The Big Picture - ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Is Here. Plus: Our Fall Film Festival Preview.

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Sean and Amanda react to a long list of fall film festival lineup announcements; highlight their main takeaways from Venice, Toronto, and Telluride; and create their way-too-early top 25 Best Picture contenders list (2:16). Then, they unpack the newest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps,’ starring Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby, which they found incredibly disappointing (23:23). They dive deep into spoilers, explain why they found a majority of the stars to be deeply miscast, and talk through what they think the MCU will look like going forward (40:23). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY THE STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY. ORDER NOW | STARBUCKS.COM/MENU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Available for a limited time only, your summer berry refresher is ready at Starbucks. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about the Fantastic Four. In this episode, we'll break down the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one of the biggest movies of the summer, as a quick programming update. We're doing a summer movie mailbag soon. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but sometime soon. We need questions from you, the listeners and watchers of this show. Email us at bigpickmailbag at gmail.com. What's that

email? bigpickmailbag at gmail.com. You have until July 30th to send us questions, I guess ideally about summer movies, though we'll take anything. Do they need to be summer movies from this year? Well, good question. Perhaps no, because some of these summer movies suck. We'll get to that later. Before we dig into this movie though, we need to talk about fall festivals.

But before we talk about fall festivals, just wanted to say thank you to the fine people of the city of Chicago, the fine people of the Music Box Theater, the fine people of the Steppenwolf Theater. We spent three days in Chicago this weekend and had a magical time. How are you feeling? It was a blast.

Thank you to everyone who came out to the shows. Thank you to everyone who made their own merch. Thank you to Tracy Letts... Tracy Letts crushed it. ...who showed us around Chicago, and then, like, Dane to share the stage at the Steppenwolf Theater with us, which is, like, it's still

Sort of disrespectful to him, but I had a great time. We had a wonderful time. It was a great time Maybe we'll come to a city near you at some point soon Speaking of cities there will be film festivals in cities around the world in the near future and the fall festival Landscape is shaping up. Now this impacts both of us specifically because we will both attend the New York Film Festival. You will attend Venice Film Festival. I will. I will attend the Telluride Film Festival.

Yeah. Adam Neyman will attend the Toronto International Film Festival. Yeah, we're everywhere. And then that is when all of the powers unite and we discuss what does and does not matter. So Venice was the big news earlier this week. That's right Chicago when the news dropped. I'm going to run down the big titles that are hitting world premiere style in Venice. The Smashing Machine, Benny Safdie's new film with Dwayne The Rock Johnson. Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro's retelling of the Mary Shelley novel. After The Hunt, That's right.

Luca Guadagnino and Julia Roberts combining to tell a tale of sexual assault on campus. Begonia, Yorgos Lanthimos's new movie, yet another film with Emma Stone. J. Kelly, Bill Bombeck's new movie about a fading movie star starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler. A House of Dynamite, Catherine Bigelow's Return to the Screen via Netflix. No Other Choice. That's right. Park Chan-Wook's new film. We just saw a teaser today.

Looks phenomenal. Jim Jarmusch's long-awaited father, mother, sister, brother, reportedly an anthology film. Much to your chagrin. The Testament of Anne Lee. Mona Fastvold's new directorial effort. There's a number of other films I can talk through here, but that is a large slate of

high profile releases. How are you feeling? I feel amazing. I've sent all my emails. I'm available for premieres. No, I'm incredibly excited. In addition to all of that, most of which you and I had kind of gamed out and guessed. There were a couple surprises, including a documentary directed by Sofia Coppola

about Marc Jacobs, which that's all we know. And I've been doing the work. I've been, you know, hitting the phones, trying to find out as much as I can from all corners. This seems like it was a surprise to everyone. As of this recording, I still don't know who's distributing it, when it's premiering. If you know anything, please get in touch,

because honestly, my travel plans personally sort of depend on when and how this is premiering. It's a doc, so I don't know whether it's gonna get a grand world night premiere, but at the same time, Sofia has a major history with the Venice Film Festival. She does. She was most recently there with Priscilla

when you were last in Italy for the festival. Other docs from Werner Herzog, Laura Poitras, Ross McElwee, there's quite a good non-fiction slate this year. Lot of other movies that I didn't mention. Olivier Assayas has a new movie. The Wizard of the Kremlin, yeah. About Vladimir Putin and an imagined attache

who is played by Paul Dano. Jude Law plays Vladimir Putin. It could be silly, could be great. Gus Van Sant's first new movie in seven or eight years, I think, Dead Man's Wire, a film called Scarlet, which is gonna be directed by Mamoru Hosoda, which is, I think, widely considered the front runner for the best animated feature of 2025.

So maybe something you could check out while you're there. Maybe not. A short film from Charlie Kaufman. Yeah. My guy, not as much your guy. That's okay. Will you see that one? If it's screening, here's the thing, Venice is very long and it's 10 days,

I think, maybe even longer. And they didn't release the schedule yet. So what I'm gonna be able to see So what I'm going to be able to see and what I'm not going to be able to see depends a little bit on how that falls. And some of the schedule we can maybe guess or hypothesize because there are films that premiere at Venice and then show up at Telluride.

So you and I, when the last time we did this double header, Yorgos Lanthimos's Four Things was at Venice, and then at Telluride. And it seems like, I know nothing, but I'm guessing Bagonia might make the jump. I'm hopeful for you that After the Hunt makes the jump. I don't believe that will be the case. You don't think it will?

No, because After the Hunt was announced as the opening night film at the New York Film Festival. And I believe that is considered its North American premiere. So I don't think we're getting After The Hunt. We'll get to tell your ride momentarily. I will note that After The Hunt is out of competition at Venice. Apparently by Luca's request.

Yes. I don't know what that means. Me either. Being the opening night film is interesting for New York. For example, do you remember what the opening night film was last year for New York? Not off the top of my head, but- Nickel Boys.

Oh, that's right. So sometimes that is a sign of a very strong, critically acclaimed film. Sometimes it's just a kind of a linchpin, a couple of years before that, you and I were there for the premiere of White Noise. So White Noise premiered in Venice and then opened up the New York Film Festival. So we'll see.

Other takeaways on Venice, no major studios have any films. The smaller studio, you know, the focuses of the world are there, but no Warner Brothers, which means of course no one battle after another, which we expected, but no surprises on that front. Three movies from Netflix. We also expected that. They like the... Well, they do like the Venice Film Festival. They do. They're not welcome at Cannes,

so they need Venice in many ways. That's pretty much it. I mean, the speculation is the Warner Brothers didn't want to bring one battle because of the Joker fully... Joker fully adieu just absolutely fell apart. You did see that movie? You know, I never did. I think that was like the weekend that Cy was born,

was the weekend that that movie came out. So I just took a pass on that. Maybe you guys could watch it together. Just to kind of commemorate that moment in history. Very fun episode of Van that week, as I recall. Yeah, Venice? How are you feeling? Well, it's a very starry slate,

and it reminds me a lot of the slate from 23. Yeah. Exactly. Where it was Ferrari and Maestro and The Killer and a lot of movies that I really wanted to see that I was very excited about, but that actually didn't totally, like, materialize in the Oscar race in the way that we had hoped. Right.

I did end up liking a lot of those movies that you saw. I really liked Priscilla. I liked a lot of the movies that were at the way that we had hoped. Right. I did end up liking a lot of those movies that you saw. I really liked Priscilla. I liked a lot of the movies that were at the festival that year. But I sometimes think of these festivals as sort of like a critical stage in the professional box checking of covering the award season.

And what I don't like to do is be out at screenings 19 out of 30 nights in a month in November and December. So going to the festivals usually is like a way to kind of go through what the slates are going to be. So in that respect I wonder if this will be like a big collection of Best Picture nominees or just a series of interesting movies. It really could go either way. We don't really know enough about Frankenstein or Goin' Year or whatever. Movies that we'll discuss on the show, at least. 100%. And so in that sense, it's useful. And also, I'm excited because in 23, it was still the actor strike.

And so they were big films, and some of the films had waivers, but a lot of the stars were not in attendance. And then Luke Guadagnino and Challengers dropped out of the festival because they couldn't promote it. So I'm excited to have stars on the red carpet. I hope George will be there. So Venice has premiered at least two best picture nominees in the past four years. Last year, Brutalist and I'm Still Here. Speaking of those movies that we weren't quite thinking about or didn't know about in the Oscar race, I'm Still Here is probably the best example of that recently.

