Everyone get out of Vanessa Kirby’s way

It has long been a truism of superhero movies that every iteration of the live-action Fantastic Four has sucked. Well, guess what? It’s true no more! The Fantastic Four: First Steps, stupid title aside, is F-CKING GREAT. 

I’ll have a full review later this week, but for the second time in a row I walked out of a superhero movie completely thrilled with what I just saw, which was fun, charming, and genuinely uplifting. And you know who the superstar of Fantastic Four is? VANESSA KIRBY.

This is a woman who knows this is her moment! I truly did not appreciate the happy coincidence of Kirby promoting this film while pregnant, but Sue Storm’s arc is very much about her motherhood, and not in a simpering, condescending way. Sue is FEROCIOUS, easily the scariest member of the F4, but also the one most capable of quelling fears and building bridges. Often female characters, especially those that are mothers, are played off like “oh she’s strong because she’s a mother”, but then you never actually SEE that correlation. It’s just words to excuse not doing good writing for female characters. 

But Sue Storm absolutely IS powerful because she is a mother, the traits that make her a great hero are the same ones that make her a great mom, and we SEE IT. It is ESSENTIAL STORYTELLING for her character. I did not expect to walk out of Fantastic Four loving Sue Storm, because I have never loved Sue Storm, but Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm? I will fight for her! I will also not pick on Kirby for this dress, it cannot be easy to do a worldwide press tour while pregnant, she looks beautiful in that shade of blue, the end.

As for the Fantastic men, they were also present at the LA premiere of the film. They have largely been keeping it clean and simple this press tour, and last night wasn’t much different, with Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn in pretty standard looks, and Pedro Pascal throwing in a little flair without stealing Vanessa Kirby’s thunder.

Pedro was also assisting his sister, Lux Pascal, with her gown on the blue carpet. 

Also present was Natasha Lyonne, who has a small role in the film, but I am deeply annoyed with her over that AI movie she’s making, selling “ethical” AI, as if that’s even a thing given the environmental impact alone.

Julia Garner also turned up to this premiere, rocking blue metallics. She’s buried under CG for most of the movie and still manages to give a haunting performance. She and Anthony Carrigan should get special awards for that.

And in a very classy move, Marvel invited Michael Bailey Smith, Alex Hyde-White, Rebecca Staab and Jay Underwood to the premiere. They’re the stars of the infamous 1994 “ashcan” adaptation of Fantastic Four, produced by Roger Corman solely to keep control of the copyright. It’s a terrible movie, but it’s not the actors’ fault. They did what they could in an era that could not realistically produce this power set on screen.

That was a really nice thing to do, and it honors the long history of the F4 on screen. People have been trying for 30 damn years to make Marvel’s “first family” work on the big screen, and Matt Shakman finally did it. We finally have a Fantastic Four to be proud of.