The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Posted on July 22, 2025 at 12:19 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for action/violence and some language
Profanity:	Brief mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic book/action-style peril and violence, some graphic images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 25, 2025

Four seems to be the magic number. After three unsatisfactory tries at getting Marvel’s cosmic ray-enhanced superheroes on screen, Marvel Studios got it right, gorgeously produced, well cast, gracefully relegating the origin story to a few “archival” clips, and putting our quartet and us right in the middle of the action.

It is set in a fantasy version of the 1960s, inspired by the visual style, not the history or pop culture. In the first scene, Reed is looking for iodine, the painful antiseptic used for minor cuts in the 50s, and Sue Storm uses something that was not invented in our reality until the 1980s. There is a Calder mobile in their headquarters living room and the men we see in the outdoor scenes all wear hats, so handsome this movie just might bring back the fedora. The production design from “Loki’s” Kasra Farahani is dazzling and endlessly inviting, a heightened version of a mid-century concept of the future. The cerulean blue and white accents of the retro F4 uniforms designed by Alexandra Byrne (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) place us in a time and a world that is like but not the same as ours.

The Four are Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), a brilliant scientist whose body stretches, his wife Sue (Vanessa Kirby) who has the power of invisibility, including creating invisible shields, Sue’s impetuous and very single brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn), who can burst into flames and fly, and Ben Grimm, known as The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who looks like he is made from mountain rock and is very, very strong.

As the movie begins, the world is celebrating them as heroes and protectors. It has been four years since the space expedition exposed them to the cosmic rays, they have defeated or, in the case of the subterranean Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser), negotiated a peace agreement, and established a United Nations-type organization called the Future Foundation.

The superheroes and the people they protect believe F4 and their adorable robot, Herbie, will always keep them safe. And then they face their biggest and most terrifying challenge. Sue is pregnant. While Reed and Sue know that the molecular changes from the cosmic rays may affect the baby, they believe, with some reassurance from Sue’s ability to make her abdomen invisible so they can see the fetus, the baby will be fine.

Big and terrifying challenge #2: the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) arrives to announce that Earth is about to be consumed by Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a planet devourer. F4 tracks the Silver Surfer to find Galactus, confident they can defeat him. And this leads to the first Marvel action sequence that features a very pregnant superhero. Galactus offers them a terrible choice, and when they refuse, the people on earth quickly go from fans to haters.

The film moves briskly, with one of the shortest run times in the MCU, under two hours. But it creates a fully-realized world, with small details like the Mole Man’s dad jokes, Ben Grimm’s “beard” and copy of 50s classic child care bible Dr. Spock, and a sweet brief appearance by Natasha Lyonne as the teacher of students who are big fans of The Thing. Fans will enjoy some glimpses of popular villains from the comic books. Director Matt Shakman (the similarly retro fantasies “Game of Thrones” and “Wandavision” and “The Great”) understands that the action scenes and the family dynamic are central to the storyline and he has fun with scale when Galactus arrives. While the stakes are dire, he stays away from gratuitous carnage. The film has good-natured humor, impressive special effects, some tender moments, and even a light gloss of commentary on what we expect from our heroes, and how we approach moral dilemmas and life-threatening challenges. I’m iffy about one twist, but overall, this is a film that respects comic book characters and what we love about them.

Parents should know that this movie features extended comic book/action-style peril and violence, with some scary creatures and disturbing and graphic images. There are mild references to reproductive biology and a woman goes into labor (discreetly filmed). Characters use some mild language.

Family discussion: Philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued that all decisions should be based on the greatest good for the largest number of people. How does that idea appear in this film and do you agree? What do you think will happen to Franklin? What is the law of levers and how do you see it around you?

If you like this, try: “Superman,” The Fantastic Four comics, and maybe just for fun watch the earlier films so you can compare them.

NOTE: Stay through the credits for one extra scene indicating where the story is going and, at the very end, a nostalgic moment.