In 23, we had, as you said, Poor Things and Maestroil. In 22, Banshees and Tar. about or didn't know about in the Oscar race. I'm still here is probably the best example of that recently. In 23, we had, as you said, poor things in Maestro. In 22, Banshees and Tar. In 21, Dune and the Power of the Dog. So you're probably getting a couple. Yeah. I'm not wasting my time. No, certainly not. And you'll have a great time in Europe across the month.

Tiff, we went through this lineup pretty fully. A bunch of stuff has been added. It's useful to look at what's been added in part because it helps indicate what else is gonna be playing at future festivals and what we'll be seeing. We knew that Soderbergh's The Christophers and Rental Family and HEDDA and Wake Up Deadman and Roof Man were all gonna be there.

Now a bunch of non-world premieres were announced. Hamnet was announced as a non-world premiere. Ballot of a Small Player, which did not make the cut at Venice for Netflix. Dead Man's Wire, the Gus Van San film. Frankenstein, it was just an accident. Newville Vogue, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, all holdovers from Cannes. The Smashing Machine, The Testament of Anne Lee. As always, Tiff has a lot of films. That's kind of the most fulsome of all the film festivals.

Only two Best Picture winners have ever premiered at TIFF, and they're two of the best. Crash and Green Book. Only eight Best Picture nominees have premiered at TIFF in the last 10 years, which is a fairly low percentage up against these other competitors in the festival space. And it is a competition really really, for getting these titles. So this has me thinking about Telluride. Now, Telluride famously does not announce its slate until roughly 12 hours before the festival begins.

In the past, I have learned the festival slate on the charter flight to the festival. Okay. Which for an absolute control freak like me is not ideal. And yet, I think part of the reason why I keep getting drawn back is like the surprise. It's the gambling in you. Yeah, there's something cool about that.

That seems terrible. Now, sometimes when you gamble, you lose. And I am wondering if I lost this year. And maybe lost in a big way. So I'll just speculate based on everything that we know about Venice and Tif. So Hamnet is almost certainly gonna premiere A Telluride based on the delineations that we've gotten. That's the new Chloe Zhao movie.

Right, and of course she has a history of Telluride. It makes a lot of sense. Ballad of a Small Player also almost certainly gonna premiere there. Okay, that's great. That's the other Netflix movie. Edward Berger had Conclave there last year. Speaking of gambling, I expect to at least enjoy that film.

After that, I have no idea. You were having a full breakdown on that. We were not on the same flight home from Chicago, but you were just texting me just like paragraphs of guesses and thoughts on just like an irregular. And it's like, and another thing, and maybe it'll be this. You're using emojis, you're going through it. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. What you have to remember

is that you love going to Telluride. And you like the mountains. And you like wandering around. I do. I like the festival. I'm treated so well at the festival, the people there are very kind, we have a lot of listeners who go to the festival. So I love being there, it's not about that.

But there is a, I have a competition in me and I want to have great moments, you know? Like seeing Uncut Gems there was a great moment. Seeing Saltburn there, a movie I didn't like very much, but seeing it there, that was a great moment. So I want to have some great moments. And right now, I can speculate on what some of those moments might be. I don't think we're going to get any of them,

but I'm going to speculate. So it's possible Springsteen Delivery from Nowhere premieres there. It's the kind of movie that would probably be safe there. Right, and there are some older viewers. Older patrons, music biopic, you know, safe landing spot for a Scott Cooper movie, a place where Jeremy Allen White could kind of launch his Oscar campaign. Then again, maybe not. Ella McKay, new James L. Brooks movie. It's coming out in December. It's possible it skips the festival circuit altogether,

but this would be a nice place for it to go. Sure. Yeah. Is this thing on Bradley Cooper's new film, which is currently undated, but it sounds like it's coming out this year. Okay. Do you think that's gonna happen? I do. You think that's gonna happen at Telluride? I don't. But it's possible.

Perhaps at another festival. There's Anemone, which is the new film from Ronan Day-Lewis. Oh, right, of course. Daniel Day-Lewis' son. Yeah. And this film includes Daniel Day-Lewis in its cast. He's come out of retirement. I read that.

I would love to see Daniel Day-Lewis in Colorado. Do you think that that will be part of his retirement package? No. Yeah, I don't either. I don't, but I'm just speaking ideas out. And then, of course, there's all the festival holdovers that will also play. I would be shocked if Sentimental Value and Newvel Vogue

and it was just an accident and all those movies didn't play there, they will. And, uh... So that's not, you know, that's not wasted time. Yeah, I really need, I think, Jay Kelly and Bogonja to play it, Tell Your Eye, to feel okay about all this right now. And there's gotta be one thing, what's the one thing I'm not thinking of that's gonna chill me out a little bit?

I don't know, Sean. Maybe it's a dinner seated next to Ethan Hawke. And then you'll just go see a really shitty movie instead. One can only dream. I texted you months ago saying, you know, Venice, you can apply, I'll look for an Airbnb, I know the ropes now. It was available to you.

I don't want to go to Europe. Okay. I want to go to the mountains. I know. The Telluride Film Festival has- They do have mountains in Europe. Well, yeah, then I would go to Switzerland, you know, my homeland.

Telluride has premiered the most best picture winners of any film festival in the 21st century. Yeah, they were in a groove. They were in a groove. Are they still in a groove? To be determined. I'm excited to go and find out. Nowhere to be seen on the film festival slate right now.

Marty Supreme. Well, I mean, it's a Christmas release. Yeah, they're holding that tight. One battle after another. Almost certainly just gonna drop in theaters in September. Will we get invited to a screening even? I don't know. I have absolutely no idea. I did at least get an email about a trailer this morning. Yes, there was a new trailer. I watched it.

Right. I didn't. Well, I guess I half watched it before the screening of the film we're going to discuss later. But I don't want any more trailers. You tried to talk to me during that trailer so that you wouldn't watch it. Yes, because I would just like to see the film. Yeah, the film is also going to have skins on Fortnite, which I'll be playing live on my Twitch account, which I will reveal shortly.

Other films, nowhere to be seen, Big Bull, Beautiful Journey. What did you say to me when we sat down to watch the movie today? I said, so is that just a total mess? Like, you know, I don't know what to read because when they moved it from earlier this year to September and it seemed like, oh, so know, I don't know what to read because when they moved it from earlier this year to September and it seemed like, oh, so festival premiere and then, you know,

it's Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell and it's not at any of the festivals. Tough. Okay. The movie slate? Currently not really pegged anywhere. The history of sound is out right after these festivals hit. The Mastermind, which premiered at Cannes, Kelly Records' new movie, not listed anywhere. Pegged Anywhere, the History of Sound is out right after these festivals hit. The Mastermind, which premiered at Cannes, Kelly Rieckardt's new movie, not listed anywhere.

Die My Love, the big acquisition with Jennifer Lawrence, out in November, not listed anywhere. I'd imagine at least one of those, if not all three, will end up at Telluride, but that's interesting. Other films, probably 2026 movies. The drama, the Christopher Borglie movie was Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. Right. Mother Mary, David Lowery's new movie with Anne Hathaway. I Want Your Sex, Greg Araki's new movie.

Do you know who's in that movie? Who's in it? Charlie XCX. Yeah, that's very exciting. Yeah. The Way of the Wind, Terrence Malick didn't make the cut at Venice again. How do you feel? Listen, is it undated? Is it not done? Is it?

Well, apparently production ended some years ago. Okay. He's deep in the edit. He's keep working. You know, just keep. Who am I to tell Terrence Malick when something is done? Keep chiseling, brother. Keep chiseling. So as I said, New York Film Fest, a couple of things. After the Hunt opening night, very notable father, mother, sister, brother, the Jarmusch film will be the centerpiece.

We don't know anything else yet. All that starts to come out in the next couple of weeks. We'll be there. Excited about going. I don't know, man. This is weird. I feel like there's one movie missing in the big race. Why does that make you angry and upset

instead of excited? I know, but you are agitated right now. Sure, I know, but you're just like, ah, there's one more thing, I don't know everything. Cause mama, I need you to help me out, you know? I need to be soothed. Well, it's gonna be okay. You're gonna go to your happy place, you know?

