Photo © 20th Century Studios/MARVEL
Joseph Quinn - Fantastic Four: First Steps
Joseph Quinn in The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
(In Theaters July 25)
This reboot differentiates itself from previous “Fantastic Four” films by avoiding the team’s origin story. Based on the Marvel Comics Fantastic Four superheroes, the action plays out during the 1960s, in an alternate universe that is simultaneously both retro and futuristic.
Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and sister-brother pair Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby) and Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn), along with Sue’s husband Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), face impossible odds. They must attempt to defend Earth from the ravenous world-eating space god, Galactus (Ralph Ineson), and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). Their internal motivation is strengthened by the group’s support of Sue and Reed as new parents.
Clocking in at just under two hours, this PG-13 rated film was made for $200 million. While that’s a pretty penny indeed, the budget’s “talent cost allotment” was severely limited to favor necessary special effects and location shoots. Director Matt Shakman made a pricey choice by trading the Thing’s rocky suit, for a motion capture rig that transferred the actor’s performance into a CGI character. A sequel is already in development. (Lisa Miller)
The Home
(In Theaters July 25)
The thought of being mentally ill is frightening, but to also be treated and confined to a nursing home, is doubly frightening. Director-cowriter James DeMonaco (who penned “The Purge” films), casts Pete Davidson as young miscreant Max. Having been arrested in upstate NY for spraying graffiti art, Max is sentenced to community service at Green Meadows Retirement Home. Other than being an older brick building, the facility, run by kindly, reserved Dr. Sabian (Bruce Altman), is clean and orderly. Max’s janitorial job grants him access to the first three floors, but the staff members warn Max to stay off the fourth floor, where difficult cases are housed. Compelled to break this rule, Max’s fate, along with that of several patients, floats beneath a bleak question mark. John Glover appears as a failed actor whose self-destructive tendencies go deep. He, and virtually every other cast member, move this horror further to the dark side. (Lisa Miller)
The Tundra Within Me
(IndiePix DVD/Digital)
One imagines a high degree of autobiography in writer-director Sara Margrethe Oskal’s debut film. She is a Sami, the indigenous people of northernmost Norway, as is the protagonist of her 2023 film. Lena is an artist who returns home for the winter with her young boy on a grant to explore “women’s issues from a Sami perspective.” She finds a mix of disapproval, disinterest and concord—and falls in love with a local man who herds reindeer from his snowmobile. Fascination and revulsion, misunderstandings and kindness occur in a snow-clad landscape whose remote town boasts a big box store, a craft fair and a bar with throat-singing contests. The Tundra Within Me won prizes in Norway’s academy awards. (David Luhrssen)
