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

Summary

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

Release Date: July 25, 2025 | Host: Sean Fennessy & Amanda Dobbins | The Ringer

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1. Fall Film Festival Preview

Venice Film Festival Highlights Sean and Amanda delve into the upcoming fall film festivals, starting with Venice. They discuss a robust slate featuring high-profile world premieres:

• "The Smashing Machine" by Benny Safdie starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
• "Frankenstein" – Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic.
• "After the Hunt" – A Luca Guadagnino and Julia Roberts collaboration addressing campus sexual assault.
• "Begonia" by Yorgos Lanthimos.
• "A House of Dynamite" – Featuring George Clooney and Adam Sandler, directed by Noah Baumbach.
• "The Testament of Ann Lee" and Jim Jarmusch's "Father, Mother, Sister, Brother" – An anthology film adding to the diverse offerings.

Sean remarks, “...that is a large slate of high-profile releases,” highlighting the festival's significance ([03:01]).

Telluride Film Festival Speculations Transitioning to Telluride, Sean and Amanda speculate on potential premieres based on Venice and TIFF lineups. They anticipate:

• "Hamnet" – Chloe Zhao's latest project.
• "Ballad of a Small Player" – Another Netflix entrant with Edward Berger.
• "Anemone" by Ronan Day Lewis, marking Daniel Day Lewis's return from retirement.

Amanda shares her excitement for live attendees, stating, “I will send emails about it,” indicating active engagement with festival happenings ([14:21]).

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Insights Sean compares Venice's edition to previous years, noting the absence of major studios like Warner Brothers. He underscores TIFF's unique positioning, mentioning, “Only two best picture winners have ever premiered at TIFF in the last 10 years,” emphasizing its competitive edge ([07:51]).

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2. Review of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps"

Introduction to the Film Sean introduces the review by highlighting the film as a significant entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and personal importance as his birthday movie. He provides the basics:

• Director: Matt Shakman
• Cast: Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm), Eben Moss Bacharach (Johnny Storm), Joseph Quinn (Ben Grimm), Julia Garner (Silver Surfer), Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, and Ralph Inson (voice of Galactus).
• Music: Michael Giacchino
• Cinematography: Jess Hall
• Plot: The Fantastic Four band together to thwart Galactus, a planet-devouring entity threatening Earth828.

Sean notes, “...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,” setting the stage for his critique ([25:07]).

Critical Analysis

• Production Design and CGI: Amanda appreciates the production design but criticizes the CGI, stating, “...it takes what I did think was impressive production design and just, you know, turns it purple for a third of the movie” ([25:46]). Sean echoes concerns about CGI quality and consistency.

• Character Portrayal and Casting:

  • Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal): Both hosts express disappointment with Pascal's portrayal. Amanda remarks, “Pedro Pascal has such natural charisma... it does not allow him to have any of the charm” ([43:31]). Sean concurs, describing Reed as “a stretchy nerd” lacking depth ([26:44]).
  • Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn): While Amanda finds Quinn's performance goofy and out of sync, Sean notes his role as the "detective" lacks the necessary engagement ([46:57]).
  • Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby): Despite strong performance moments, Amanda feels her chemistry with Reed is lacking, questioning their relationship dynamics ([45:51]).

• Narrative and Pacing:

  • The film starts strong with an engaging newsreel montage but loses momentum as it delves into family dynamics, leading to a “general flatness to the drama” as per Sean ([25:53]).
  • They critique the film's attempt to balance a self-contained story with broader MCU implications, resulting in a disjointed narrative ([29:35]).

• Villain Representation:

  • Galactus (Ralph Inson): While visually imposing, both hosts find Galactus's portrayal lacking depth. Amanda points out inconsistencies in his scale and presence, “he's larger than all of the buildings in Manhattan... not insignificant” ([61:43]).
  • Dr. Doom Teaser: The mid-credit scene introduces Dr. Doom, portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., setting up future MCU conflicts. Sean remains skeptical about the buildup, feeling the film doesn't adequately lay the groundwork for this major antagonist ([40:43]).

Notable Quotes:

• Amanda: “I thought the production design was good.” ([25:46])
• Sean: “The whole movie feels like, frankly, a response to shit I've said on podcasts.” ([29:48])
• Amanda: “You're just like, why are you with him? Look at this woman.” ([46:50])
• Sean: “Pilots and magic – it was just one issue of a comic book, and the MCU has been down bad for a long time.” ([74:31])

Conclusion on the Film: Both hosts converge on the sentiment that while "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" has moments of sincerity and homage to classic storytelling, it ultimately falls short in execution. They highlight missed opportunities in character development, narrative coherence, and visual effects, leaving them baffled by the film's lukewarm reception despite its ambitious premise.

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3. Summer Stars Segment

Highlighting Breakout Performances: Sean and Amanda shift focus to spotlight standout performances in summer blockbusters:

• Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm): Amanda praises Kirby’s performance, noting her ability to convey emotion through facial expressions and her professionalism on the press tour ([34:21]).

• Florence Pugh and Lewis Pullman in "Thunderbolts": Sean commends their efforts, emphasizing Florence Pugh's essential role and Lewis Pullman's dual performance ([34:32]).

• Alfie Williams (Superman / David Cornswett): Amanda lauds his portrayal as the new Superman, highlighting his natural charisma and effective casting that made him a standout, “He was one of my favorite parts of that movie” ([35:41]).

• Tramell Tillman and Katie O'Brien in "Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning": Both hosts appreciate their electrifying performances during pivotal submarine scenes, with Sean specifically praising Tramell Tillman’s impactful dialogue delivery ([36:00]).

• Jonathan Bailey in "Lilo and Stitch Mixed": Although not Amanda’s preferred star, Sean views Bailey as a promising talent with significant future potential ([36:41]).

• Sidney Agua Dong and Maia Keeloa in "Lilo and Stitch Mixed": Both are recognized for their charming performances, contributing positively to the film's dynamic ([37:10]).

Notable Quotes:

• Amanda: “Mamas are the real superheroes.” ([62:56])
• Sean: “Flora Pugh... has been integral to the success of Thunderbolts.” ([34:32])

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4. Additional Insights and Future Outlook

Upcoming MCU Developments: Sean and Amanda touch upon the future of the MCU with hints at major storylines involving Dr. Doom and potential cross-universe conflicts reminiscent of "Secret Wars." They express curiosity and anticipation while also expressing concerns about the clarity and buildup leading to these events.