And you'll like, what do you wear at Telluride? Do you just wear this? I dress like Galactus. Okay. I kind of stomp through the city. Do you just wear this? I dress like Galactus. Do you wear hiking boots? What's the footwear? Sneakers. You'll be there in your sneakers. Walking all the way across the town and back.

Several times. Kind of a 20,000 step sort of situation. The rest of the time you're sitting. You're going to have a lot of granola bars. Yeah, granola bars, cliff bars, popcorn lunch. Should be good. Not worried about it. And you're going to have a great time and you're doing what you like to do.

And I will be figuring out how to pack 10 to 12 days worth of clothing, plus some formal wear into a carry on. Tell us what you wear. I don't know. I honestly, I haven't locked it down yet. I have been... Bjork's swanress? Yes, yeah, exactly. No, in moments of movies where my attention has wandered recently, I have found myself going through my Venice packing list.

And what's out and what's in, it's kind of a day-to-day situation. I'm getting close. I got to drop the dry cleaning off soon. But I'll let everybody know. Might also be a special guest. I don't want to spoil anything. A special guest at the festival. Yeah. Will you be attending with Jacob Elordia? Okay, well tune in for that.

I've located 25 total best picture contenders right now. Okay, I love it. You want to hear them? You're just like deep in the release calendar. When was this? What time of day was this? I was on a plane, as you know. Is this plane shot?

Well, this is actually from our friend, Sam, who's been helping us with research. But I also have my own separate document. It matches up fairly neatly with this. Great. Two studio tent poles that are obviously not playing festivals that are in the running. Wicked for Good and Avatar Fire and Ash. We just saw the trailer.

We did. Ahead of the Fantastic Four, you seemed nonplussed. Well, there was not a lot of fire or ash. So then that made me think, oh, God, this is like only the first of eight hours, you know? And then... It probably will be three hours. Yeah, listen, it looks visually spectacular.

It's amazing. They built a whole lab and they took over New Zealand and they reimagined how we make movies. But like I'm with Chris, they're losing my attention when it comes to caring about. I don't remember these people's names. Here's my rejoinder. Yeah. No. Okay.

Uh, Studio Big Swings. Sinners. Yes. One battle after another. Let's hope. Both of those seem pretty likely. We'll see based on the track record of the filmmakers. Cannes winners, we know sentimental value. It was just an accident. The Pomdor winner.

Seems likely, yeah. And the secret agent are all in contention. Yes. Netflix has just a trundle. Just a bowl-load of titles. You gotta throw the sketti at the wall. I didn't really. In one of these years.

I didn't know this was gonna be the Netflix year, but it is like at least quality wise, got a good chance to be a Netflix year. We've got Frankenstein, J. Kelly, House of Dynamite, Ballad of a Small Player, Wake Up Deadman, and Train Dreams. I'm not mad at any of these, even the logging movie, which I have not seen yet.

Train Dreams just got a trailer, one of my very favorite movies of the year. Fall Festival stuff, we talked, Pagonia, After the Hunt, Rental Family family hamnet, A24's Safdie double. Benny Safdie with the Smashing Machine and Josh with Marty Supreme. Other wild cards, Deliver Me From Nowhere, A Big Bull Beautiful Journey, No Other Choice.

Let's not count out No Other Choice. I'm not counting it out. I am sending emails about it. Okay, Anemone, Ella McKay, and then some wild cards. The Testament of Anne Lee is this thing on, The Wizard of the Kremlin, and then the rivals of Omsia King, which won at South by Southwest, but does not yet have distribution.

Oh. And I'm wondering if that movie pops up at one of these festivals as well, because it got rave reviews. I've tried to not read too much about it, but it seems like a very promising title. Anything else you want to say about awards season, fall festival season,

what we're going to be turning our lives to from roughly September 2nd through March 20th? It's March 20th? I thought it was March 6th. It's later than it needs to be. They pushed it back. This year, which I don't feel great about. No, it should be in February as you know, you know my stance on this.

Yeah, but then also they should move the Emmys to February. So we just, you know. Couldn't care less about the Emmys. I don't really either, but like people, again, I just, there are a lot of newsletters about it. You know, I'm like unsubscribed. Okay. I'm excited. I am at the point in my summer movie season

where I'm ready for the good stuff. Yeah. I'm a little tired. I'm a little... I feel like I've seen it all and then some at this point. So I'm ready for, like, pure cinema to wash over me. Yeah, I was feeling... I felt like I had hit a little bit of a high this summer with the double shot of Superman and Eddington.

Two very different movies, made completely differently, on completely different scales, but I was like, hey, for July, this ain't bad, you know? And F1 is okay, and Jurassic World Rebirth stinks, but, you know, for the most part, it's a decent balance in the summer slate. That brings us to the Fantastic Four first steps. Now, as you know, this is my birthday movie this year.

You know what? Driving here, I was like, oh, I forgot to stop at the grocery store to get Sean a birthday balloon and I was going to put it right here for the whole taping. And I just, I forgot to do that. An imaginary honorary, what color? Well, I was going to get one of the ones that said, like, happy birthday. You know, I wasn't going to do a number, so I was thinking like a round one. Okay. Well, I'm turning 28 and I feel super good about it. Fantastic Four First Steps, directed by Matt Schachman.

This is his second feature film after Cut Bank, a 24 movie from 10 years ago. He directed every WandaVision episode. We will come back to that as we talk through the film. It stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Eben Moss-Bakerac, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, and the voice of Ralph Innocent. Scores by Michael Giacchino, shot by Jess Hall. This movie is about the four members of the Fantastic Four

getting into an adventure. The world is threatened by Galactus, the planet-conquering giant creature from outer space. Yeah. And they gotta stop him. They do. That's the movie. Before he eats them and everything else in our world.

That's it. Because that's what he does. Galactus eats planets. I've been hearing about this on the watch for three years now. And here he is. He eats planets. Now, the Fantastic Four is one of the most legendary crews in Marvel history. This is the fourth feature film

adapting the Fantastic Four story. It's the first in the proper MCU. And what did you think of it? Yeah, I hated this. Like, I... That's... Okay, all right. Uh, Jack said to me before he started recording that I had a little Hillary Clinton breakdown energy. I mean, and I don't have a breakdown.

I thought the production design was good. Okay. Which is, I think, also the review I gave Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Some interesting textures. Yeah, I thought that this failed on several levels. Number one, on your basic... It's a Marvel movie with a villain

who doesn't quite make sense, and so the stakes are silly and the CGI is quite poor. And it takes what I did think was impressive production design and just, you know, turns it purple for a third of the movie. I thought that there were some real issues with casting, which I want to talk about because I am not as familiar with Fantastic Four as, say, everyone else

in this recording studio right now. And so I couldn't figure out what was the character and what was the actor, and it might be a little bit of both, but it doesn't really work. And then at the risk of spoiling the whole movie, which are we gonna spoil right now? I wasn't planning on it, but we could do it momentarily. Okay.

You wanna self-censor your spoiler note? What does that mean? Like, that I can just put a pin in it? I have a third issue with sort of the takeaways from this film. Let's hold onto that so that people can let us here talk through without spoiling. Although I will say that spoiling is an interesting... Sure. ...question here because this movie is doing something

that we haven't seen a Marvel movie do in some time. It is a self-contained story. It does not require any homework. There are no characters in this movie that we have ever seen before in a Marvel movie, in an MCU movie. In fact, the movie takes place on Earth 828, which is not the Earth that we are used to seeing

in the other films. Right, though as someone who doesn't do the homework ever, when Earth 828 showed up on the screen, I was like, oh God, which one is that? Do I have to know something else? So, and that's just me being reflexively being like, oh God, now there's something that I don't understand. But I didn't know what that meant. I don't think it really matters if you know.

I think it will matter. I thought it was going to matter, or at least have some bearing on this movie. On how they resolve the situation. Yeah, and I guess that is kind of a spoiler to say that it sort of doesn't, but I was only thinking that because of the way the Thunderbolts ended,

which was the introduction of a rocket ship with a four on it entering the atmosphere in the movie Thunderbolts. Which takes place in a different universe, an alternate universe. Anyway, I'll come back to that. Wait, an alternate universe? No, it takes place in the proper MCU,

the MCU that we know, we've seen all the other films in. Right, so the Fantastic Four is in the alternate universe? No, it takes place in the proper MCU. The MCU that we know, we've seen all the other films in. Right, so the Fantastic Four is in the alternate universe. Coming from the alternate universe to... Yes, I just wanted to make sure. But we can come back to it because we have to. I really did not think this movie was good. I, in fact, was kind of stunned while I was watching it. I wasn't angry or even frustrated.

