How? HOW is this 86% Fresh?!?

Did I watch the same version of The Fantastic Four – First Steps as the 379 reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes? https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_fantastic_four_first_steps

SPOILERS AHEAD

It must be noted that I viewed the flick in 4DXYZ, which may have thrown off my movie-watching mojo. Quick question: 4DX is supposed to be this super-exciting, augmented cinematic experience, right? Allow me a follow-up: Doesn’t that mean that a movie is supposed to be IMPROVED by 4DX?

The screen at my theatre wasn’t ginormous – it certainly didn’t fill the space. It was kinda-sorta like watching a movie in a basement home theatre where somebody’s dad had Franken-rigged Barca loungers to mimic 4D. Maybe I needed to see it in 4DXIMAX? Or ScreenX where the images flow out onto side screens giving you a more immersive experience?

Even if the screen had completely enveloped me in the movie’s reality – I would have remained underwhelmed by the mechanics of the 4D. The onscreen action didn’t jibe with what I sat through. There was SO MUCH molten metal and explosions and flaming onscreen. I expected to have heat jets warming my ass, sun lamps singing my arms, not blasts of cold air behind my ears with a side of fucking QVC-massage-chair action on my lumbar spine.

I also feel like maybe there wasn’t enough tilt in the chairs at this particular theatre (Yonge & Dundas Square, Toronto) to make me feel like I was being launched into space or swooping wide around a star.

There was a scene with snow. I felt no fucking snow.

Perhaps, because I was so distracted by the lack of 4D verisimilitude, I didn’t invest emotionally in the movie. I so wanted to. I was gaga for the vibe of the trailer. 1960s mod? Yes, please! Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/The Thing)? Love ’em!

Joseph Quinn and Julia Garner? I was more than willing to get to know them as Johnny Storm/Human Torch and SPOILER ALERT!!! Shalla-bal/Silver Surfer. During the first act, in spite of my disheartened 4DX response, I was thrilled to discover SPOILER ALERT!!! Natasha Lyonne (Rachel Rozman) as a spunky teacher as a potential love interest for the Thing. Acting boxes all enthusiastically checked. Boo-yeah! I vowed to ignore the distracting 4DX and settled in to enjoy myself.

Then? Then it all went to shit. And by ‘it’ I mean the script.

Which one of the four script writers decided that the central plot point of The Fantastic Four – First Steps –

SPOILER ALERT!!!

– would be the refusal of the Fantastic Four to give over a single baby (Franklin) so that a planet-destroying baddie named Galactus won’t completely decimate Earth? Yes, it’s Reed and Sue’s actual newborn baby, but it’s just ONE fucking baby. (Don’t even get me started on the giving birth in zero G scene.)

Perhaps it’s just my inner sociopath, but if I knew that giving my baby to a planet-decimating asshat named Galactus (I keep wanting to call him Gladys) would save the ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET from destruction – I’d like to think that I’d do it. Of course it would be awful – I’d be a haunted, melancholic shadow of myself for fucking ever – but I’d still sacrifice a single baby to SAVE A MOTHER-FUCKING PLANET. I told my 25-year-old daughter this as we were leaving the theatre. Her response: “That checks out, Ma.”

This flick is set in an alternate Earth circa 1964. The population of Earth is approximately THREE BILLION people. These three billion people would all be vaporized if Gladys nom-nom-nomed the third rock from the sun. I say again, if I was guaranteed that giving up my baby would save THREE BILLION people and THE ENTIRE PLANET, there would be no fucking contest. It’s not hard math.

Plus – it’s a fucking baby – he hasn’t even developed a personality yet! If he was, say, in junior kindergarten – maybe learning to read and already interacting as a person? Yeah, that’d be a more difficult choice.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

But the Four? They decide “Naaaaaaaaaaaaah… we’re not going to sacrifice newborn Frankie baby.” Not only do they MAKE that decision, but upon their return to Earth after ‘outsmarting’ Gladys, Reed TELLS the entire world what it would take to stop the end of times and then chooses to inform them that NO, they’re not going to consider it. WTF?!?

And, the world? All those other people? They seem only mildly concerned about the impending destruction of their planet. Sure, a small mob heads to the Fantastic Four Fortress, and are all ‘Grrrrrrrr,’ but the other two million and change just seem to grumble a bit. At the fortress, the pitchforkless mob listens patiently while Sue gives a sweet little speech about family which ever-so realistically calms all their fears of planetary destruction.

Shortly thereafter, SPOILER ALERT!!! the entire Earth goes all-in on a plan to teleport the planet to a different part of the galaxy.

This is Reed’s big idea which everybody trusts will work because, you know, Reed’s already teleported an… EGG. Did he crack open the egg afterwards to see what happened to the egg? NO!!! But he did make an egg pop up a few feet from its original position, so moving the planet should be no problem once every nation on the planet creates massive teleportation bridges.

Which they do. Without complaint.

I don’t know how they raise the funds to build them, but they build them and then, no surprise, SPOILER!!! the Silver Surfer destroys most of those teleportation bridges, allowing a rampaging Gladys to stomp all over the movie’s alternate 1960s Manhattan.

The plot of the second and third acts of this movie made my face hurt – possibly because I kept jamming the heels of my hands into my eye sockets to stop watching whenever I wasn’t contorting my entire face in sheer incredulity. I face palmed so frequently – I looked like I had a sunburn when I left the theatre.

Thing is? In the midst of my eye-rolling exasperation? I spit-balled a more plausible second act plot.

ACT 2 PLOT

Gladys informs the Fantastic Four that he won’t destroy the planet if he can have ALL Earth’s babies – just the babies. However many that would be. Let’s say five hundred million?

He demands ALL the babies, and then, there’d be fallout from that. You’d have an entire planet full of parents with babies who are horrified at the thought of giving up their progeny. And then you’d have the people without babies really pissed about the fact that they’re all going to die, because – fucking babies. They might even say to the people with babies, “You’ve got other kids and after you give up these babies you can have more!” You’d have some of the parents willing to make the sacrifice and others who are adamant that they won’t –

Wait! I forgot to mention that Gladys doesn’t want to EAT Franklin or destroy him – he just recognizes within the baby a power that could take away his own hunger. Frankie’s probably not even going to die! He might even be so powerful that if he’s in close proximity to Gladys – he could solve this shit all on his own!

But no! That’s not what happens in this train wreck of a plot. Instead, there’s a baby carseat bait-and-switch that doesn’t work, and little Frankie, it turns out, can bring people back to life?!?

Which makes me think that maybe Frankie could create an entirely new planet and repopulate it with the lost souls from Earth?!? Or, he could destroy Gladys without any parental involvement. Or he could telepathically reason with Gladys in a really dramatic baby vs Empire State Building Sized bad guy.

So, no. It wasn’t my favourite.

Afterwards, all I wanted to do was watch Avengers: Endgame.