Thunderbolts*

Posted on May 1, 2025 at 2:06 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for strong violence, language, thematic elements, and some suggestive and drug references
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drug references
Violence/ Scariness:	Non-stop action-style peril and violence, child is killed, automatic weapons, military weapons, chases, explosions, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, mental illness sympathetically portrayed
Date Released to Theaters:	May 2, 2025

I liked “Thunderbolts* (note the asterisk) a lot, but it will be divisive. Some people don’t want to delve into the mental health struggles of anyone, including a superhero or supervillain. They’re just there for the punches, powers, explosions, and special effects. But as I watched the film, I thought about how many superheroes experienced devastating trauma before gaining their powers and/or dedication to saving the world. Bruce Wayne saw his parents killed by a mugger when he was a child. Superman lost his family and his whole planet. Spidey was living with his aunt and uncle, so had already lost his parents before Uncle Ben was killed. Tony Stark had dad issues. Black Widow was trained to be a child assassin.

“Thunderbolts*” is a “Suicide Squad”/”Guardians of the Galaxy”-style superhero story about a group of damaged, distrustful loners with superpowers who have to do more than just band together for all the punching and explosions. They have to begin to heal themselves. And I am completely here for it, plus for finding out the meaning of the asterisk, which I enjoyed very much. And yes, you do need to stay all the way through the credits for a final scene that teases what’s coming next.

Before I get to the superheroes, I want to talk about the villain(s). I always say that it is the villains more than the heroes that matter most in a comic book movie (and in some other places as well, as Milton showed us in Paradise Lost). Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of the all-time great villains as Valentina, the ultra-wealthy corporate CEO turned Director of the CIA (though with current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s streak of silver hair, just a coincidence, I’m sure). Some villains have great evil smiles. Louis-Dreyfus has a great social smile exuding the supreme confidence and power of the .001% while all-but-hiding the voracious all-consuming drive for power and utter disregard of the rights or value of anyone in her way.

We first see Yelena (Florence Pugh), still in mourning for her sister, Natasha (The Black Widow) and almost by rote working as an operative for Valentina. She is numb and lonely and lacks purpose. She tells Valentina she wants out, but agrees to one last job, in a remote lab where Valentina’s company once performed experiments, trying to find a formula to give superpowers to her subjects.

She ends up fighting Captain America (Wyatt Russell as John Walker), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and another super-character who doesn’t last long, before they figure out that they are all there for the same reason, to die, because they have become problems for Valentina. At this point, a guy who seems to be the opposite of super in any way wanders in wearing pajamas, with no memory of pretty much anything except his name. He is Bob (Lewis Pullman, in his second “just Bob” role after “Top Gun: Maverick”).

Yelena, John, and Ava do not trust each other, but the only way to stay alive is to work together. The escape works well in moving the plot and character development forward as well as being fun to watch. And that’s pretty much the vibe for the rest of the film.

Valentina thought her program to turn humans into supers failed, meaning they all died. But somehow Bob survived and that changes her plan. And the people she describes as “defective losers, anti-social tragedy in human form” may not have the cool powers and (mostly) good manners of the Avengers, but they are all struggling toward being something better. That means dealing with sad and scary feelings like loss and trauma, with the characters catapulted into immersive re-creations of their most painful moments. Will they finally find a way to become, a, what’s the word, team? The good news is that by the end of the film, we hope so.

NOTE: Stay through the credits for a mid-credit scene and a teaser at the end for what’s coming next.

Parents should know that this is a superhero movie with non-stop peril and action-style violence including automatic weapons and fantasy powers. Characters are injured and killed, including a child. Mental health and trauma are themes of the film. Characters use some strong language and there are drug references and alcohol.

Family discussion: What is the best way to discover your purpose? How did the childhood experiences of Yelena and Bob affect the way they saw themselves? How is Valentina different from other villains in superhero movies?