I thought that there was a general flatness to the drama of the movie. I agree with you about the miscasting. I said to you, and like, with kind of an amusement afterwards, that I swear they used to be good at this. And I did really have a sincere passion. And I think, like like newer listeners of the show might think that I always hate these movies, but like, I really didn't.

I really, really liked them for like five years. And I found the limpness of this movie kind of baffling. It is like kind of juiceless. And I don't know why that decision was made. Some of, I get why some of the decisions were made, which is that they were responding to a lot of the criticism that they had been hearing about having all of this baggage with every movie. There'd been all these TV shows, they overloaded us with content and hours of

content. We want something that's just a fresh origin story. And some people may be listening and disagree and say, I had a fun time. I like these characters. Right. Well, I don't think the stand-alone-ness is the problem. It's not, but what it does is it... So look, I've been critical of the homework thing and I think it is a problem. So I'm not trying to talk out of both sides of my mouth, but I think when a script is not strong, as I do not think this script is strong,

and it does not have those breadcrumbs that kind of keep us going. And you'll hear me on old episodes in the last five years, I'll be like, I thought this stunk for 80% of it. And then at the end, they kind of dragged me in with some sort of like tease to the future. Right. And I didn't even have that feeling at the end of this. You said once the credits hit and we sat for the, you know, the mid credits or

the end credits, the stingers, you said to me, like, they really better have the goods in this to make up for that. But you said it in a way as if you thought it would be possible still for like 30 seconds of teaser footage would make up for just the limpness and the yuckiness of the past two hours, which, like, that's messed up. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it was necessarily successful

to, say, introduce Charlize Theron at the end of a Doctor Strange movie and then... Which one? ...have us go scratching her as multiverse of madness. Or introduce Harry Styles at the end of Eternals and have us, like, excited about what could come or to hear Mahershal Ali's voice at the end of a movie and think, oh, Blade is coming.

I think those are smart marketing techniques, but for my dumb lizard brain, I was like, oh, cool. What's going to happen next? And the whole movie feels like... frankly, a response to shit I've said on podcasts. And I know that that's not what it is, of course. But to be trolled in this way is interesting. I think the movie is very sincere,

and it's trying to be true to the classical construction of Fantastic Four, which is a golden age story that is about family and is about coming together for a greater good. Like, it's very simple, and in that way, it closely resembles Superman. And these movies coming out within two weeks of each other is fascinating. I think one movie takes the bedrock of story and this old character and really plunges him

into some current stakes high events. This movie, because of the retro futuristic production design that you talked about, because of the performance style that they're going for, and because of the kind of closed world nature of it, just felt small to me. And I was really disappointed. Even though it's literally about a villain who eats other planets

and is supposed to be larger than the universe and is like a space god. That's what they keep saying. Even still, even though they traversed the galaxy, even though there is a silver-surfin woman who is a herald to this planet devourer, portrayed by Julia Garner, even though... There's actors who are, like, in theory, very likable, have been successful in other projects.

Matt Shackman, I think Wandavision's one of the best things Marvel's done in the last five years. I... Well, and this does have a lot of the bones of WandaVision in the... Obviously, sort of, like, the throwback and the production design, but that was also about feelings and trying to find a family. And then, you know, the trauma and whatever,

and I don't remember what the trauma was, But it was about people who aren't quite human trying to be human. It was about Vision being dead and then wanting to preserve her life with Vision and then creating a world. I thought it was her brother. Well, her brother died too. She's had a lot of trauma, the Scarlet Witch.

And she explored that trauma to evil ends in the films, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. You should check it out. Oh, she's evil? She's the villain of that film. But then they bring her back around. Struck by Sam Raimi, it's pretty good. No, I know. I was on leave. But they bring her back around, right?

Since then, she's not come back. Oh, so she was... In fact, I think Elizabeth Olsen is out of the MCU. She was good and then she went bad? Correct. And then she became Megan 2.0? She was driven mad by loss, as we all are. Sure, okay.

And now it's time for a new segment, Summer Stars, presented by Starbucks. The summer 2025 blockbusters have well and truly rolled out and we don't just mean on the big screen. Just like this year's breakout stars, Starbucks summer beverages have stolen the show. But before we talk all things Starbucks, we want to take a closer look at the fresh wave of talent

taking over the silver screen this summer. Okay, Amanda, when you think of the stars of this summer, throw some names at me. Who has impressed you with the movies? I mean, we can start with Vanessa Kirby from Fantastic Four, who has impressed me. She was the best part of the movie, in my opinion, in addition to being very beautiful. She, you know, makes big faces.

Yes. And she was also a real champ on the press tour. So I, you know, I've congratulations to her expecting a baby of her own. She looks great. She stepped up. She stepped up. She stepped up just like Florence Pugh and Lewis Pullman stepped up in Thunderbolts. It's not easy starring in a Marvel movie, you know, it takes a lot of work, takes a lot to sell these fantastical worlds. Florence Pugh, I don't know where Thunderbolts would be without her, honestly. I'm not sure that's a movie that would work as well as I would want it to without her, but she's great. And Lewis Pullman, who has

a kind of dual role in that movie, those spoilers, has a lot on his shoulders too. We've always liked him and it's nice to see him getting some more to do. Who else did you like at the movies this year? ALFIE WILLIAMS, who is the child star. That's not fair. He's a teenager. You know, 28 years later. And the movie starts with him having a sort of, you know, coming-of-age ritual, so I don't mean to call him a child.

He's a teen. From boy to man. Yeah, and that movie hangs on him. And certainly the rest of the franchise hangs on him as well. And he was sensational. Superman really hangs on David Cornsweat. Now, he was a relative unknown for most of us before we saw James Gunn's new version of this story.

Yeah, not if you saw Twisters. True, he was in Twisters. He was in the Netflix series Hollywood. He's been in some other stuff, but Superman was his big coming out party. And honestly, he wore the cape well. He was one of my favorite parts of that movie. The fact that they nailed that casting,

I think is a big reason why the film was a success. And tailored the movie to him. Absolutely. And it works. Two small parts for you. Tramell Tillman and Katie O'Brien, Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning. Lot of people in this movie. There were. A lot of words in this movie. There were.

A lot of words said. Some said better than others. Tramell Tillman and Katie O'Brien, who are part of this submarine segment, right? Yes. To not to spoil anything, just steal the show. Tramell Tillman in particular. Katie O'Brien has some great moments with the suit.

Otherwise, the movie... You know, it takes its time, but not when they're on screen. It's electrifying watching Tramell Tillman say words. Uh... We gotta give some love to your guy, Jonathan Bailey. He's not my guy. I just, I understood the star power. It was him and a dinosaur, you know? And he was petting the dinosaur and the music was playing

and he felt real emotion and I felt it too. You, not so much, but I thought that it was powerful. He's obviously meant for big things, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he does next. Lilo and Stitch mixed on the movie, but not mixed on the two key performances from Sydney Aguadong and Maya Kealua. And they were both very charming, I thought.

Yeah, wonderful. It's everybody else in the movie who just won't help them, you know? But that's a credit to them that you just really want them to figure it out. I did want to give just a little bit of love before we wrap to my favorite star of the summer, hands down, which is the flaw in Death's design. Sure, absolutely.

That is the critical character in the movie Final Destination Bloodlines. An international sensation. It absolutely is one of the biggest box office hits of the year, and thank you to the Flaw in Death's Design for making it such a fun time at the movies. Refreshing and bold, Starbucks' summer beverages are also unexpected stars of the season,

savor every drop of summer with Starbucks and the new Strato Frappuccino blended beverage. It's a crave-worthy ice blended beverage beverage topped with creamy cold foam, making for delicious layers of silky flavor. Available for a limited time only. Your Strato Frappuccino blended beverage is ready at Starbucks. Anyway, you see my point, which is that it's there about not quite human people trying to explore like human emotions. And instead of found family,

it's pretty literal nuclear family. And that part, I think, is both the most successful part of the movie and also the thing that ultimately made me... got the biggest reaction, negative reaction out of me. But Edie's, they're not trolling you, you know? And they're like, they're seriously trying to like do something nice with this.

