a role in the overpowering this time. As a mother, I deeply empathize and long for it to make a difference.
It seems meaningful that the two parents’ superpowers have nothing to do with destruction like clobbering and burning, the way Ben and Johnny are gifted, but with a protective/percussive forcefield, and stretching. This fathering role is becoming familiar for Pedro Pascal aka Reed Richard’s, in keeping with his Lone Ranger-made-vulnerable-by-turning-dad in The Mandalorian and The Last of Us. It’s a well-loved movie trope: the actor who typically plays powerful hero characters assumes a role of having to show tenderness and thus, himself, becomes vulnerable.
Sue is reminiscent of—in contrast to the 1960s stereotype—a mom and wife who both knows her agency and is given agency by the men around her. She proves capable of stirring up empathy from their city’s citizens who cry for the sacrifice she refuses to make, and of pouring all the unusual power she has into protecting her baby. On her way there, she manages to be an astronaut, not the primary cook at home, and invisible at will rather than treated as such.
With all this focus on mothering, it’s not a mistake that Galactus’s name invokes the idea of a galaxy, which is based on the Greek galactos which means . . . milk. The ancient Greek myth tells of the mother whose milk spilled across the sky.
Don’t you go raising your eyebrow! These are exactly the things that should inform our venture into the galaxias kyklos (milky circle) to counter millennia of colonization on Earth. Sue Storm has wisdom worth exploring to better protect planets and people.
A worthy watch.
P.S. The clap was the real baby actor at exactly the right moment. You’ll see what I mean. Also, how many superhero men does it take to get a baby seat installed?
“The Fantastic Four” review written by Jazmine Lawrence, Captain (Retired, RCAF), BSc Honours Physics, MA (Theology) student, future sci-fi author