Sean reflects, “The first Avengers movie since Endgame... what's even on the line here?” conveying uncertainty about the MCU’s direction ([73:06]).

Comparisons to Other Franchises: The hosts compare "The Fantastic Four" to Pixar's "The Incredibles," noting that while both revolve around superhero families, "The Incredibles" achieves a more cohesive and emotionally resonant narrative. Amanda states, “The Incredibles is just like the Fantastic Four, but good,” highlighting the disparity in execution and storytelling ([74:29]).

Audience Reception: Despite personal criticisms, Sean acknowledges that some audiences and critics may find value in the film’s accessible storyline. Amanda shares feedback from a fellow moviegoer, Matt, who also did not enjoy the film, reinforcing their shared perspective ([73:14]).

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5. Closing Remarks

Sean wraps up the episode by expressing hope to explore the outcomes of "The Fantastic Four" and its impact on the MCU in future episodes. He teases a forthcoming segment, "25 for 25," hinting at engaging content to come.

Notable Quotes:

• Sean: “It's always fun to go to the movies, too, Amanda.” ([78:32])
• Amanda: “It was fun to go to the movies with you.” ([78:32])

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Conclusion

In this episode of The Big Picture, Sean and Amanda provide an insightful preview of the fall film festival landscape while delivering a critical and candid review of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." Their discussion highlights both the excitement and apprehensions surrounding new MCU entries and emerging film talents. Through their engaging dialogue and thoughtful analysis, they offer listeners a comprehensive overview of current cinematic trends and future industry directions.

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Notable Quotes Summary:

• Sean Fennessy:

  • “...that is a large slate of high-profile releases.” ([03:01])
  • “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.” ([25:07])
  • “The whole movie feels like, frankly, a response to shit I've said on podcasts.” ([29:48])
  • “Flora Pugh... has been integral to the success of Thunderbolts.” ([34:32])

• Amanda Dobbins:

  • “I thought the production design was good.” ([25:46])
  • “Pedro Pascal has such natural charisma... it does not allow him to have any of the charm.” ([43:31])
  • “Mamas are the real superheroes.” ([62:56])
  • “The Incredibles is just like the Fantastic Four, but good.” ([74:29])

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This summary captures the essence of the podcast episode, focusing on the main content while excluding advertisements and non-essential sections. Notable quotes are integrated with precise timestamps for reference.

Transcript

[Sean Fennessy]

This episode of the Big Picture is presented by Starbucks.

[Amanda Davis]

The unofficial drink of summer is here, and it's just as good as I remembered.

[Sean Fennessy]

Starbucks Summer Berry Refresher is everything you'd want from a summer beverage.

[Amanda Davis]

A blend of berry notes shaken with ice and poured over a layer of new raspberry flavored pearls. And personally, my favorite refresher is the Summer Berry Lemonade. It just tastes like summer in a cup and adds a whole other level of fresh flavors.

[Sean Fennessy]

We are on the brink of a major heat wave here in Los Angeles, and nothing would be more refreshing than than a Starbucks Summer Berry Lemonade Refresher. Available for a limited time only. Your Summer Berry refresher is ready at Starbucks. I'm Sean Fennessy.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm Amanda Davis.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 [e-mail] what's that? Email bigpickmailbagmail.com you have until July 30th to send us questions. I guess, ideally about summer movies, but we'll take anything.

[Amanda Davis]

Do they need to be summer movies from this year?

[Sean Fennessy]

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?

[Amanda Davis]

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. Thank you to Tracy Letts. Tracy Letts, who showed us around Chicago and then like, deign 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

We had a wonderful time. It was a great time. Maybe we'll come to a city near you at some point soon. This episode is brought to you by contentful marketers. You know that feeling when your content just works, when you crush a viral trend before 10am when one tiny tweak to a landing page sends click through rates through the roof. That's contentful, dynamic content made blissfully simple. Contentful helps you create and launch personalized experiences instantly across any digital channel. No stress, no limits. Only. Please come get the [e-mail] 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 and you will attend Venice Film Festival.

[Amanda Davis]

I will.

[Sean Fennessy]

I will attend the Telluride Film Festival.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Adam Neyman will attend the Toronto International Film Festival.

[Amanda Davis]

We're everywhere.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

That's right.

[Sean Fennessy]

We were in Chicago when news dropped.

[Amanda Davis]

We were in Chicago.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. I'm gonna run down the big titles that are hitting world premiere style in Venice. The Smashing Machine.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Benny Safdie's new film with D. Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Frankenstein. Guillermo del Toro's retelling of the Mary Shelley novel.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

After the Hunt.

[Amanda Davis]

That's right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Luca Guadagnino and Julia Roberts combining to tell a tale of sexual assault on campus. Begonia. Yorgos Lanthimos new movie. Yet another film with Emma Stone. Jay Kelly. Noah Baumbach's new movie about a fading movie star starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler. A House of Dynamite. Kathryn Bigelow's return to the screen via Netflix. No other choice.

[Amanda Davis]

That's right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Park Chan Wook's new film. We just saw a teaser. Looks phenomenal. Jim Jarmish's long awaited Father, Mother, Sister, Brother. Reportedly an anthology film, much to your chagrin. The Testament of Ann Lee Mona Fast volume new directorial effort. There's a number of other films I can talk through here, but that is a. That is a large slate of high profile releases. How are you feeling?

[Amanda Davis]

I. 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 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 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 going to get a grand world night premiere. But at the same time, Sophia has a major history with the Venice Film Festival.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 nonfiction slate this year. A lot of other movies that I didn't mention. Olivier Esayas has the wizard of the Kremlin 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 going to 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 can check out while you're there. Maybe not a short film from Charlie Kaufman. Yeah, my guy. Not as much your guy.

[Amanda Davis]

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 going to be able to see and what I'm not going to be able to see depends a little bit on. 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 doubleheader, Yorgos Lanthimos is Poor Things, was at Venice and then at Telluride. And it seems like I don't. I know nothing. But I'm guessing Begonia might make the jump. I'm hopeful for you that after the Hunt makes the jump.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't believe that will be the case.