And then I guess Galactus is like a historical comic book. He's the second most significant villain to the Fantastic Four. Okay. And is the first one, the person that we saw at the very end. Yes. So that's an interesting question. Why do they start with number two? I had this same question. Okay, and is the first one the person that we saw at the very end? Yes. So that's an interesting question. Why do they start with number two?

I had this same question. Okay, go ahead. I know the answer to that question, which is that their primary villain, primary enemy is Doctor Doom, and Doctor Doom is the villain of the next movie. Yeah, I know that. Avengers Doomsday. And Robert Downey Jr. is going to be Doctor Doom. He is going to be Doctor Doom.

I like that happened at a Comic-Con. Yes, there is a subtle moment where the table in the United Nations from Latveria, the name card is empty, which is of course Dr. Doom's nation. I actually did, I noted that, but I did not know that that was Dr. Doom's nation. That's where Victor Von Doom would be sitting under normal circumstances.

He's the ruler of that nation. Yeah, like, what's his title? Um, podcast host. And he is... obviously gonna be a big part of the MCU. And this is meant to be a sort of build-up to him. Galactus is a more high-stakes villain, but Dr. Doom is the primary enemy. Okay.

One of the cool things that the movie does that would have gotten a lot more credit if Superman didn't just do it, is it starts in media res and it gives you this kind of news reel flash montage, explication of who these characters are at the beginning. I thought a lot of that was very successful. All of it is really good. It looks good. It's like... It's like kitschy in a good way.

Yes. It's got energy. They recreate the cover of the first issue of Fantastic Four with that monster coming up out of the ground. That's like a nice nod to fans. A couple of cool moments like that, you know, Mole Man shows up, who's played by Paul Walter Hauser, who's kind of a funny, you know, B-tier Fantastic Four villain.

There's some fun stuff in the first ten minutes. And when it was going, I was like, okay. Sure. Yeah. I get what we're due. There's like an Ed Sullivan show stand-in that we're getting. All of that made sense. And then when the movie starts to become about the family

that you're describing, it really slows down. And it becomes very sincere. Yeah. And the sincerity, I don't mind. Well, OK. Well, OK. Well, okay. Go ahead. Are we spoiling now?

Sure, let's spoil the movie. Okay. Reed Richards is a strange character. Yes. You turned to me and asked me, so he's a stretchy nerd. And that's not incorrect, but he is also the smartest man in the world.

Yeah. And that's the way that he is presented to comic book readers. And that intelligence cuts both ways. It makes him an amazing problem solver and an incredible leader, but at times his intelligence drives him mad and it makes him very arrogant.

And the latter part of that character is not really present in this movie. This was just Gumby. It was just Gumby. It was like Gumby in with suspenders or, you know, whatever. I was so confused. I, you know, we've been having a lot of Pedro Pascal conversations. Seems like a good guy. So, I...

He is way miscast as Reed Richardson. I don't understand why someone with such natural charisma, like, as Pedro Pascal has, keeps getting cast in these roles where he's just inert. Like, it's not that he's a bad actor, it's just that... what he's doing in this movie does not allow him to have any of the charm, any of the, like...

Reed Richards, is that his name? He's got no mojo. And, like, it's just... It's really very strange. And he doesn't even seem that smart, you know? He's, like, doing equations a lot. But no confidence whatsoever. Well, as we know from Good Will Hunting, that is. How you, you know, show us, demonstrate that you are smart. That's true, but he's still using numbers and letters, you know?

Like Good Will Hunting, they're doing like drawings, you know? That's a level of mass that I don't even understand, but he's with us in the numbers. I mean, you really need to be with Mr. Fantastic, as he is known, to be in on this movie. And I wasn't. And that's a huge problem. And I think some of that sincerity, that desire to kind of create an intimate,

emotional and psychological atmosphere for these characters, which I think they're kind of going out of their way to try to present, ultimately kind of weirdly drains them of some of their humanity. And again, like, I just think the writing is not strong in this movie. There's a lot of dialogue that in WandaVision,

it was winking at the modes of entertainment from the 50s, 60s, and 70s on sitcoms. In this movie, it's just like kind of 1962 in an alternate universe. Yeah. So how do those people, how are they supposed to act? Like, in that world, the song Monster Mash exists, because we hear it when they're getting ready for a Halloween party. But Ed Sullivan doesn't exist, it's Ted Gilbert.

So that's kind of confusing. And I don't know if we're meant to be watching the TV show version of The Fantastic Four, because we see the TV show version, the animated cartoon, in the movie. So there is this kind of like... And there's a running joke in the movie that the... the thing is not his cartoon character.

And he doesn't say it's clobbered in time. And he doesn't want to. And in fact, he just, you know, has a crush on Natasha Lyonne, who's the teacher at the school next door. Yeah, and who among us, you know? Redheaded Natasha Lyonne. Yeah, she looks great. That's quite a blowout. Living in New York, yeah, she looks great. So Pedro, that didn't click for me. Yeah, and then also,

he then is married to Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm. And it's the in-media arrest thing does not work if the people don't have any chemistry, because the whole time I was just like, why are you with him? Look at this woman. Like, what's going on here? They didn't explain anything in the little news reel. And I was just like, man, this is this is the hottest woman alive. And you are just really nervous.

You know, I don't understand how this I don't know why this is happening. I don't know, I don't, I didn't get it. I didn't get it either. And I didn't get Joseph Quinn either. Me either. As Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. I think he has an interesting part in this movie and the movie puts a lot on his shoulders.

He is the one who is meant to engage with the Silver Surfer when she comes to the planet. And then he is meant to be sort of the detective of the movie. To determine, you know, why Galactus is coming, how the Silver Surfer became who she is, how to save the day in the safest possible way. Right, and he also has to, like, decode a new language. But he's doing all of that in a different tone

than everyone else in the movie. And he's sort of goofy, antique, quippy, Marvel, MCU 1 or 2.0. Mm-hmm. But, like, his timing doesn't add up with the other people. And so, and then, you're right, the script is just kind of jumping around, so he's, like, playing this language all over again,

but you don't actually see him decoding anything. They also have to do a lot of math and science, and thankfully the movie doesn't show it, but it means that then there's just a lot of announcing, like, oh, we fixed this problem, and oh, now we can teleport, and oh, now we can do this, and you're like, uh-huh, okay. Like, sure? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the whole movie is kind of one long Amanda Science corner. I'm just being like, can we? Is it? Is it OK? Well, you know, the movie is, I think, meant to be in the spirit of Jack Kirby, the longtime illustrator and creative genius behind Marvel, an intergalactic fun saga, you know?

And the characters do, at a certain point, traverse into outer space to go find and stop Galactus. Let's talk about Galactus. Sure. Oh, OK. So Galactus. He's voiced by Ralph Innocent, who's the amazing English actor who people may know from The Witch, The Green Knight,

many other movies. He's a giant space god who is wearing a giant purple helmet. Well, he looks like... Lives inside of like a ship. He looks like a... There's also a drill. A Viking statue that you would build at a junkyard. Uh-huh.

And he lives inside of a drill. Yeah. So that's just a, that's a tough beat, you know? Like, that's a tough fate. And you get the impression, the movie turns on the fact that Sue Storm is pregnant when the Silver Surfer arrives on Earth to herald Galactus' coming to the nation. And so, they gotta go into space. Right. Seven months pregnant, nine months pregnant, she goes into space to go stop Galactus. Well, there's something, so they go faster than the speed of light.

And so- Oh, it ages the pregnancy? No, no, no, no, I mean, let's, are you ready for Science Corner? You wanna start it now? Let's go, hit the music. Drop that beat, yeah. Okay, all right. Science Corner. Welcome to Amanda Dobbins' Science Corner.

