The Fantastic Four: First Steps – the best origins movie Marvel has made in years? Discuss with spoilers

The franchise flat pack has been ditched for something weirder, warmer and more self-contained. So, what did you make of this retro sci-fi bedtime story?• This article contains spoilers for The Fantastic Four: First StepsThe Fantastic Four: First Steps is a curious hybrid: part Jetsons fever dream, part nuclear family therapy session, part cosmic horror birthing video. It ditches Marvel’s usual franchise flat-pack assembly for something weirder, warmer and vastly more self-contained: a superhero movie that unfolds like a retro sci-fi bedtime story, then ends with a glowing new mum hurling an invasive space god into a binbag full of stars.This is a Fantastic Four movie that finally figures out why the team works – not because they’re the strongest or the smartest, but because they’re messy, human and weirdly functional in the face of total annihilation. Yes, the fate of this gloriously future-retro version of Earth (828) is at stake. Yes, someone gives birth to a child that (at least in the comics) is basically a deity. But the thing you’ll remember is the squabbling, the love, and the actual screen chemistry. Continue reading...

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Frankenstein goes old school? Jacob Elordi channels Boris Karloff

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