[Amanda Davis]

You don't think it will?

[Sean Fennessy]

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 Telluride momentarily.

[Amanda Davis]

I will note that after the Hunt.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is out of competition at Venice, apparently, by Luca's request.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't know what that means me either. It 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?

[Amanda Davis]

Not off the top of my head, but Nickel Boys. Oh, that's right.

[Sean Fennessy]

So sometimes that is a sign of a very strong, critically acclaimed film. Sometimes it's just 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 at Venice and then opened at 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.

[Amanda Davis]

We also expected that they like the. Well, they do like the Venice Film Festival.

[Sean Fennessy]

They do. They're not welcome at Cannes, so they need Venice. In many. That's pretty much it. I mean, the speculation is that Warner Brothers didn't want to bring one battle because the Joker fully just absolutely fell apart. You did see that movie?

[Amanda Davis]

You know, I never did.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Davis]

I think that was like, the weekend that Psy Was born was the weekend that that movie came out. So I just took a pass on it.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

How are you feeling?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, it's a very starry slate, and it reminds me a lot of the slate from 23, when you went 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 materialize in the Oscar race in the way that we had hoped.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 awards 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 Begonia or whatever.

[Amanda Davis]

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 actors 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 Luca 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 in Maestro. In 22 banshees and tariffs and 21, Dune and the power of the Dog. So you're probably getting a couple.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, I'm not wasting my time.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 going to 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 Dead man and Roofman were all going to be there. Now a bunch of non world premieres were announced. Hamnet was announced as a non world premiere. Ballad of a Small Player, which did not make the cut at Venice for Netflix. Dead Man's Wire, the Gus Van Sant film, Frankenstein, it was just an accident. Nouvelle Vogue, the Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, all holdovers from Cannes. The Smashing Machine, the Testament of Ann 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 for getting these titles. So this has me thinking about Telluride.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

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, 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.

[Amanda Davis]

It's the gambling in you. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

There's something cool about that.

[Amanda Davis]

That seems terrible now.

[Sean Fennessy]

Sometimes when you gamble, you lose.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 Tiff. So Hamnet is almost certainly going to premiere at Telluride based on the delineations that we've gotten. That's the new Chloe Zhao movie.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. And of course, she has a history at Telluride. It makes a lot of sense.

[Sean Fennessy]

Ballad of a Small Player also almost certainly going to premiere there.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

You were having a full breakdown on that. We were not on the same flight home from Chicago. But you were just technically texting me. Just like paragraphs of. Of guesses and thoughts on just like an irregular. Just like. And another thing. And maybe it'll be this. You're using emojis. You're going through it. Here's the thing. Yeah, here's the thing. What you have to remember is that you love going to Telluride. And you like the mountains.

[Sean Fennessy]

I do.

[Amanda Davis]

And you like wandering around.

[Sean Fennessy]

I do. I like the festival. I like. 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. I'm going to get any of them, but I'm going to speculate. So it's possible. Springsteen Delivery From Nowhere premieres there.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's the kind of movie that would probably be safe there.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. And there are some older viewers, older patrons.

[Sean Fennessy]

Music biopic. 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Sure. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is this thing on? Bradley Cooper's new film, which is currently undated, but it sounds like it's coming out this year.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. Do you think that's gonna happen?

[Sean Fennessy]

I.

[Amanda Davis]

Do you think that's gonna happen at Telluride?

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. Yeah, I know what I was gonna say.

[Sean Fennessy]

Perhaps at another festival. There's Anemone, which is the new film from Ronan Day Lewis.

[Amanda Davis]

Oh, right, of course.

[Sean Fennessy]

Daniel Day Lewis, son. And this film includes Daniel Day Lewis and its cast. He's come out of retirement.

[Amanda Davis]

I read that.

[Sean Fennessy]

I would love to see Daniel Day Lewis in Colorado.

[Amanda Davis]

Do you think that that will be part of his retirement package?

[Sean Fennessy]

No.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, I don't either.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 Nouvelle Vague and. It was just an accident all those movies didn't play there. They will.

[Amanda Davis]

And so that's not, you know, that's not wasted time.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I. I really need, I think, J. Kelly and Begonia to play at Telluride.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

To feel okay about all this right now.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And there's got to be one thing. What's the one thing I'm not thinking of that's going to chill me out a little bit?

[Amanda Davis]

I don't know, Sean. Maybe. Maybe it's a dinner seated next to Ethan Hawke, and then you'll just go see a really shitty movie instead.

[Sean Fennessy]

One can only dream. Okay.

[Amanda Davis]

I texted you months ago saying, you know, Venice, you can. You can apply. I'll. I'll look for an Airbnb and, like, know the ropes now. Like it was. It was available to you.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't want to go to Europe.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I want to go to the mountains.

[Amanda Davis]

I know the.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Telluride Film Festival.

[Amanda Davis]

They do have mountains in Europe.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, they were in a groove.

[Sean Fennessy]

They were in a groove.

[Amanda Davis]

Are they still in a groove?

[Sean Fennessy]

To be determined. I'm excited to go and find out. Nowhere to be seen on the film festival slate right now. Marty Supreme.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, I mean, it's a Christmas release.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

I did at least get an email about a trailer this morning.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, there is a new trailer. I watched it.

[Amanda Davis]

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 to watch it.

[Sean Fennessy]

You tried to talk to me during that trailer so that you wouldn't watch it.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes, because I would just like to see the film.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. The film is also going to have skins on Fortnite, which I'll be playing. I saw that live on my Twitch account, which I will reveal shortly. Other films nowhere to be Seen. Big Bull, Beautiful Journey. What'd you say to me when we sat down to watch the movie today?

[Amanda Davis]

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 festival premiere. And then, you know, it's Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell. And it's not at any of the festivals.

[Sean Fennessy]

Tough.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

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. 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 20, 26 movies. The drama, the Christopher Borgley movie with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. Mother Mary. David Lowery's new movie with Anne Hathaway, I Want yout Sex. Gregor Racky's new movie.

[Amanda Davis]

Do you know who's in that movie?

[Sean Fennessy]

Who's in it?