I mean, you turned to me. So we'll start with anecdotal evidence. You turned to me and you said, would you go into space seven months pregnant? And you know, I like hemmed and hawed because, you know, mamas can have it all, but also like, like, probably it's something that they could have zoomed in for. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, mamas can defeat Galactus seven months pregnant. Sure, but like, probably like, just a FaceTime would have sufficed. So I just like, you know, like we can,

we can solve, you know, near where there are doctors. And like no one had any sort of like hospital like protocol on board. You know what I'm saying? I just, they don't really, they do let you fly. Where was that pod bay from Prometheus, you know? I just listened, it would have come in handy But so then at some point they dock the you know, they take off

I felt that their rocket launch pad was far too close to the city Agreed I think Reed put it there sure but I just like that is not good for everybody else in the air quality Let's say you're living in earth 828 That is not good for everybody else in the air quality. Let's say you're living in Earth 828. You're going about your day. You know that the Fantastic Four are taking off that day from the time square of Earth 828. Are you just taking your lunch break to go watch them,

send them off, say, hey, see you guys later. Good luck. I mean, some people were watching it on TV. I might stream it. You love space, like a space launch. Well, I did tell you so that the launch sequence and then the docking of the ship into the, like, light year thing, like, light year time warp, fast boats go, thing was reminiscent of,

that's what they do in Apollo 13. Uh-huh, yeah. You know, when everybody goes to launch in Apollo 13 and then they have to like get the command module out and dock it with the lunar module and Kevin Bacon like didn't have enough practice because he was the backup because Gary Sinise got the measles. They're re-releasing Apollo 13 in IMAX in September and I'm incredibly excited. That's great.

Do you want to describe the entire plot of Apollo 13 to me right now? You can if you'd like. Anyway, so, but then they're in a light, that ship that they dock in, that's just like floating in space apparently, waiting for them, helps them travel faster than the speed of light, which is like a real throwaway line.

Like, Ebon Moss' back rack just like dials up, faster than the speed of light or something, traveling faster than light. So they go and then they come back, But when they're giving the disastrous press conference, which I definitely have some PR media notes for Reed Richards. We will get to that. They're like, they talk about a month long journey. So while a month has not passed in our viewing,

or maybe even in the experience of the Fantastic Four, it has on Earth, and I'm not clear how that affects gestationally what's going on, and whether the baby is back on Earth time, or whether it's also traveling at the speed of light. Some things that we learn about the baby might also influence that. Anyway, she goes into labor in space.

Wait, hold on. Yeah, sorry. Let's go officially into spoiler territory. Effectively, everything that happens all the way up until the gang goes into space to meet Galactus is roughly the first 35, 40 minutes of the movie. Yeah. And then the real conflict arises.

It's not just that Galactus wants to eat planet Earth, eight to eight. It's that he's willing to make a trade. And here's where the spoilers come in. And the trade is that he would trade eating Earth for getting Sue Storm and Reed Richards' baby. Yeah. The unborn baby inside of Sue Storm is his price. Yeah.

They of course say no. They get into a fight in the giant drill where Galactus lives. And Johnny Storm, I thought acquitted himself very well in that fight. I was pretty bored because it was all CGI. This movie is full of CGI. But what we're learning, when the superheroes have to go to space to fight a space monster, it's just, it looks bad. Let's keep it. Maybe we don't need to be so galactic. I understand that his name is literally Galactus, but you know, the same thing was a problem

with Superman. So yeah, but they make it out, right? They make it out. They survive. And then during their escape, Sue Storm gives birth. Well, she goes into labor. Yeah. And then as they once they've made it out, they have to slingshot around a star, which

is another thing they do in Apollo 13. That's how they get them home because they also ran out of gasoline, you know? You'll be able to add Apollo 13 to your fantastic fourth syllabus. It's the moon's gravitational pull. It slingshots them around. Science is amazing.

And so, yeah. Not my strongest subject historically. So then she gives birth. And I did appreciate that Reed Richards brought up gravity and like needing gravity to push. And so he's kind of like holding her down. But then she goes invisible at the moment that the baby is born, which some questions about that. I thought that was an incredibly profound metaphor for the invisibility of motherhood.

That's cinema to me. Baby's very clean. And doesn't have to eat once throughout the entire film. So, once again... Not really crying too much. One moment where it wakes up crying a little bit and then... But I mean, there's just like... It is not given any sustenance at any point.

This is a real plot hole in all Hollywood films. I mean, you know that for like the first six months... Well, your son needs a lot. Why? So, I think you might be over-indexing on this as a plot hole. I know, he's a very large baby, but you know that like those... Look, he's a wonderful kid and he's really big. But you know all babies, the first three months, all you're doing is just feeding them.

Yeah. Well, Franklin Richards in this film continues to be key because he becomes part of the bait to lure Galactus into the trap that they're trying to set. But before that happens, you mentioned this press conference. Yeah. Now, the Fantastic Four return to Earth. They're now the Fantastic Five. We've got Baby in tow and the world wants to know how'd you do it?

How'd you defeat Galactus? And rather than lie or filibuster or invent excuses, Reed Richards comes right out and says, didn't do it. Didn't beat him. He was a tough negotiator and he wanted my baby. And I said, no. And so he's coming to earth to eat everybody. And earth is not happy about this.

This is the point at which you're like, not only is he not the smartest man ever, like he's actually just a dummy, you know? And I understand there are different forms of intelligence and that he could be math smart but not strategic smart. But this is a really, really big... You're more street smart. This is a party foul. You know what I'm saying?

It's a huge error. Yeah. It's the kind of thing in a movie you're like, oh, don't do that. Like, it was kind of a horror movie moment. Like, what? So the whole movie hinges on this? Because you just open your fat mouth. Yeah, not ideal. And so Earth is like, fantastic four. We're like, fuck these four. Am I right? And so they turn their back on him. There's a very funny moment where the thing is walking down the street

wearing a hat and a trench coat carrying his groceries home. And two kids drive by and they're like, what about us? You ever think about us? We have families too, man. Yeah. Very, very, this is a weird movie. We should also say that in case you were wondering what happened to the umbilical cord, the thing was there to cut it. Yes. He had the, what is that? What is that instrument called?

I was out both times. The forceps. He had the forceps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, you know, like you do, you. The forceps. He had the forceps. Which, you know, like you do. You just have forceps on your rocket ship, headed to go meet Galactus. I'd like to take this moment to just stop and say, I looked at a couple of reviews of the movie,

and people seemed to like this movie, and I'm a little confused. Because it's not terrible. It's not, like, incompetent. Yeah. But it isn't anything special at all. Yeah. And a series of things keep happening where you're like, okay, right. You could have done it the other way. And you don't want to have that feeling when you're watching a movie, even if it's a comic

book movie where you have to suspend your disbelief and allow yourself to be thrown into the narrative. This goes on. You mentioned teleportation that gets invented by Reed Richards even though he doesn't know how to conduct a press conference and that leads to him thinking he's got the perfect idea to teleport the entire planet to another place. Another location in the galaxy. Yes, and he's able to focus on these things because the only real kind of major theme of the movie is arising at this moment, which is that, what does it mean to be a hero?

Is it selfish to try to protect your family in the face of protecting what you have said you stand for, which is standing up for humanity? And I really couldn't find, like locate another idea in the movie beyond that idea. Not great relative, at least with Superman, even if not all the threads are knotted. I was like, this is a lot of threads.

Some stuff here. Some stuff on this guy's mind. This movie just kind of feels like... Yeah, even the... The story of a comic book. Galactus doesn't have any... motive because he doesn't make his own decisions. Well, it seems like... Except he's drawn to the baby. He's drawn to the baby, I think,

because he feels he is kind of trapped in his fate. Is this a QAnon movie? Could be a QAnon movie. He feels trapped in the fate of having to eat all the time. Okay, oh, I'm not sure that I got that level of emotion from him. And he needs relief from that. And I think he sees the baby as his relief because of the incredible potential power of Franklin Richards.

So the baby is going to... Take his mantle. Relieve him of his burden. So he doesn't have to eat planets? I think that's what we're meant to understand. Okay. That didn't make its way to me. But the other thing they say is that Julia Garner, the Silver Surfer, is there because she decides which planets get eaten.

Well, she's like a scout. Yeah. She finds the planets because she herself was once someone who had to sacrifice her life to save her planet. Right. And she turned her life over to Galactus and she would serve as the herald, this person who locates what planets need to be eaten next to sate his hunger.