If you like this, try: “Guardians of the Galaxy” and the Avengers movies

Kraven the Hunter

Posted on December 12, 2024 at 5:41 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong bloody violence and language
Profanity:	Some strong language, f-words
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, potions
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended and graphic action and comic book style violence with disturbing and bloody images, knives, poison darts, bombs, fire, guns, bear traps, spears
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 13, 2024

Another day, another second or third-level Marvel character “from the Spider-Man universe” given main character energy as Sony makes sure it takes every possible advantage of the contractual carve-out that gives it a small piece of the Marvel universe that isn’t run by Kevin Feige and Disney. The best I can say is that “Kraven the Hunter” is a bit better than the dismal “Madame Web” and less goofy than Tom Hardy’s “Venom: The Last Dance.”

This is the sixth of the Sony films about ancillary Spider-Man characters, the longest (2 hours, 7 minutes), and the first to be rated R.

The rating is primarily for extended bloody violence, as indicated by the poster showing Kraven’s face with specks of blood (not his) and the sobriquet “Hunter.” In the comics, he hunts Spidey because he wants to test himself against the most challenging prey. That character is inspired by Richard Connell’s short story about hunting humans, “The Most Dangerous Game.” But this movie is an origin story, and Kraven hunts bad guys.

It opens in present day, where a bus is taking men in chains to a remote Russian prison. We see the man we will come to know as Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) holding his meager bedding as he enters his cell. An extremely tough-looking guy watches him enter, then says, “I do not like roommates.” Kraven tells him that he will be gone within three days; if not, his cellmate can hit him. Kraven stays long enough to kill another prisoner, one of those still-running-the-crime-syndicate-from-prison kingpins. And then he escapes, automatic weapon bullets all around him as he races to catch the plane that was sent for him.

Flashback to 16 years earlier. Teenage Sergei Kravinoff (Levi Miller) and his half-brother Dimitri (Billy Barrett) are attending a posh boarding school in upstate New York when they are told their father has come to pick them up. He is Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), a powerful crime boss and the embodiment of toxic masculinity. He abruptly tells the boys that Sergei’s mother has committed suicide because she was “weak” and disturbed. There will be no funeral; instead he is taking his sons on a safari, so they can prove their manhood by killing dangerous animals.

Nikolai teaches his sons that the only things that matter are strength and power; they must never show weakness or fear. Sergei, who is brave and thoughtful, tries to protect his sensitive and vulnerable younger brother. When a legendary lion many hunters have failed to kill approaches them, Sergei puts himself in danger and is fatally mauled. But he is found by Calypso, a young girl on a photo safari with her parents. Her grandmother, a tarot card reader with some mystical power, had just given Calypso a vial with a potion that can “heal someone in undreamed ways.” She pours it into Sergei’s mouth and later, at the hospital, after he is pronounced dead he suddenly recovers. Between the potion and the lion’s blood that dripped into his wound, Sergei now has the powers of the world’s apex predators.

Yes, this is a superhero story about daddy issues. Nickolai is a narcissist who belittles everyone around him, including his sons and also some random guy named Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) who tagged along on the safari in hopes of persuading Nickolai to allow him to be a part of all the criming. We will see him again later. When Nickolai tells Sergei he is taking him into the family business, Sergei runs away, leaving his brother behind.

Sergei becomes Kraven, living in a remote Russian forest on property once owned by his mother’s family. And he becomes a hunter, trying to balance his father’s ruthless brutality by taking out bad guys. He tracks down Calypso (Ariana DeBose), now an American lawyer working in London to thank her for saving his life and ask for her help in locating some bad guys. And then Dimitri is kidnapped, and Nickolai refuses to pay the ransom, because it will make him look weak.

All of this is just a light framework for a lot of impressive stunts. Kraven is old-school, so while people are shooting at him, he is using spears, knives, poison darts, and bear traps. At least the action scenes relieve us from the clunky dialogue and bad accents.

Parents should know that this is a very violent movie with constant action and comic-book-style chases and fight scenes and many graphic and disturbing images. A teenager gets mauled by a lion. There is a very unsympathetic discussion of suicide. Weapons include machine guns and rifles, spears, knives, poison darts, bear traps, and bombs. Characters drink alcohol and use some strong language.

