Apparently the fourth time is actually the charm! Fantastic Four: First Steps is a breath of fresh air. It’s fun, heartfelt and visually unique. The story is simple but straightforward and doesn’t require a lot of prior MCU knowledge to enjoy making it a good entry point for newcomers. Some may feel the plot has some ridiculous and outlandish traits such as Reed’s plan to save Earth from Galactus but I feel it is very much in the spirit of the type of Stan Lee story you’d find in the early comics. There’s plenty of great winks, nods and easter eggs for comic fans to appreciate especially in the montage sequence early on in the film.
The theme of the Fantastic Four has always been one of family and I thought the film did a good job in establishing those familial dynamics. From the brotherly quips and barbs between Ben and Johnny to the marital affection and bickering between Sue and Reed. The sense of family bonds and camaraderie is strongly woven throughout the film.
I loved the retro-futuristic 1960’s setting of the film. Everything from the costumes to the designs of the gadgetry, the Excelsior spaceship and the Fantasti-Car really added to the visual character of the film and helped set it apart from the main MCU Earth.
The cast is good but is gonna take me some time to get used to. Vanessa Kirby is the standout of the group and is embodies Sue Storm perfectly right from the opening scene. She felt very much like the leader of the team even more so than Reed. I felt Pedro Pascal was probably the weak link, I’m not saying his performance was bad but perhaps he just needs more time to really make the character his own. While I think Pedro encompassed the main traits of Reed well enough, he definitely played him in a more reserved, soft spoken manner compared to how he was portrayed in the comics where the character was more outgoing and assertive. Coupled with the fact that Pedro has also starred in other recent popular franchises like “The Mandalorian” and ”The Last of Us”, perhaps I’m just suffering from Pedro Pascal fatigue.
The film is light on the action at least compared to most other Marvel films but the action sequences it does have hit the mark well as they feature some genuine thrills, tension and a sense of grandeur. The first time Galactus makes his appearance is epic and fittingly awe-inspiring in scale and scope. It was a treat to finally to see Galactus done justice. Everything about him was perfect from the comicbook accurate design to his booming, larger than life voice.
Michael Giacchino who’s been responsible for a couple of Marvel’s more memorable scores including Dr. Strange and Spiderman: Homecoming delivers another solid soundtrack. The main theme for First Steps is light, recognizable and catchy.
I won’t spoil the mid-credit scene here but if you’ve been paying attention you probably know what it pertains to. While the tease in and of itself is exciting I thought it could have been executed a bit better. The second credit scene is unfortunately of the “skip it” variety. I think an extra stinger that followed up on the fates of Galactus and Silver Surfer would have been a more preferable coda to the film.
Overall, it's a very sincere and uplifting movie that channels the classic Jack Kirby and Stan Lee inspired spirit of the First Family’s early adventures. Go see it!
My Humble Thoughts On Captain America: Brave New World:
(Minor Spoilers)
A solid, entertaining and action packed solo outing for Sam Wilson’s Captain America! I thoroughly enjoyed it! For whatever reason this film received a lot of bad press during its production cycle concerning various issues ranging from story rewrites, filming reshoots, to rumored poor test screenings. Even now after its release the critics have not been kind either. I’m not sure why there was so much ill will toward this movie or why a certain section of the fandom seems to want Marvel to fail but despite whatever difficulties the film may have gone through, I think much of the perceived issues were unwarranted and some of the harsh criticism unfair.
Is this a perfect film? No of course not but I’m not sure what people want from these movies anymore. They can’t all be “Infinity War” levels of stakes, action and epic scope. For me if these movies provide an interesting story simple or complex that keeps me engaged, has good character dynamics with emotional development mixed with the right amount of humor and thrilling superhero style action I usually walk out of the theater happy.