But so he's not really making any emotional decisions one way or another. She's doing it. And she's doing it under the same question that everybody else is operating under, which is, like, you know, who are you going to save? Who are you, you know? Do you think the movie would be better

if it was just Daniel Day-Lewis playing Galactus? Like, would we feel more deeply for him, his struggle? There is something about making him this kind of titanic figure. You know, the teleportation scheme doesn't work, Silver Surfer intervenes, Galactus arrives. This is something people have wanted in movies, comic book fans have wanted in movies for a very long time. Galactus, I think in the last movie, the Josh Trank version, I think he was like a cloud. I haven't seen this movie in some time, but they didn't actually render

the giant space god walking on Earth. So for comic book fans, this is a big thing. I thought he looked okay. I didn't think it was terrible. Well, I mean, there were just some serious scale issues, right? Because, I mean, he is large, but he shows up somewhere in the... the Hudson River, I think. Well, or the Bay. He's near the Statue of Liberty. He's larger than the Statue of Liberty.

That's your first focal point. But then he... And he's larger than, or the Bay. He's near the Statue of Liberty. He's larger than the Statue of Liberty. That's your first focal point. But then he, and he's larger than all of the buildings in Manhattan, but I would say he picks up a handful of earth and several trees, but so his palm is like, you know, three large trees worth of Earth. So not insignificant, I can't do that. But like, this is a person who's supposed to be able to contain entire planets,

and his hand is only like that, you know, three trees big. I don't, he might have like an incredible intestines. We don't really know enough about the physiology of this character. Sure, but I'm just, I'm saying like, you know, it doesn't pass the eye test. That's fair. Okay.

I won't, I won't, I won't quibble with that whatsoever. Nevertheless, the Fantastic Four come up with a scheme to draw him into a black hole. Right. Or to kind of teleport him out. Right. Because they can't teleport the entire planet out. And they have enough uranium left for one.

That's 37 seconds worth of time for sucking him in. Of power and something. So they fail when they first try because Galactus is super smart. But then he basically mid-battle falls prey to Sue Storm's incredible ability to put her hands out and send beams of power into Galactus' direction. Right, yeah. Vanessa Kirby doing a tremendous amount of face and grunt acting.

We've seen this from many actresses over the years. You know, Scarlet Witch, known for this kind of... How would you do with this kind of acting, where you had to gesture to the power coming out of your fingers? I haven't done my whole warm-up process yet and my exercises. Is that not one of the solid core steps? You have to learn how to shoot themes.

My pre-stage routine in order to be a super mama. It takes a little more work. I didn't have time for it today. She did super mama her way to victory. Mamas are the real superheroes. And then, so she gets it most of the way, because you can't stop a mama. And then she... He pokes his hand back out or something.

And there are 11 seconds left, and we know that, because they check the Human Torch's Apple Watch. And then... In come... They do, I saw it. And then in comes the Silver Surfer, who we have learned in Flashback, was once upon a time a mama herself. If not in actuality and spirit, she's seen with a small child doing mama-like things during flowing dresses. Yes, Johnny Storm reveals her, right, you know, intergalactic humanity.

So she comes in to knock Galactus back through the wormhole or whatever the hell it is. So in the end, it's the two mamas who save the day. Yeah. And, you know, here we are. Those two mamas team up and Sue Storm dies, but then she gets brought back to life. Right, by her magic child. Reed Richards puts a baby on her chest. Because once again, the power of being a, you know, like what you do as a mom is the most powerful thing of all.

Uh, yeah. So then she comes back to life, and then the Fantastic Four, they did it! And, hooray! And then I was like, okay, now we're going to get like ten minutes of cool stuff is going to happen. Because this was just an issue of the Fantastic Four. That's all this was. It was just one issue of a comic book. Now, that isn't bad, per se. But the MCU has been down bad for a long time.

And this movie has a lot riding on it. And in my head, I was like, OK, time to break out the big guns. What are we going to do, guys? What's going to happen with Fantastic Four? And then... the credits hit. No, they did a bit about a car seat first.

Oh yeah, there was a car seat joke. Because the dads, yeah, the dads don't have it, but the mamas, they're super mamas. Right, so the super mamas figure it out. Franklin goes in the car seat. They fly off to another adventure, end credits hit. Mid-credit scene happens. Four years later, Sue is... Ish, they don't say that. You're just guessing that. No, it said four years later.

Oh, it did? Yeah, that's why I said four is a great age. I just thought you were looking at Franklin and it was like one mama to another being like, I'm right there. It said four years later and Franklin's getting ready to read. He's already read Darwin for the day.

So she's going to look for some board books that he might enjoy. And she steps away from her son for a minute, only to return and we see from behind a man holding a metal mask with a green cloak. Invariably, it is Doctor Doom getting ready to take Franklin. And Franklin looks intrigued.

So a baby or a child in peril is like a major feature of Fantastic Four? I don't really know. Okay. I can't remember? I don't really know. Okay. I can't remember. I didn't love it in general, you know, it was fine. The baby is in a lot of trouble in this movie.

The baby is really, and they've got like a bulletproof car seat or whatever, but they're using the baby as bait. One's not feeding it, but just putting it in, you know, harm's way. Ever be worse than the sequence in The Flash. No, you're right. You're right. That was the worst. Flying babies out of the hospital windows was the worst. That was awful. I mean, this, I was like,

I don't love it, but I see why you're doing it, and the baby is okay. You know? When I said that Superman was like a Saturday morning cartoon, I think I meant like a 90s Saturday morning cartoon. This is like a 60s Saturday morning cartoon, I think I meant like a 90s Saturday morning cartoon. This is like a 60s Saturday morning cartoon and they are different. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I prefer the 90s. And I prefer not every scene having like a wink, wink, nudge, nudge,

inside joke at you or like, get a load of this guy, Constance of humor. But I'd like a little bit of it. And I found this movie to be surprisingly not funny. Yeah, I would say you would like humor of some kind. Yes. And they do try and there are some jokes. And like, Ebon Ma's back-rack innocent, in my opinion. He's trying, but the thing is so unexpressive that you don't get

as much from that character as you want. I've actually, I just think that the representation of the thing in the previous two Fantastic Four movies is actually better than it is in this movie, which feels strange to say because those movies are not good. So, that stuff isn't great. Um, it leaves us on this cliffhanger of, you know, Doctor Doom is coming, which is cool, but we knew that already. You know, the last Comic-Con, this was all revealed to us. We know RDJ is coming back.

There's a Spider-Man movie one year from now. And then, Doomsday. Now, I'm fond of saying that Endgame is good. There's a Spider-Man movie one year from now, and then Doomsday. Now, I'm fond of saying that Endgame is good. One of the reasons why Infinity War and Endgame were so good was because they had spent ten years building up to this incredible story and these huge stakes, and they presented Thanos in all of these situations over time, and got to hear more about him over time, and figure out why he was the villain of this major story. Right. Didn't James Gunn recently give an interview where he said he thought of the Infinity Stones in like 15 seconds?

I saw that quote. Well, he didn't invent them. They were a part of the... The plot line. Yeah. Well, that's what he said. I don't know. I'm not sure. I don't know. I mean, the Infinity Gauntlet pre... Exists before James Gunn. Maybe just the idea to use it as the... As the McGuffin to tell the story there. I'm reading an Instagram caption.

James Gunn explains how he wrote the Infinity Stones in three minutes. There you go. Okay, interesting. Um... I guess I just don't know where we're going. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but the Marvel movies unto themselves, I don't feel like were great works of art.

I thought the great work of art was the push towards the conclusion of the story. That was the thing that I always wanted to celebrate as an interesting kind of evolution in movie storytelling. Never really seen anything like that. I thought they nailed it with a bunch of the storylines. Now we're headed towards the big event, the big new Avengers movie, the first Avengers movie since Endgame. What's even on the line here? Like I don't even know what we're heading towards.

I know you don't know. I'm just, I'm like kind of bewildered by how they've set us up here. It's not the Secret Wars? What are the Secret Wars? Well, that's like a, that's another run from the eighties that's about a lot of alien figures and the collision of worlds and there's going to be characters from other universes fighting each other. Well, we didn't, we didn't talk about how this, the dropped plot of the other universes and how they could have just teleported everyone to a different earth. Right?