Family discussion: Why did Sergei and Dimitri respond so differently to their father? What were Kraven’s strengths as a hunter? What mistakes did he make?

If you like this, try; “The Most Dangerous Game” and Taylor-Johnson’s “Bullet Train” and “Kick-Ass”

Madame Web

Posted on February 13, 2024 at 7:06 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for violence/action and language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic book/action style peril and violence, crashes, explosions, poison, guns, fire, some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters

When EMT Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson) introduces her colleague as Ben Parker (Adam Scott) as Ben Parker, your spidey sense better be tingling or this movie is going to be a slog. Not that this origin story of Marvel superhero Madame Web is just another Spider-Man variation. It’s way different. Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, and Madame Web is bitten by a natural but imaginary with magic powers spider. Got it?

Cassie (short for Cassandra, which should tingle your spidey-sense, too) is a loner. Once she delivers a patient to the hospital, She cares very much for Ben Parker and for their boss, O’Neil (the always instantly-appealing Mike Epps) but she does not want to spend much time with anyone outside of work. Cassie’s mother died in Peru, where she was researching a rare species of spider with peptides that could have healing powers for humans, and Cassie, who grew up in foster care, has always felt abandoned, even rejected, by the mother who was so reckless in exploring the wilds of South America when she was eight months pregnant.

We know there is more to the story than that. We saw her mother (Kerry Bishe), betrayed by her assistant, Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), shoot her and steal the spider she has worked so hard to find. As she dies, a member of a spider-enhanced tribe thought by most people to be a legend appears, and he is able to deliver her baby before she dies.

Trailer

Cassie and Ben rescue a man from an overturned car hanging over the side of a bridge, but the car flips into the water with Cassie inside. Ben rescues her, but while under water her heart stopped, and the experience has triggered in her a power it will take a while for her to understand; she can see a few moments into the future, enough for her to make a difference and prevent disaster.

Meanwhile, Sims is having his own visions of the future, where he will be murdered by three young women with spidery superpowers. He is determined to prevent this by killing them, when they are still teenagers. He gets access to government databases and cameras and hires tech whiz and morally bankrupt Amaria (Zosia Mamet in a thankless role that consists of peering intently into screens and saying yes to Sims’ demands) to find the girls. She does get to wear elegant necklaces while she’s doing it, though.

Somehow, Cassie and the three girls, who do not know each other, end up on the same train and when Cassie sees visions of Sims killing them she gets them off the train and away from him. Keeping them away from him takes up most of the rest of the movie and unsurprisingly that means chases and explosions and at least two vehicles crashing through buildings. The girls are played by the exceptionally talented and sadly underused Isabela Merced, Sydney Sweeny, and Celeste O’Connor.

It’s not an awful movie but it is not very good. The origin story spends too much time on the origin, with Cassie getting used to her powers, which involves a detour to Peru that slows down the pacing. What we really want is more time with Cassie and the girls. If it’s going to be an origin story, let’s get their origins, too. There’s an irresponsibility and lack of even the most limited consequences to the mayhem that goes beyond the usual suspension of disbelief we grant a comic book movie. The dialogue is pedestrian, occasionally laughable, and the references to the Spider-Man universe or one of the Spider-Man universes are clumsy. And what should be the strongest part of any superhero movie, the villain, here is the weakest. Sims, who at times sounds like his dialogue has been dubbed by someone else, is just not that interesting. If you could see ahead like Madame Web, you might fix your future by waiting to see this on streaming.

Parents should know that this movie has extended comic book-style peril and violence with guns, poison, chases, crashes, fire, and explosions. Characters use some strong language and there are sexual references and situations as well as two scenes of childbirth or labor.

Family discussion: How did what Cassie learned about her mother change the way she thought about herself? What did Julia, Anya, and Mattie have in common? What superpower would you like to have?