Brave New World may not have the best script and it can be a bit exposition heavy at times but I thought it had an interesting plot with a mix of elements including mystery, conspiracy, espionage
and even some “Manchurian Candidate” type machinations. I would compare the feel of this film to that of CA: The Winter Soldier. I’m not saying this is as good as that film was but its grounded-ness and serious tone definitely reminded me of CA:TWS which I very much liked and
appreciated. The cast involved were all on point and each brought their “A” games. Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford especially deliver standout emotional performances. While in smaller roles Giancarlo Esposito and Tim Blake Nelson both shined in menacing fashion as the film’s villains.
The action meanwhile was very high caliber. The fights were fast, hard hitting and easy to follow. An aspect of the fights I’m glad they included is that they showed that Sam could and often did get injured reiterating the fact that Sam is a hero with no super powers or super soldier type serums. He’s human and can be hurt. The set pieces were equally as thrilling with the highlight coming of course when the Incredible (Red) Hulk finally emerges causing all sorts of brutal carnage and destruction. If you watched every piece of preview footage before seeing the film, I feel sorry that you probably had most of Red Hulk’s awesomeness spoiled for you beforehand.
If I had any complaints it would simply be with The Leader’s (Tim Blake Nelson’s character) physical appearance/design. Early reports, leaked promo art and even the Funko Pop figure depicted a much more comic accurate looking design with the elongated head and goatee beard. For whatever reason this was changed to a different look, with him now having more of a mutated exposed brain instead of the giant, elongated head. He still looked pretty cool however and perhaps the redesign did fit in a bit better with the film’s grounded aesthetic. (Edit: Upon browsing through some older comic book material, the redesign is actually a bit more evocative of how The Leader appeared in Peter David's early Hulk run specifically Incredible Hulk #342 where Leader's head was more bulbous and brain textured than the (up to that point) classic elongated forehead look. Whether the final movie design was intentionally referencing that alternative comic book appearance or not is anyone's guess, I just had completely forgotten about it.)
Lastly, the film’s other shortcoming would have to be its music score. Unfortunately nothing of it really stood out for me. It was more of an atmospheric, moody type score. No memorable themes that I can recall and I don’t think Sam got a theme of his own. If he did I just didn’t notice it. No reprise of the original Cap theme either (which would have fit well in a couple scenes) unless I missed it. To be fair I also thought CA:TWS score was kind of lackluster the first time I saw that movie too but I gained a better appreciation for it after repeat viewings. Perhaps I will with BNW’s as well hopefully. So all in all I was very happy with this movie! Once again, don’t let the negative press and critic’s reviews get you down. Go see it and just have a fun time at the movies! ⭐⭐⭐½
Random AF observation but it’s weird they dropped Carol frustratingly saying “not again!” in the shot after she crashes into the Kahn’s dining room table. That shot was featured so much in all the trailers and spots I guess I got used to it that way, now it’s odd without the line. 🤷🏻♂️
The Marvels - Deleted Scene "Captain in Residence"
Another deleted scene set to be included on the blu-ray has officially been released by IGN! This is the much publicized second Valkyrie cameo scene in which she ends up talking to Kamala who inadvertently finds herself on Captain Marvel's ship after another power switch-a-roo. The scene is entitled, "Captain in Residence".
(This scene also features the deleted bit of Carol asking herself "what is happening to me?" which appeared in one of the trailers.)
First deleted scene entitled "It's Under Control" officially released!
(So glad they're including the other Valkyrie scene in the deleted scenes.)
The Film will release digitally on January 16th!
4K/Blu-Ray/DVD on February 13th!
Special Features to include:
FEATURETTES
Entangled – Take a cosmic trip behind the scenes on The Marvels with the cast and crew of the film.
Learn how director Nia DaCosta and the team took on such a vast production, and dive deeper with more details about Marvel’s first ever musical number.
The Production Diaries – Experience the lively, upbeat set of The Marvels as cast and crew recall candid and heartwarming moments, along with hilarious anecdotes.
DELETED SCENES
Captain-in-Residence – Kamala finds herself in Carol's ship after an unexpected switch and incredulously picks up a call from Valkyrie.