[Amanda Davis]

Charlie xcx.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. That's very exciting.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Way of the Wind. Terrence Malik didn't make the cut at Venice. Again. How do you feel?

[Amanda Davis]

Listen, is it undated? Is it not done? Is it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, apparently production ended some years ago. Well, okay, listen, he's deep in the edit.

[Amanda Davis]

He's. Keep working.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep. Just keep.

[Amanda Davis]

Who am I to tell Terrence Malick when something is done?

[Sean Fennessy]

Keep chiseling, brother. Keep chiseling. So, as I said, New York Film Fest, couple things. After the Hunt, opening night, very notable. Father, Mother, Sister, Brother. The Jarmusch film will be the centerpiece.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

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. But why in the. In the big race?

[Amanda Davis]

Why does that make you angry and upset instead of excited? I know, but you're agitated right now. You're just like, there's one more thing. I don't know everything.

[Sean Fennessy]

Because, mama, I need you to help me out. You know, I need. I need to be soothed.

[Amanda Davis]

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?

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you just wear. I dress like Galactus.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I kind of stomp through this.

[Amanda Davis]

Do you wear hiking boots? Like, what's the footwear?

[Sean Fennessy]

Sneakers.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay, well, you'll just. You'll be. It is a lot of walking in your sneakers.

[Sean Fennessy]

Walking all the way across the town and back several times and kind of a 20,000step sort of situation per day.

[Amanda Davis]

But the rest of the time you're sitting. So that works out. You're gonna have a lot of granola bars.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Grilloirs, clif bars, popcorn. Lunch should be good. Not worried about it.

[Amanda Davis]

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. Of clothing plus some formal wear into.

[Sean Fennessy]

So what do you wear? Tell us what you wear.

[Amanda Davis]

I don't know. I honestly, I haven't locked it down yet. I have been Bjork's.

[Sean Fennessy]

Bjork's swan dress.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, exactly. No, I. In moments of movies that have. Where my attention has wandered recently I have found myself going through my Venice packing list and what's out and what's in is kind of. It's a day to day situation. I'm getting close. I got to drop the dry cleaning off soon, so. But I'll, you know, I'll let everybody know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davis]

Might also be a special guest. I don't want to spoil anything.

[Sean Fennessy]

A special guest at the festival.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Will you be attending with Jacob Elordi? Okay, well, tune in for that. I've located 25 total best picture contenders right now.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. I love it.

[Sean Fennessy]

You want to hear them?

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. You're just like deep in the release calendar. When was this? What time of day?

[Sean Fennessy]

I was on a plane, as you know.

[Amanda Davis]

Is this planeshot?

[Sean Fennessy]

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 tentpoles 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.

[Amanda Davis]

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?

[Sean Fennessy]

And then it probably will be three hours.

[Amanda Davis]

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. I'm with Chris. They're losing my attention when it comes to caring about. I don't remember these people.

[Sean Fennessy]

Here's my rejoinder.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

No.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Studio. Big swings, Sinners.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

One battle after another.

[Amanda Davis]

Let's hope.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 Palme d' or winner seems likely. And the Secret Agent are all in contention.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Netflix has just a trundle. Just the bone to tie.

[Amanda Davis]

Guys, you got to throw the spaghetti at the wall.

[Sean Fennessy]

I didn't really know.

[Amanda Davis]

One of these years.

[Sean Fennessy]

I didn't know this was going to 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 Dead man, and Train Dreams.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm not mad at any of these. Even the Logging movie, which I have not seen yet.

[Sean Fennessy]

Train Dreams just got a trailer. One of my very favorite movies of the year. Fall festival stuff. We talked Begonia after the Hunt, rental family hamnet, A24's safdie double. Yeah, Benny Safdie with the Smashing Machine and Josh with Marty Supreme. Other wild cards Deliver Me from Nowhere. A big bowl, beautiful journey. No other choice. Let's not count out no other choice.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm not counting it out. I am sending emails about it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. Anemone, Ella McKay and then some Wild Cards. The Testament of Ann Lee. Is this thing on. The wizard of the Kremlin. And then the Rivals of Amzia King, which won at SA 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 seems like a very promising title. Anything else you want to say about award season? Fall festival season? What we're going to be turning our lives to from roughly September 2nd through March 20th.

[Amanda Davis]

It's March 20th. I thought it was March 6th. It's it's later than.

[Sean Fennessy]

They pushed it back this year, which.

[Amanda Davis]

I don't feel great about.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, it should be in February, as, you know. You know, my stance on this.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. But then also they should move the Emmys to February. So we just, you know, couldn't care.

[Sean Fennessy]

Less about the Emmys.

[Amanda Davis]

I don't really either, but, like, people, again, I just throw a lot of newsletters about it. You know, I'm like, I unsubscribe.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm excited. 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

You know what? Driving here, I was like, oh, I forgot to stop at the grocery store to get Shawn a birthday balloon. And I was gonna put it right here for the whole taping. And I just.

[Sean Fennessy]

I forgot to do that imaginary honorary. What color?

[Amanda Davis]

Well, I was gonna get one of the ones that, like, said, like, happy birthday. You know, I wasn't gonna do a number, so I was thinking like a round one.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, well, I'm turning 28 and I feel super good about it. Fantastic Four First Steps directed by Matt Shackman. This is his second feature film after Cutbank, 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 Bacharach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Natasha Lyonne, Paul, Walter Hauser, and the voice of Ralph Innison. 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And they gotta stop him.

[Amanda Davis]

They do. That's the movie before he eats them and everything else in our world.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's it.

[Amanda Davis]

Cause 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

He eats planets.

[Amanda Davis]

He eats planets.

[Sean Fennessy]

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?

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, I hated this. Okay. All right. Jack said to me before we started recording that I had a little Hillary Clinton breakdown energy. And I don't have a breakdown. I. I thought the production design was good.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Davis]

So. 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?

[Sean Fennessy]

I wasn't planning on it, but you could do it momentarily. Okay, you want to self censor your spoiler note?

