The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

Like the other big summer superhero blockbuster this year, Superman, it would seem that the MCU has again decided that origin stories are sometimes not the way to introduce a well-known hero. Er, heroic family. As if we didn't already know and love Marvel's so-called "First Family," and been treated to multiple previous iterations of them, the writers here smartly toss us into the thick of the Fantastic Four career. We're expected to keep up, and to learn the lore of this particular version of the team as we go. That's not entirely fair; we are given some exposition in the form of a thickly stylized, televised news bulletin, a sort of miniscule mockumentary about the beloved celebrities and how they came to be. But even this narrative device feels more a product of the film's production design than a straightforward means of dumping necessary background info. Because director Matt Shakman (WandaVision, Cut Bank, and exceptional experience in television) does effective worldbuilding and stylistic amalgamation better than most in this ever-expanding genre.

I won't rehash the plot here, but it's nothing new, either for fans of the Fantastic Four or for anyone who's ever seen a superhero movie. But it works -- and works quite well --  as a result of its production design and its earnest, grounded performances. 

Kasra Farahani's (Loki) production design is rich and tactile, evocative and fanciful, and it's just astonishing to behold. As this film is set on an alternate Earth (828, rather than our familiar 616), he isn't bound to specific time or style. He evokes multiple decades from the mid-twentieth century in colors, shapes, textures, fabrics, and general visual splendor, crafting a truly mid-century modernity that feels ripped from any number of period titles, if nothing more obviously than The Jetsons. The dreams, in those days, of space have been immortalized in our cultural mind (think October Sky or The Vast of Night) as aspirational and perfect. Or fanciful yet, to our mind, distinctly old-fashioned in form (think some of the tech in the original Star Wars or Alien, right?). I mean, here we have a cute-as-heck robotic butler named HERBIE yet also large, chunky computers and impractical restrictions on navigating a city when not flying. And there are just enough actual things from our own mid-century brand names and products present in this film that the details are never less than engrossing: which bits are real, and which were manufactured for this alternate reality?

The lead performances are all solid, and I especially appreciated the actors seemingly toning down what could easily have been hammy roles. Especially given the heavy retro-'60s color scheme and trappings, these guys could have overplayed a lot. Heck, as much as I've enjoyed the 2005/2007 and 2015 films of this team, those were all overplayed with nearly opposite energies. Shakman keeps this one pretty even-keel tonally, giving the team enough time to settle in and make their characters comfortable and lived-in. As we're picking up the threads of their collective dynamic, we're able to sense that these four have long since developed a real family vibe, and we never doubt their mutual affection or respect. It's pretty magical ensemble work. There's also a sort of sub-theme here, which becomes apparent as the plot develops, of what happens to an insular group when public opinion eventually turns on them; that's a bit too timely right now, so I'm not going to attempt fleshing out that observation.

Thus, the interpersonal drama of the team didn't wholly work for me, but I'm well aware that's a "me" problem. Stories that hinge on soon-to-be-parents and obsession over infant health and safety are simply not interesting to me, and while I appreciated this Johnny's comparatively respectable cocksurety and subtle undermining of himbo expectations, the relationships between the teammates all felt predicated on the obnoxiously unassailable specter of The Child. To be fair, one must consider the rest of the plot to appreciate why there is so much ad nauseum focus on The Child: the villain of this story, cosmic god Galactus (and, by extension, his Silver Surfer, much as we saw in the 2007 film), plans to basically devour Earth to temporarily satiate his eternal hunger, until he divines that Reed and Sue's baby is powerful enough to be his next vessel. The specifics remain unclear in how any of this works, of course, but the malicious focus on needing this baby provides thematic closure (or, arguably, purpose) for the screenplay's endless obsession with it.

I do think this story, simple as it is, is remarkably effective in introducing us to these characters and their role in the MCU. Most origin stories are simple for a reason: new names, new personalities, new themes, new locations, it's all a lot to take in. So we need a basic narrative formula to tie all those things together in a more palatable form. There's a reason Moon Knight, for example, needed multiple episodes, rather than a single film, to get us on board with not only its new and unfamiliar characters but also its somewhat unconventional themes and storytelling mode. Same can be said for WandaVision, actually, which is doubtless why Shakman and his team of writers opt to attempt mythmaking here. A cosmic deity knowing only hunger and needing human child sacrifice for consumption and possession is a the root of human existential horror. Think about Kronos and his children, or Jehovah's demand of Abraham, or Palpatine and his plan with Han and Leia's child (or Rey in the films). This is a foundational myth capitalized on by the screenwriters and emphasized in Galactus's (badass) physical design and chilling performance by Ralph Ineson (The Green Knight, The Witch, kind of giving here something akin to Tim Curry's Lord of Darkness in Legend).