It's Under Control – Carol, Kamala, and Monica find themselves brainstorming for solutions on Aladna.
Space Yoga – Muneeba teaches yoga while an exasperated Nick Fury looks on.
The Chase – Chaos ensues as Ty-Rone chases Kamala in a tension-filled scene.
GAG REEL
Watch some hilarious outtakes on set with the cast and crew of The Marvels.
AUDIO COMMENTARY
Listen to co-writer/director Nia DaCosta and VFX Supervisor Tara DeMarco talk about the film.
From the artbook: some cool concept designs for The Ennead council of Gods in their true forms. In the final production the Ennead do not appear in their true forms and are instead represented by their human avatars when they gather for an audience with Khonshu inside the Great Pyramid of Giza.
This is something I wish would have made it into the final show. Even upon first viewing I felt a bit of a letdown that the Gods simply appeared as their human avatars. I think the scene would have had a much bigger impact seeing all the God characters in their truly unique and exotic forms.
The book doesn't specify a reason as to why this concept was dropped. Considering that they already had Khonshu, Tawaret and Ammit appearing as completely CG or CG enhanced characters, It wouldn't surprise me if The Ennead had to be scrapped for budgetary reasons as some or all of these characters likely would have added to the CG character workload. Just my speculation. Statues of The Ennead's true forms do however adorn the council chamber in the finished scene.
The actor starred as Kang the Conqueror in 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania' and was poised to star in 'Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.'
Breaking News: It’s now official. Jonathan Majors is out as Kang and his various variants.
How do you feel Marvel should handle things moving forward in regards to Kang and the Multiverse Saga? A recast is definitely the simplest solution especially as the the nature of the multiverse story already has the built-in explanation of variants and not all variants of the same person looking the same.
The other solution that’s been swirling around the rumor mill is the multiverse storyline being dropped altogether and having a new big bad like Dr. Doom replace Kang. While the general consensus is that the Multiverse Saga hasn’t been handled very well by Marvel thus far, I still feel they should see it through to the end. Abandoning the storyline at this point is not realistic as too many things are already in motion. Loki S2 ended with Loki keeping the multiverse alive and becoming its guardian, The Marvels ended with Monica Rambeau trapped in the X-verse and Deadpool 3 is set to be another multiverse spanning adventure. So yeah I think a Kang recast is a much smoother transition than a story rewrite would be. The question now is who would be a good candidate to take over the role of Kang? Thoughts?
While I still wish The High Evolutionary had had his comic accurate armor and mask, the character himself remained pretty true to his comic book counterpart and Chukwudi Iwuji gave an excellent performance. Despite the absence of the classic suit, James Gunn still included some cool callbacks to various moments from the comics. These two references are from the 2015 run of Uncanny Avengers - "Counter-Evolutionary". The statue of The High Evolutionary on Counter-Earth (issue #2) and the reveal of The High Evolutionary's true disfigured face (issue #5).
The Marvels is a short film clocking in at 1 hour and 45 minutes. Such a brisk running time might lead one to believe that a lot of material was left on the cutting room floor. As with all films there's always stuff that's removed or changed during the editing process. However even with an overwhelming amount of marketing footage shown before the film's release and two early test screening leak descriptions, it appears The Marvels actually had its story and structure locked in pretty early on.