[Amanda Davis]

What does that mean? That I can just put a pin in it. I have a third issue with sort of the takeaways from this.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's hold on to that so that people can let us talk through without spoiling. Although I will say that spoiling is an interesting 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 Earth828, which is not the Earth that we are used to seeing in the other films.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. Though as someone who doesn't do the homework ever, when Earth828 showed up on the screen, I was like, oh, God, which one is that? Do I have to know something else? So. And that. And that's just me being, you know, reflexively being like, oh, God, now there's something that I don't understand. But I didn't know what that meant.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

On how they resolve the situation.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. And, um. Yeah, 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 4 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Wait, an alternate universe?

[Sean Fennessy]

No, it takes place in the proper mcu, the MCU that we know and we've seen all the other films in.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. So the Fantastic Four is in the alternate universe universe.

[Sean Fennessy]

Coming from the alternate universe to.

[Amanda Davis]

Yes, I just wanted to make sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 in, like, with kind of bemusement afterwards, that I swear, they used to be good at this.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I did really have a sincere passion. And I think, 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. And it's, like, kind of juiceless. And I don't know why that decision was made. 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 this baggage with every movie.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

But.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, I don't think the standaloneness is the problem.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 all 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I didn't even have that feeling at the end of this.

[Amanda Davis]

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. To make up for that. And. But you said it in a way as if you thought it would be possible still for like, 30 seconds of, you know, teaser footage, would make up for just the limpness and the yuckiness of the past two hours, which, like, that's messed up.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 have us go scratching our heads multiverse of madness, or introduce Harry Styles at the end of Eternals and have us, like, excited about what could come. Or to hear Mahershala Ali's voice at the end of a movie and think, oh, Blade is coming. Like, I think those are smart marketing techniques, but for my dumb lizard brain, yeah. 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, like, 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 it was really disappointing.

[Amanda Davis]

Even though it was literally about a villain who eats other planets and is supposed to be larger than the universe and is like a space God. Yep, that's what they can do.

[Sean Fennessy]

Even still, even though they traverse 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 schachman. I think WandaVision's one of the best things Marvel's done in the last five years.

[Amanda Davis]

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 I, you know, the trauma and whatever, and I don't remember what the trauma was, but it. It was about people who aren't quite human trying to be human.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was about vision, being dead and then wanting to preserve her life with. With vision and then creating a world.

[Amanda Davis]

I thought it was her brother.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. You should check it out.

[Amanda Davis]

Oh, she's evil.

[Sean Fennessy]

She's the villain of that film.

[Amanda Davis]

But then they bring her back struck by Sam Raimi.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's pretty good.

[Amanda Davis]

No, I know I was on leave. But they bring her back around. Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Since then, she's not come back.

[Amanda Davis]

Oh, since then.

[Sean Fennessy]

In fact, I think Elizabeth Olsen is out of the mcu.

[Amanda Davis]

She was good and then she went bad.

[Sean Fennessy]

Correct. And then she became mad, as we all are.

[Amanda Davis]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

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?

[Amanda Davis]

I mean, we can start with Vanessa Kirby first 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

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, no spoilers, has a lot on his shoulders too. We've always liked him and it's nice to see him getting some. Some more to do. Who else did you like at the movies this year?

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

From boy to man.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. And that movie hangs on him. And certainly the rest of the franchise hangs on him as well. And he was sensational.

[Sean Fennessy]

Superman really hangs on David Cornswett now. He was a relative unknown for most of us before we saw James Gunn's new version of this story.

[Amanda Davis]

Not if you saw Twisters.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 is a success and tailored.

[Amanda Davis]

The movie to him.

[Sean Fennessy]

Absolutely.

[Amanda Davis]

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 said, some said better than others. Tramell Tillman and Katie o' Brien who are part of this submarine segment. Right. Not to spoil anything, just steal the show. Tramell Tillman in particular, though Katie o' Brien has some. Some great moments with the suit that otherwise the movie, you know, it takes its time, but not when they're on screen.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's electrifying watching Tramell Tillman say words. We got to give some love to your guy, Jonathan Bailey.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 Sidney Agua Dong and Maia Keeloa. And they were both very charming.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

Sure, absolutely.

[Sean Fennessy]

That is the critical character in the movie Final Destination Bloodline.

[Amanda Davis]

An international sensation.

[Sean Fennessy]

It absolutely is one of the biggest box office hits of the year. And thank you to the flaw in Deaths 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 iced blended 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. This episode is brought to you by Pretty Litter. Keeping your house clean when you've got a cat is no easy feat. But with Pretty Litter, you don't have to choose between a fresh house and a healthy cat. This litter is practically magic. It's low dust, controls odors, and lasts up to a whole month. But the best part? It monitors your cat's health every time they use the box. Plus, Pretty Litter ship's free right to your door so no heavy bags to carry and no last minute pet store runs right now. Save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy at Pretty Litter.com BigPicture that's PrettyLitter.com BigPicture to save 20% on your first order AND get a free cat toy. Pretty Litter.com Pretty Litter cannot detect every feline health issue or prevent or diagnose diseases. A diagnosis can only come from a licensed veterinarian. Terms and conditions apply. See site for details. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Just like choosing a movie to stream, State Farm has options to choose from to help you find coverage that best fits your needs. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighborhood, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by Turner Classic Movies. With a collapsing studio, skyrocketing budget, and two married stars having a secret affair, Cleopatra had disaster written all over it.

[Amanda Davis]

One man tried to hold it all together.

[Sean Fennessy]

The director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Hear the behind the scenes story of how Cleopatra changed his life and his career forever. TCM's the plot thickens Cleopatra available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Amanda Davis]

Anyway, you see my point.

[Sean Fennessy]

I do.

[Amanda Davis]

Which is that it's. They're about not quite human people trying to explore like human emotions and like instead of found family, it's like 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 it is. They're not trolling you, you know, and they're seriously trying to do something nice with this. And then I guess Galactus is like a historical comic book.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's the second most significant villain to the Fantastic Four.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. And is the first one the person that we saw at the very end?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davis]

So that's an interesting question. Why do they start with number two?

[Sean Fennessy]

I had the same question.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay, go ahead.

[Sean Fennessy]

I know the answer to that question, which is that the, their. Their primary villain, primary enemy is Dr. Doom and Dr. Doom is the villain of the next movie.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, I know that.

[Sean Fennessy]

Avengers. Doomsday.

