Chloe McDermott

Fantastic Four: First Steps takes the iconic characters and uses them to explore an interesting question. What if you said no to saving the world by saving your child?

The main antagonist of this film is a cosmic entity that consumes planets. He sends the silver surfer to herald the end of each one to give them a warning of their impending doom. She is sent to earth this time. The fantastic four are hailed as “the leaders of our world” and thus are sent to space to meet with our antagonist Galactus to try and reason with him. At this point in time Sue Storm is pregnant and ready to pop. Galactus this and alleges this unborn child will become his successor. I.e. your son will become a dark cosmic entity let me have him and I will spare your world from my endless hunger. They say no. Thus, setting up the premise of the film. Sort of…

The thing is you’re probably thinking that the film spends the rest of its runtime wrestling with this bold moral question. If you had to make the choice to sacrifice your child to save the entire planet, would you? Should you? The film spends a shockingly small amount of time on this question and showing the fallout of earth’s protectors refuse to make a sacrifice to protect them all. I am not entirely convinced that we really got to explore this bold theme to it’s true depths. We got a throwaway tv debate, news clips of riots etc. I would have liked to see more. Maybe even some more division within the fantastic four themselves.

However, what the film served us in the end was a half-baked emotional plea from the mother of child that seemingly made the world forgive their ‘heroes. A speech which appeals to the entire population of earth as their children and telling they’d face this as a ‘family’. Which confusingly sets up the fantastic four as parents the knowingly put their ‘children’ in danger. Which just confuses whatever message this film was trying to convey even further. It feels strangely easy for this world to move on from a reasonable anger – to point of riots etc. to actively sacrificing their homes, businesses and electricity at least once a week each month to aid these people. People who could have made a single sacrifice for all of them.

I am not quite sure what to make of this films theme – if can’t tell. I see it being an interesting and bold one but simply not given enough time or air to breathe in such a film. There are just so much other things going on that take up way too much time in the film to really get into the depths it’s trying to get to.  Like how Johnny for example is trying to understand the Silver Surfers language and trying to understand her relationship to Galactus. In doing so they are able to have a conversation, and he is able to understand her own motivations and her sacrifice. There was something very intriguing about this and yet again barely anytime dedicated to it. The most egregious example of this is Mr. Fantastic telling the team he’s pre-emptively sent the police to three different criminal organizations all at once in an attempt to ‘baby proof’ the world. Another interesting moral quandary perfect for a superhero movie. How far is too far? What sacrifices do we make for freedom? Who do we trust to make these decisions? All of that intrigue is almost immediately thrown out for the new theme in the next scene. The only truly worthwhile thing about this film is it is a far better take on these heroes on film than the last few attempts and provides a uniquely nostalgic aesthetic.

If this film wanted to it could have chosen to explore its main theme with much more depth it had great potential to do so. Yet, it chose to skim its surface instead of diving beneath the waves.