If you like this, try: the “Spider-Man” movies and the Madame Web comics

Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3

Posted on May 3, 2023 at 11:56 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language.
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended sci-fi/action/comic book-style peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	May 5, 2023
Date Released to DVD:	July 31, 2023

I guess it makes sense. Not the movie. Not even close. But the form = content notion that “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” the third in the series, is, like its characters a mess but a lovable and entertaining mess. By now it feels like it’s our mess. So, even though I couldn’t help imagining what Honest Trailers and Pitch Meeting are going to have so say about the very convoluted to the point of you’ve-got-to-be-kidding last 40 minutes or so and it’s well over two hours run time, I enjoyed it.

We already know something about the history of some of the characters. Peter Quill/Star Lord (Chris Pratt) had an earth mother and an alien father and was taken from earth at age 8 by an intergalactic group of rogues and thieves called The Ravagers. Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) were stolen from their families when their planets were annihilated by Thanos and then tortured and mutilated to turn them into assassins. But we don’t know much about Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and the tree-guy voiced by Vin Diesel.

In this chapter, we go back to Rocket’s origin story. Like Thanos’ adopted daughters and Wolverine and I’m sure lots of other fictional characters, he was operated on by a megalomaniacal villain trying to “perfect” the world. He is The High Evolutionary, played by Chukwudi Iwuji. He has already created worlds and destroyed them for not living up to his exacting standards of perfection. One of his worlds we saw briefly in the last GothG movie, with Elizabeth Debicki as Ayesha, leader of a world of spectacularly beautiful golden-hued creatures. In this film, he threatens to destroy that world unless Ayesha’s son, Warlock (Will Poulter), brings him Rocket. While the High Evolutionary is obsessed with the “improvements” he inflicts, somehow Rocket has gifts of intellect that the High Evolutionary did not create for him and he wants to understand and either copy that or destroy it.

The High Evolutionary’s experiments on Rocket and other animals were mechanical, replacing body parts with metal, so that they look Like the mutilated toys in Syd’s room in the first “Toy Story.” But it is in the adjoining cages that he finds his first family, led by the warm-hearted otter named Lylla. Rocket, using that exceptional capacity for engineering we have observed in the earlier films, manages to escape (including piloting a ship even though he has never even seen one before, much less been exposed to outer space or really anything outside of his prison).

This time, then, the Guardians are not saving the galaxy. At the beginning of the film they seem happily settled in Knowwhere with Cosmo the Soviet wonder dog, Mantis, the anntena-ed empath (Pom Klementieff), and former Ravager Kraglin (Sean Gunn). They have opened a bar. But the one doing all the drinking is Peter, who is still trying to drown his grief over the loss of Gamora. Nothing can get him to stop until Rocket is attacked. He is gravely injured and in order to save him the Guardians will need to retrieve a code to unlock a mechanism that prevents the necessary surgery and just 48 hours to do it. The Ravagers also get involved, and they now include a different version of Gamora brought back from the past who has no memory of her relationship with Peter.

There’s a hint of “Mission Impossible.” They’re even told that if they are caught, they will not be acknowledged as acting on behalf of the ruling body. And there’s a Zune vintage music player retrieved at the end of Vol 2 to follow the mix-tapes from the first two movies with some new songs for the soundtrack.

As noted, it does get messy. The group of misfit toys go off in different directions and it is hard to keep track of who is doing what where. A increasing problem with the Marvel movies is the way they keep using the stakes The High Evolutionary and Warlock have powers of near god-like magnitude. What can the Guardians do? It gets muddled. The High Evolutionary can do just about anything including creating and destroying worlds, but somehow cannot fight back from an attack with claws. There is a significant element to the story about the essential value of living beings who might not be considered “higher” life forms….until that is undermined later on. I said it was messy. As Peter said in the first one, “Something good, something bad? Bit of both.”

NOTE: Stay through the credits for two extra scenes

Parents should know that this film has extended peril and comic book/action-style violence with sometimes graphic and disturbing images. Characters are injured and killed. The film includes strong language, drinking and drunkenness.

Family discussion: Why is having a name so important? What does the name High Evolutionary mean and what does he think it means to be “perfect?” Why was the distinction about “higher forms” significant?

If you like this, try: the other “Guardians” movies