[Amanda Davis]

Robert Downey Jr. Is going to be Dr. Doom.

[Sean Fennessy]

He is going to be Dr. Doom.

[Amanda Davis]

I like that happened at a Comic con.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. There is a subtle table in the United nations from Latveria. The name card is empty. Which is of course Dr. Doom's nation.

[Amanda Davis]

I actually did. I noted that, but I did not know that that was Dr. Doom's nation.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's where Victor Von Doom would be sitting under normal circumstances. He's the ruler of that nation.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. Like what's his title?

[Sean Fennessy]

Podcast host. And he is obviously going to be a big part of the mcu and this is meant to be a sort of buildup to him. Galactus is a more high stakes villain, but Dr. Doom is the primary enemy.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 newsreel flash montage explication of who these characters are at the beginning. I thought a lot of that was very successful.

[Amanda Davis]

All of it is really good.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was good.

[Amanda Davis]

It's like kitschy in a good way.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. It's got energy. They recreate the COVID 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 B tier Fantastic Four villain. There's some fun stuff in the first 10 minutes. And when it was going, I was like, okay, sure, yeah, I get what we're doing. 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. And the sincerity, I don't mind. Well.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, okay, go ahead. Are we spoiling now?

[Sean Fennessy]

Sure, let's spoil the movie.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Reed Richards is a strange character. You turned to me and asked me, so he's a stretchy nerd. A stretchy nerd. And that's not incorrect. But he is also the smartest man in the world. 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. This was in this movie.

[Amanda Davis]

This was just Gumby.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was just Gumby.

[Amanda Davis]

It was like Gumby in with suspenders or, you know, whatever. I was so confused.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

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, I, it's, 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 in, 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, as we know from Good Will Hunting, that is how you show us demonstrate that you are smart.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

And there's a running joke in the movie that the thing is not his cartoon character.

[Sean Fennessy]

And he doesn't say it's clobbering.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, 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 that's among.

[Sean Fennessy]

Us, you know, redheaded Natasha Lyonne.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, she looks great living in New York.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, she looks great. So, Pedro, that didn't click for me.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah. And then also, he then is married to Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm. And it's the immediate 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? Like, they didn't explain anything in the little newsreel. 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. I didn't get it.

[Sean Fennessy]

I didn't get it either. And I didn't get Joseph Quinn 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. And he also has to like, decode a new language.

[Sean Fennessy]

He does decode a language.

[Amanda Davis]

He's doing all of that in a different tone than everyone else in the movie. And he's sort of goofy, antic, quippy Marvel MCU 1 or 2.0, but like, his timing doesn't add up with the other people. And so. And then you're right that this 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 like, 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like, sure, yeah, yeah. I mean, the whole movie is kind of one long Amanda Science Corner of just being like, can we? Is it, Is it? Okay, 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, let's talk about Galactus.

[Amanda Davis]

Sure. Oh, okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

So Galactus. Yeah, he's voiced by Ralph Innison, 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, he looks like.

[Sean Fennessy]

Lives inside of like a ship.

[Amanda Davis]

He looks like.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's also a drill.

[Amanda Davis]

A Viking statue that you would build at a junkyard.

[Sean Fennessy]

Uh huh.

[Amanda Davis]

And he lives inside of a drill.

[Sean Fennessy]

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's coming to the. To the nation. And so they gotta go into space.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Seven months pregnant, nine months pregnant, she goes into space to go stop Galactus.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, the thing. So they go faster than the speed of light and so.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, it ages the pregnancy.

[Amanda Davis]

No, no, no, no. I mean, let's. Are you ready for Science Corner? You want to start it now? Let's go hit the music. Okay. All right. Science Corner.

[Sean Fennessy]

Welcome to Amanda Dobbins Science Corner.

[Amanda Davis]

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?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Can defeat Galactus.

[Amanda Davis]

Like probably like just a FaceTime would have sufficed. So just, you know, like we can, we can, 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

Was that pod bay from Prometheus.

[Amanda Davis]

You know, I just listen. 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

Agreed. I think Reed put it there. Sure.

[Amanda Davis]

But I just like. That is not good for everybody else in the air quality.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's say you're living in Earth828. Sure you're going about your day. You know that the Fantastic Four are taking off that day from the Times square of Earth 828.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Are you just taking your lunch break to go watch them? Send them off, Say, hey, see you guys later. Good luck.

[Amanda Davis]

I mean, some people were watching it on tv. I might stream it.

[Sean Fennessy]

You love it. You love space.

[Amanda Davis]

Like a space launch. So that the launch sequence and then the docking of the ship into the like light year thing, like Lightyear time warp fast, like fast boats go thing was reminiscent of. That's what they do in Apollo 13, you know. And everybody goes to want the 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 didn't have enough practice because he was the backup because Gary Sinise got the measles. They're re releasing Apollo 13 and IMAX in September. And I'm incredibly excited.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's great. Do you want to describe the entire plot of Apollo 13 to me right now? You can if you'd like.

[Amanda Davis]

Anyway. 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. That line like Eben Moss backrack 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, like, PR media notes for Reed Richards, we.

[Sean Fennessy]

Will get to that.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

Wait, hold on.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, sorry.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then the real conflict arises. It's not just that Galactus wants to eat Planet Earth 8 to 8. 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

The unborn baby inside of Sue Storm is his price.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

They, of course, say no. They get into a fight in the giant drill where Galactus lives.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And Johnny Storm, I thought, acquitted himself very well in that fight.

[Amanda Davis]

I was pretty bored because it was all cgi. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, this movie is full of cgi.

[Amanda Davis]

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?

[Sean Fennessy]

They make it out, they survive. And then during their escape, Sue Storm gives birth.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

Apollo 13 to your fantastic Four syllabus.

[Amanda Davis]

It's the moon's gravitational pull. It slingshots them around. Science is amazing. And so, yeah, not my strongest subversion. 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

I thought that was an incredibly profound metaphor for the invisibility of motherhood. That's cinema to me.

[Amanda Davis]

Baby's very clean and doesn't have to eat once throughout the entire film.

[Sean Fennessy]

So once again, not really crying too much.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

One moment where it wakes up crying a little bit and then.