I also think that, by launching us into the Fantastic Four's celebrity status, the heart of the film wins us by making its characters more human, rather than less. How many superhero films start by taking your average person and somehow transforming them into a hero at the cost of alienating us from them? Well, by definition, probably most. Then they have to spend a sequel or more navigating issues of being somehow more than human, including celebrity status and increased scrutiny. But in this film, we know immediately that they are globally renowned and beloved; it's only as that status begins to crumble -- and their multiple plans as a team successively fail -- that their chilly facade cracks and lets us, the audience, in. It gets quite unexpectedly emotional, much like Thunderbolts, earlier this year.

The CGI baby was awful to watch. And that's all I have to say about that.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)

 Score: 4 / 5

"All of Me" is the featured song of this film, and I'm more than a little surprised it wasn't chosen to be the title. Because indeed we are treated to all of Billie Holiday in this dramatization of her life. Showcasing her brilliant artistry, the film nevertheless creeps into her infamous personal life in the 1940s, as her problems with alcohol and drugs became public knowledge. And much like her vocal style, unconventionally jazzy and swinging with unusual phrasing, the film tries hard to make a case for another adaptation of her life story. It doesn't always succeed in that endeavor -- though Lady Day's legacy surely calls for more visions like this -- because the plot and themes are now cliché: fame and wealth motivate stress to find self-destructive release through substance abuse and abusive relationships. 

What saves this movie from others of its ilk -- those that often cut-and-paste bits of an artist's life to show how fame corrupts and destroys -- is its darker, external story of the targeting of Billie Holiday by the government in their so-called War on Drugs. The United States vs. Billie Holiday, the title taken from this highly publicized but notably shady series of encounters, makes Harry Anslinger, the first chief of the government's Bureau of Narcotics, the white villain. Played by Garrett Hedlund, Anslinger is a cardboard cutout racist, of the "jazz is jungle music" variety. This explains his apparent obsession with Billie Holiday, whose new single "Strange Fruit" is making big waves for the singer who usually sings romantic songs about love. The song, about the lynched bodies of Black people, of course upsets the people looking to racialize the war on drugs. Before you criticize that judgment, take a look at how Judy Garland was treated by law enforcement and the press and compare the two cases.

The movie suggests, quite clearly, that Anslinger has authored Holiday's troubles, from losing her license to perform to being victimized in a drug bust arranged by dirty cops who planted evidence. Much of the dramatic tension of the film, however, focuses on Holiday's relationship with Jimmy Fletcher, an up-and-coming FBI agent trying hard to be a sort of model Black man in a white boys' club. Played by the amazing Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight, Bird Box), Jimmy is not unlike O'Neal in this year's Judas and the Black Messiah, which works on some similar themes, in that he has been seduced into helping to bring down a popular Black artist and activist for the government. A quick Google search unfortunately shows that much of this character is drastically different than his real-life counterpart, but the change allows Holiday to have quiet, romantic, and sensual dynamics to her character that would otherwise be difficult for the performer to rely upon.

And what a performer. Andra Day is nothing short of astounding as Billie Holiday, from her looks to her impossibly accurate singing voice. In her big moments -- of which the film features many -- she outshines everyone around her. I find myself now more concerned about the film's bizarre editing techniques, its thematic suggestions to a streaming audience, and its lavish production values, but while I was watching, I didn't care about anything as long as the star was on screen. She takes this vehicle and rides it hard, letting the gritty, cruel underbelly of her life motivate every look and every note. It helps that, when she's first introduced, she's squaring off with a deliciously naughty Leslie Jordan as he interviews her about her legacy.

Then again, with such a sprawling story, it was difficult to always know what else deserved paying attention to. Her friendship with Tallulah Bankhead -- surely ripe for dramatization -- is forgettably and regrettably brief. Each new friend or assistant in her circle becomes an addict like her, resulting in seemingly endless scenes of people tying off and shooting up, sometimes with unexpectedly graphic attention by a voyeuristic camera. Are we meant to feel uneasy due to our own worship of celebrity culture? Maybe, but the film doesn't do enough to make us feel voyeuristic except in two or three notable scenes, as long takes drag us through especially traumatizing scenes from her life.

Lee Daniels always makes interesting movies, but the audacity of Precious and The Paperboy is utterly absent here. This reminds me a bit more strongly of The Butler, a similarly serious, sentimental, and sprawling account of a long life well-spent, or rather, well-serving. In recalling my viewing experience, I found the film lovely and challenging and entertaining, but in remembering the film itself, it's hard for me to say it wasn't unfocused. Or even that it had much to say other than "Don't do drugs" and "white cops are bad for Black people", things we don't need to watch a Black woman suffer through to understand.