Um, I think they were just gonna move the entire planet. Yeah, but then if you move him to a different Earth, then is Galactus gonna come looking for that Earth? You know? I don't think the idea was to move to a different Earth. No, I know, but what if that I'm just offering a solution. Oh, what if they did do that? Move all of humanity to a different planet? To a different Earth. Because there are lots of Earths exist as we know. This is 828.

What about 829? What's going on over there? I don't... Does Reed Richards know there are other universes? You tell me. I mean, in some comics, yes. At this stage of the story, I don't know. Isn't he supposed to be the smartest man alive?

He's supposed to be. Yeah. Well, I don't know about this. He's not supposed to be the greatest soy boy alive, but that's what he was. We would not say great problem solving to this one. Um, no. This is a weird movie. I... I... I was confused.

Mm-hmm. And... Sometimes when I see a movie like this and I'm confused, I'm like, I should go see that again. Maybe I missed something. What did I miss? But I don't think I did. I should go see that again. Maybe I missed something. What did I miss? I don't think I did.

I didn't really feel either. I was confused because I did feel that the reviews and the reception that preceded us was more positive. Well, I do, I sense that a lot of critics were relieved to not have to know a lot going in. Sure. That doesn't, that wouldn't significantly improve my opinion of a movie. If that's the first thing that you're noting

in why you thought the movie was kind of successful, that's not really a success to me. It's something that is helpful to potentially telling a good story, but it's not enough. Beyond that, performances are okay at best. The story is really comic book 101. The effects are not great, which has been an issue for Marvel for years now.

And it doesn't even move the ball forward that intriguingly. So I'm baffled. Now, the tracking for the movie is, I would say mid. Well, the tracking for the movie is, I would say, mid. It's roughly 100 to 110 million dollar opening. That would come in behind the Superman opening. I'm quite fascinated to know what the word of mouth will be. We had an interesting conversation with Jack after this. And Jack pointed out, Jack, feel free to speak up on this, because you were much younger

when the first two fantastic four movies came out with Yohan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba and Chris Evans. When I was, I was in college when those movies came out and I watched them and thought they were trash. But what was your relationship to those movies? I absolutely adored them. I rewatched the original one today. It is not good, but I think a comparison point here is like, Chris Evans in the original movie, although it be bad, he has chemistry. He is engaging. He has charisma, sexual energy.

Joseph Quinn doesn't really have any of those traits as an actor. And I like him. I think he's good. But it goes back to being deeply miscast. And I agree with your point in the original Fantastic Four. When you are watching The Thing, you see Michael Chiklis, and even though he's in The Thing costume, you are saying, I'm looking at Michael Chiklis. In this film, I do not see Eben Moss-Bachrock performing. I see a CGI orange monster performing, and it lessens the humor of the character.

Yeah, it's definitely true. And so the whole spirit of the characters that we know and love are kind of gone. I think it makes sense if you saw those early movies, regardless of their quality, and then you have a little bit more of an emotional connection to the characters. And this feels like an elevation of those characters,

to one extent or another, but I didn't and I don't. Yeah. Is it gonna do well? People gonna like it? Is the word of mouth gonna be good? I'm confused. I, the gentleman who's sitting next to us at the, at our 2 p.m. screen today, Matt. Matt didn't like it either.

Matt introduced himself to us and said, guys, that wasn't good. Yeah, so that's our one man on the street. I was surprised by our reaction as well, not because I thought like, oh, you know, this is gonna reinvent my relationship to comic book movies, but just because it was positive. And also people were so excited for this. And I guess some of that is like Jack's, you know, Jack's peers and a lot of people who have been waiting for these characters mean a lot to them. I only remember the disastrous Josh Trank,

Fantastic Four, which I never even saw, but I just know that that was not successful. And so I think I went in being a little, I didn't think it looked that great either. But you asked the critical question on the way out of here, which is, which was what? Which is, are we sure the problem isn't just the Fantastic Four and that the characters are pretty tough?

Because your answer to is he a stretchy nerd pretty tough, because, you know, your answer to, is he a stretchy nerd, was yes, but. Like, but there is more. You know, I don't really know what's going on with Sue Storm besides she can, you know, do a four-field. She turns invisible. Oh, yeah, that's cool. But you know what I didn't realize until I saw this movie is that, so The Incredibles is just like the Fantastic Four, but good. This was gonna be my final note. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. But you know what I didn't realize until I saw this movie is that, so The Incredibles is just like

the Fantastic Four but good. This was gonna be my final note. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Incredibles is kind of obviated to these characters. Totally. But I don't think I understood like to a character that the powers are the same. Like Jack-Jack lights up into flames,

Violet does the force field and the invisible. There's no dash. But you know, Mr. Incredible, he can... He does all sorts of things, but he can stretch. He's sort of like super... Oh, no, no, no, Elastigirl. Elastigirl stretches. But it is like an amalgam of all of the powers

of Fantastic Four, and it's a family formulation. Yeah. And the success of that, those two movies makes it harder for Fantastic Four, even though it's clearly like a big homage to Fantastic Four. Yeah. I think you're definitely onto something. There's just something G. Willikers about Fantastic Four

that is very outmoded. And there was an attempt to kind of make this a period piece. To make this like a Phil Spector pop song. And it's, they didn't, I didn't feel they caught the tone. They didn't catch the wave, like the rhythm is off. And so I was, I was disappointed. I don't, the last few Marvel episodes, I've been presenting them to you as like,

if they strike out, it's over. If they strike out, it's over. And now it's like... It's not over, it's just different. It's way different. Which is what we say about everything, certainly about movies, but this just seems like this is gonna be for a subset of people who enjoy these things. I don't think they're gonna be, you know,

billion-dollar spectacles going forward. It's, I mean, it sets up... Doomsday is an interesting question. Yes. The Spider-Man movie will probably work. Every Spider-Man movie has worked. Doomsday is an interesting question. Yes, the Spider-Man movie will probably work. Every Spider-Man movie has worked. Doomsday has Avengers in its title and will have Robert Downey Jr. selling it. So it's going to do well. I don't know how much lower the bar gets in terms of what is well when you're on your

third or fourth consecutive movie that isn't cracking $500 million. This movie probably will, almost certainly will internationally, but I think long gone are the days of 800 million guaranteed. And I watch it with interest. We'll talk about it next week, how well it does. X-Men? It's only like five years away. Is it really? Can I hold on for that long? Is it really five years?

What's so, what's... At least 2028. I, I, I... At least. I'm honestly just doing the math of how old you'll be. And that's pretty old. I'm probably gonna be able to get Knox into X-Men and get him into the movies with me. I liked the one X-Men movie with James McVoy and Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence.

Sure, which was sort of like Inglorious Basterds, but X-Men. with James McVoy and Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence, sure, which was sort of like Inglourious Basterds, but X-Men. It's generous, but sure. Well, you know, it's a period piece. Is X-Men what we choose? He knows about Spider-Man. He knows about Batman. Well, definitely. You can't go see the Batman with him.

He's not going to be able to see that until he's like 12. Spider-Man, maybe. right. Spider-Man maybe. We watched Spider-Verse, Alice and I. And she was into it. She loves Miles and Spider-Gwen. Okay. But yeah, X-Men is a very, you know, he'll be like seven. When he's seven and I show him Logan, you know?

I show him Wolverine. Me and CR showing him Wolverine. That's gonna fucking- You're right. You can't show him Logan at you know? I show him Wolverine. Me and CR showing him Wolverine. That's gonna fucking... You can't show him Logan at seven. That's not okay. Yeah, we can. Fuck yeah, we can. He's a sensitive little guy.

I love him. No. He's a manimal like Wolverine himself. And he will rise once more. Adamantium? Is that what his claws are made of? Yes. I'm so glad that that is a fact that's stored in my brain.

I learned that from the Red Hulk. That's right. Adamantium and vibranium are in a death race to see what is the more powerful naturally occurring element. Is there another element out there that trumps all of them that they haven't? Yes, cocaine. Exactly. That just about does it for us. Any last thoughts?

It was fun to go to the movies with you. It was always fun to go to the movies with you, Amanda. Thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Next week, we're actually going to come with our 25 for 25 first. We were originally going to do, I know what you did last summer, but I haven't seen it yet. So 25 for 25, we presented it to the Chicago crowd. Not gonna reveal it here,

even though I think most people know what it is already. We had a wonderful time presenting it. Hope you enjoy the episode. We'll see you then. Thanks for watching!