[Amanda Davis]

But I mean, there's just like food to sleep. It is not given any sustenance at any point. This is a real plot hole in all Hollywood. I mean, you know that for like.

[Sean Fennessy]

The first six months, your son eats a lot. So I think you might be over indexing on this as a plot hole.

[Amanda Davis]

I know he's. He's a very large baby, but you know that like those phrase, look, he's, he's a wonderful kid and he's really big. But you know, all babies, the first three months, all you're doing.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davis]

Is just feeding them.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Well, Franklin Richards in this film is. 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

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 mass smart.

[Sean Fennessy]

What form do you have?

[Amanda Davis]

And not strategic smart, but this is a really, really big.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're more street smart.

[Amanda Davis]

This is a party foul. You know what I mean?

[Sean Fennessy]

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. 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Am I right?

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

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?

[Amanda Davis]

We have families, too, man. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Very weird movie.

[Amanda Davis]

We should also say that in case you were wondering what happened to the umbilical cord, the thing was there to cut it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. He had the. What is that? What is that instrument called?

[Amanda Davis]

I was out both times.

[Sean Fennessy]

The force out. He had the forceps, which, you know, like you do. You just have forceps on your rocket ship headed to go meet Galactus.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'd like to take this moment to just stop and say, I looked at a couple of reviews of the movie, and people seem to like this movie, and I'm a little confused because it's not terrible. It's not, like, incompetent.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it isn't anything special at all.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And a series of things keep happening in it 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. Another location in the galaxy.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 on that idea. Not great relative. At least with Superman, even if not all the threads are knotted. I was like, there's a lot of threads. Stuff here. Some stuff on this guy's mind. This movie just kind of feels like the story of a comic book.

[Amanda Davis]

Galactus doesn't have any motive because he doesn't make his own decisions.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, it seems like.

[Amanda Davis]

Except he's drawn to the baby.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's drawn to the baby, I think, because he feels he is kind of trapped in his.

[Amanda Davis]

Is this a Qanon movie?

[Sean Fennessy]

Could. Could be a Qanon movie. He feels trapped in the fate of having to eat all the time.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay. So I. I'm not sure that I got that level of.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

So the baby is gonna take his.

[Sean Fennessy]

Mantle, relieve him of his.

[Amanda Davis]

So he doesn't have to planets.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think that's what we're meant to understand.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, she's like a scout. Yeah, yeah. She finds the planets because she herself was once someone who had to sacrifice her life to save her planet.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And she turned her life over to Galactus and she would serve as the herald, this person who locates where. What planets need to be eaten next to sate his hunger.

[Amanda Davis]

But so he's. He's not really making any emotional decisions one way or another. She's doing it, and she's doing it under the. 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, what does.

[Sean Fennessy]

It mean better if it was just Daniel Day Lewis played 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Well, I mean, there were just some serious scale issues. Right. Because, I mean, he is large. But he shows up somewhere in 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 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't. He might have like an incredible intestines. We don't really know enough about the physiology of this character.

[Amanda Davis]

Sure. But I'm just, I'm saying, like, you know, it doesn't pass the eye test.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Or to kind of teleport him out because they can't teleport the entire planet out.

[Amanda Davis]

And they have enough uranium left for.

[Sean Fennessy]

1:37 seconds worth of time for sucking.

[Amanda Davis]

Him in of power and something. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

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's direction.

[Amanda Davis]

Right, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 show. How would you do with this kind of acting where you had to gesture to the power coming out of your fingers?

[Amanda Davis]

I'm not, like, done my whole warm up process yet. And my exercises.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is that not one of the solid core steps you have to learn how.

[Amanda Davis]

To shape stage routine in order, you know, to be a super mama? It takes a little more work. I didn't have time for it today.

[Sean Fennessy]

She did Super Mama her way to victory.

[Amanda Davis]

Mamas are the real superheroes. And then so she, she gets it most of the way because, like, you can't stop a mama. And then she, he, like, pokes his hand back out or something. And there are 11 seconds left. And we know that because they check the. The human torches. Apple watch. And then in 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 in spirit. She's seen with a small child doing mama like things with flowing dresses.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. Johnny Storm reveals her, you know, intergalactic humanity.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

And, you know, those two moms team up and Sue Storm dies. But then she gets brought back to life.

[Amanda Davis]

Right. By her magic child.

[Sean Fennessy]

Reed Richards puts a baby on her chest once again.

[Amanda Davis]

The power of being a. You know, like what you do as a mom is the most powerful thing of all.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. So then she comes back to life and then The Fantastic Four. They did it. Yeah. And hooray.

[Amanda Davis]

And then.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then I was like, okay, now we're going to get like 10 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And this movie has a lot riding on it. And in my head, I was like, okay, 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.

[Amanda Davis]

No, they did a bit about a car seat first.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, yeah, there was a car seat joke.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The three. You know, the dads don't have it, but the mamas, they're super mamas.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right. So the super mamas figure it out. Franklin goes in the car seat, they fly off to another adventure.

[Amanda Davis]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

End credits hit mid credit scene happens.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Four years later. Sue.

[Amanda Davis]

Ish. They don't say that. You're just guessing that because it said four years later.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, it did. Yeah. That's why I said four is a great age.

[Amanda Davis]

I just thought you were looking at Franklin and, you know, it was like one mama to another being like, I'm right there.

[Sean Fennessy]

It said four years later and four. 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 Dr. Doom getting ready to take Franklin.

[Amanda Davis]

And Franklin looks intrigued. So a baby or a child in peril is like a major feature of Fantastic Four.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't really know.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I can't remember.

[Amanda Davis]

I didn't love it. In general, you know, the baby is.

[Sean Fennessy]

In a lot of trouble.

[Amanda Davis]

The baby is really. And they've got like a bulletproof car seat or whatever, but they're using the baby as bait once. Not feeding it, but just putting it in.

[Sean Fennessy]

Nothing will harm's way ever be worse than the sequence in the Flash. That was the worst. The flying babies out of the hospital windows was the worst.

[Amanda Davis]

I mean, this. I was like, I don't love it, but I still see why you're doing it. And the baby is okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

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. 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 sense of humor. But I'd like a little bit of it. And I found this movie to be surprisingly not funny.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, I would say you would like humor of some kind.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davis]

And they do try. And there are some jokes. And like, Evan Moss backrock innocent, in my opinion.