The trailers are often a good source for some bits of footage that didn't make the final cut but with The Marvels, there was very little that was shown in all the various previews that didn't make it into the final film. Once the Blu-ray/Disney+ material comes out we'll probably see more deleted scene evidence uncovered. For now here's what I've gathered together so far: (SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM)
The film's plot was leaked last year from an early rough cut test screening. Much of it proved to be very accurate. This summary was the first to report that Valkyrie would have a cameo in the film. This was true as Valkyrie appears aboard Carol's ship via the Bifrost to take the Skrull refugees to Earth after Dar-Benn attacks their sanctuary planet. According to the leaked summary there was originally another scene in which Valkyrie appeared. (I'm guessing here, but I'd assume this other scene most likely would have happened before the escorting of the Skrulls scene.) The leaked summary describes this scene as follows; at one point Kamala is alone on Carol's ship when Valkyrie calls. Valkyrie asks whom she's speaking to and where Carol is. Kamala responds, "I'm Ms. Marvel" and Valkyrie asks "She (Carol) got married again and didn't invite me AGAIN?" Kamala quickly clarifies the MISS part or her title. Valkyrie's line obviously foreshadowing the fact that would be revealed later in the film that Carol is married to Aladna's Prince Yan.
This early summary also described Dar-Benn as using her bangle to "power a weapon" which would steal the resources of the various planets. In the final film, there is no secondary weapon. Dar-Benn simply uses the bangle to both open up portals and extract the planet's resource. Due to the rough-cut state of the film shown in the test screening this could have been either a misinterpretation by the viewer or there actually was a separate weapon in that particular rough cut and they just decided to streamline things by having the bangle perform both tasks. Who knows. Based on this info I myself incorrectly predicted and assumed early on that the huge diamond-shaped ship might have been this "weapon" in the film. But it ended up being just Dar-Benn's Kree flagship of sorts.
Another test screening took place around June 2023 with a leaker corroborating on Reddit what was described in the first plot summary and adding a couple other details which had not been revealed up to that point. One being that the post credit scene would feature another variant of Monica's mother, Maria Rambeau and that Kate Bishop would make a cameo appearance. Both these details turned out to be true too but with one minor difference. This report described the film opening with Kamala recounting the film's events to a mystery person not revealed until the end. This person would turn out to be Kate Bishop. So while the scene with Kamala recruiting Kate still ended up at the end of the film, it appears that Marvel toyed with the idea of having the film's events being narrated retroactively, similar to how Iron Man 3 was Tony recounting his story to Bruce Banner.
As I stated earlier there wasn't much from the trailers that wasn't included in the film but there were a couple. One bit involved Monica during the initial round of location swapping. When Monica switches places while investigating the jump-point in orbit near Earth, she ends up on the barren planetoid where Carol was previously. In the film we see Monica crash onto the planetoid but don't see her get switched back to her original location. The teaser trailer shows a few seconds of Monica getting attacked by the same Kree soldiers Carol had just encountered on the barren planetoid. Monica attempts to use her powers to defend herself but switches again with Carol. You can see the insignia of Carol's suit begin to rematerialize before the trailer cuts away.
Another deleted scene that was described in the leaked plot summary involved Carol and Monica traveling to Hala where the Kree are celebrating the return of rain and water to their drought stricken planet. Carol has a crisis of conscience realizing that the "Annihilator" title the Kree labeled her with was accurate from their point of view. There's a brief shot from this scene shown in the theatrical trailer, with Monica and Carol standing in front of a rain soaked window with the Hala cityscape outside it. A line of dialogue from Monica plays over it, "You are not the only thing standing between this and the universe."
In recent interviews following the film's release, Iman Vellani has revealed details on some scenes that were either changed, shortened or cut altogether. From Yahoo:
Monica Rambeau was originally going to be christened with her codename, Photon during the climax of the film right before she repaired the tear in space-time. Vellani commented, "It was a cool moment, but I think they took it out for a good reason." The original scene had the Marvel trio using their powers together to repair the tear. "It wouldn't make sense tonally if Monica is about to sacrifice herself and we're like, 'But your code name!'"
The song/dance sequence on Aldna was originally longer. "The song itself was much longer, and so much fun. There was a beat where Carol starts singing before she dances with the prince - that was pretty funny. And there's a moment where Kamala starts singing, too." - This one isn't too surprising. The leaked summary even made a comment that the sequence went on for way too long in the test screening cut. This was a scene I thought would potentially be pretty cringey but didn't actually end up bugging me. Although a longer version of it most likely would have wore out its welcome pretty quickly.