[Sean Fennessy]

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. 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. It leaves us on this cliffhanger of Dr. Doom is coming, which is cool, but we knew that already. 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. One of the reasons why Infinity War and Endgame were so good was because they had spent 10 years but building up to this incredible story and this huge stakes, and they presented Thanos and all of these situations over time, and we got to hear more about him over time and get. Figure out why he was the villain of this major story.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, he didn't invent them. They were a part of the plotline.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, well, that's what he said. I don't know.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 MacGuffin to tell the story there.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm reading an Instagram caption. James Gunn explains how he wrote the Infinity Stones in three minutes. There you go.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. Interesting. 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. And 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.

[Amanda Davis]

Not the Secret Wars. What are the secret Wars?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, that's like a, that's another run from the 80s. 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.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think they were just going to move the entire planet.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, but then if you move, if you move him to a different Earth and is Galactus going to come looking for that Earth?

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, I don't think the idea was to move to a different.

[Amanda Davis]

No, I know, but what if that, I'm just, oh, what if they did do that?

[Sean Fennessy]

All of humanity to a different planet.

[Amanda Davis]

To a different Earth, because So there are lots of Earths exist as we know. This is 8 to 8. What about 8 to 9? What's going on over there?

[Sean Fennessy]

Does Reed Richards know there are other universes?

[Amanda Davis]

You tell me.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, in some comics. Yes. At this stage of the story. I don't know.

[Amanda Davis]

Is it the greatest man alive?

[Sean Fennessy]

He's supposed to be.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, well, he's not supposed to be.

[Sean Fennessy]

The greatest soy boy alive. And that's what he was.

[Amanda Davis]

We would not say great problem solving to this one.

[Sean Fennessy]

No. This is a weird movie. I, I, I was confused. And sometimes when I see a movie like this and I'm confused, I'm like, I should go see that again.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Maybe I missed something. What did I miss? This one? I don't think I did, I, I.

[Amanda Davis]

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.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, I do. I, I sense that a lot of critics were relieved to not have to know a lot going in.

[Amanda Davis]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 okay. It's roughly 100 to $110 million 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 Yoen Gruffet 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?

[C]

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 all 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 Chickless in this film. I do not see Eben Moss Bacharach performing. I see a CGI orange monster performing and it lessens the humor of the character.

[Sean Fennessy]

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 going to do well? People going to like it? Is the word of mouth going to be good? I'm confused.

[Amanda Davis]

I. The gentleman who was sitting next to us at the, at our 2:00pm screening today, Matt.

[Sean Fennessy]

Matt.

[Amanda Davis]

Matt didn't like it either.

[Sean Fennessy]

Matt introduced himself to us and said, guys, that wasn't good.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, so that's our. That's our One man on the Street. I, I was surprised by our reaction as well. Not because I thought like, oh, you know, this is going to reinvent my relationship to comic book movies, but just because. 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. And.

[Sean Fennessy]

But you asked the critical question on the way out of here, which is, which was what?

[Amanda Davis]

Which is, are we sure the problem isn't just the Fantastic Four and that the characters are 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 star.

[Sean Fennessy]

She turns invisible.

[Amanda Davis]

Oh, yeah, that's cool. But so you know what I didn't, 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

This was going to be my final note.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Incredibles has kind of obviated these.

[Amanda Davis]

Characters, 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.

[Sean Fennessy]

He sort of like, oh, no, no.

[Amanda Davis]

Elastigirl.

[Sean Fennessy]

Elastigirl stretches, but it is like an amalgam of all of the powers of Fantastic Four. And it's a family formul. And the success of 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 I didn't feel they caught the tone. They didn't catch the wave. Like, the rhythm is off. And so 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 not over.

[Amanda Davis]

It's just different.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's way different, which is what we.

[Amanda Davis]

Say about everything, certainly about movies. But this just seems like this is going to be for a subset of people who enjoy these things. I don't think they're going to be, you know, billion dollar spectacles going forward. I mean, it sets up. Doomsday is an interesting question.

[Sean Fennessy]

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.

[Amanda Davis]

Is it really.

[Sean Fennessy]

Can I hold on for that long?

[Amanda Davis]

Is it really five years? What's so.

[Sean Fennessy]

At least 20, 28. At least.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm. I'm honestly just doing the math of how old you'll be, and that's pretty old.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm probably going to be able to get Knox into X Men and get him into the movies with me.

[Amanda Davis]

I liked the one X Men movie with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence. Sure. Which was sort of like Inglorious Basterds, but X Men, it's generous, but sure. So. Well, you know, it's. It's period piece. I. Is X Men what we choose. He knows about Spider Man. He knows about Batman.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, we'll definitely. You can't go see the Batman with him. He's not be able to see that until he's like 12. No, that's Spider man. Maybe. We watched Spider Verse, Alice and I, and she was into it. She loves Miles.

[Amanda Davis]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And Spider. Gwen.

[Amanda Davis]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

But yeah, X Men is a very. You know, he'll be like 7 when he's 7. And I show him Logan, right. You know, I show him Wolverine. Me and Cr. Showing him Wolverine. That's gonna fucking.

[Amanda Davis]

You can't show him Logan at 7. That's not. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, we can. Fuck. Yeah, we can.

[Amanda Davis]

He's a sensitive little guy. No, I love him.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, you know, he's a. He's a. He's a manimal like Wolverine himself. And he will. He will rise once more.

[Amanda Davis]

Adamantium. Is that what his claws are made of?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, Adamantium.

[Amanda Davis]

I'm so glad that that is a fact that's stored in my brain. I learned that from the Red Hulk.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's right. Adamantium and vibranium sure are in a death race to see what is the more powerful naturally occurring element.

[Amanda Davis]

Is there another element out there that trumps all of them that they haven't?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, cocaine. That just about does it for us. Any. Any last thoughts?

[Amanda Davis]

It was fun to go to the movies with you.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's always fun to go to the movies, too, 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.

[Amanda Davis]

First.

[Sean Fennessy]

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. I'm not going to reveal it here, even though I think most people know what it is already. We had a wonderful time presenting it. Hope you enjoyed the episode. We'll see you then.