Some other little beats that got scrapped from the theatrical cut included an early scene where Kamala switches places with Carol and ends up on her starship, not immediately realizing she's in the same domicile where her hero resides.
There was also a longer version of the final encounter with Kate Bishop. "Hailee and I had a really fun back and forth," "Tonally, it wouldn't have made sense if we kept joking about [the Young Avengers team], but we were having so much fun bouncing off each other."
Lastly, a few more cut tidbits via @CanWeGetSomeToast on X/Twitter:
Kamala wasn’t able to take off her bangle and was imprisoned/tortured by Dar-Benn.
Captain Marvel and Valkyrie were explicitly together in the past (cut quote: “we work better as friends”) but Disney are cowards.
Prince Yan was supposed to gift each of The Marvels with a new suit, right before gathering his army. Monica had her comic accurate wings at first, but it was too much for her so she tore them off.
Kamala’s new suit originally turned into a space-suit, which would’ve been used to join Carol and Monica to close the rip in space-time TOGETHER.
The Marvels is a fun, brisk (perhaps too brisk), light-hearted buddy super-herione adventure. However, the things that Marvel has been struggling with lately are unfortunately still in the play with this sequel. The plot is pretty thin and the villain is another of Marvel's typical shallow, one dimensional type baddies. While we can certainly understand and even sympathize with Dar-Benn's motivations and why she's doing the things she's doing in this film there just isn't enough meat on the script bones for actress, Zawe Ashton to work with although she well with what she's given. The same goes for the plot. The acts that the villain is perpetrating on the planets and its people in this film definitely qualify as high stakes material but the film's pace is so rapid that it ignores any opportunity to show some emotional stakes for the victims of the villain's atrocities.
So while the film downplays these aspects it chooses to focus more on the relationships between the three heroines. In that respect it does a decent job of bonding these three young women along the course of the film into a sisterly dynamic. Each have issues with each other positive and negative and by the end they've been able to work through their issues and understand each other better. Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani have good chemistry together with Iman continuing to charm and delight as Kamala Kahn/Ms. Marvel. Sam Jackson is great as Fury as usual and has some of the funnier lines in the movie. And let's not forget Goose the cat/flerken who kinda stole the show in the first movie. She's back and is involved a lot more this time to equally humorous results.
I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the fights in this film. I thought they were hard hitting, well choreographed and fun to watch. The fight between Monica and Kree soldiers in the Kahn's house was a stand out sequence which I thought made clever use of her powers. The end fight between the trio and Dar-Benn was also equally exciting . The visual effects were very good and consistent throughout which is another area where Marvel has been struggling lately. With this film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Loki Season 2, the VFX quality appears to be back on track.
Honestly my biggest gripe would be with the marketing department for this film. The amount of trailers, tv spots and clips released for this film was ridiculous. I only watched the first two trailers and maybe a couple of the tv spots and I felt like I had seen most of movie already. I watched the rest of the clips afterwards and was shocked at how much more of this movie was spoiled in the clips I hadn't watched beforehand. Even the surprise cameo and part of the fricking post credit scene was shown in a couple of the spots! If you're someone who did watch every bit of footage that was released I can honestly say you saw most of the movie beforehand and that's unfortunate. Given the film's short runtime you can rest assured there was a lot of material cut from the final film. I've already noticed a few things that were in the marketing footage and test screening leaks that were missing from the final cut.
Overall, despite a simplistic story and a forgettable villain this movie is still a lot of fun. While it is mostly standalone in nature, it is also very much a sequel to not only Captain Marvel but WandaVision and Ms. Marvel as well. (Surprisingly there's zero reference to Secret Invasion despite the Skrulls having a role to play in this film but that's probably for the best given how poor that series turned out to be.) The post-credit scene however is a game changer and hints at some exciting possibilities to come. ⭐⭐⭐
