The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Director: Matt Shakman
Screenplay: Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer
Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Ralph Ineson
Cinematography: Jess Hall
Score: Michael Giacchino
Genre: Superhero
Runtime: 114 minutes

20 years ago, we got ‘Fantastic Four‘, which did well enough commercially to get a sequel. 10 years later came another ‘Fantastic Four‘ – that one was a box office flop. A further decade brings a new big-budget outing for the third version of the superhero family, this time integrating them into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Planet Earth is marked for destruction. This message of doom is delivered by the messenger the Silver Surfer who serves her master, the mighty Galactus. Yes, her. More on that shortly. But it’s not Earth as we know it; specifically, it’s Earth-828, an alternate reality where the citizens are living in a retro-futuristic setting. A place where people listen to music on vinyl and drive Lincoln Continentals, except the technology is advanced and the quartet have a flying car. It’s how artists in the 1960s pictured how the far-flung year of 2000 A.D. would resemble – like a live action ‘Jetsons‘ movie. The period detail is amazing, there’s a million things to spot in such a short amount of time while we’re zipping around.

The retro design makes up for what they’ve done to our lead characters. Starting with Mister Fantastic: casting Pedro Pascal as a dependable, trustworthy guy is a stretch. Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm has a couple of nice moments but feels slightly muted. The writers have reduced Johnny Storm / Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) from smokin’ hot ladies’ man to just the plain old annoying little brother because they thought his womanising ways weren’t sexy. By contrast, you have the female incarnation of the Silver Surfer, played by Julia Garner. Now, I actually don’t take issue with the gender swap like so many swathes of fans did online. She’s otherworldly and detached as she should be. Turning the character into a woman means she’s promptly objectified – “Johnny’s girlfriend”, “sexy alien” etc. – I don’t recall the male variant ever receiving this treatment. These screenwriters must still be virgins, surely?

2024 was a cooldown for Marvel films (only one was released, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine‘) so we’re back to the usual two/three per calendar year. ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps‘ is the weakest of 2025’s trio, behind ‘Captain America: Brave New World‘ and ‘Thunderbolts*‘.

My rating: 6 / 10

Thunderbolts* (2025)

Director: Jake Schreier
Screenplay: Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo
Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Julis Louis-Dreyfus
Cinematography: Andrew Droz Palermo
Editing: Angela Catanzaro, Harry Yoon
Score: Son Lux
Genre: Superhero
Runtime: 126 minutes

CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) risks impeachment due to her involvement with the O.X.E. Group, which has been conducting experiments on humans. To eliminate all traces of wrongdoings, she intends to ensnare her operatives and dispatch them.

This motley crew are:

Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) – an assassin trained in the infamous Red Room, adoptive sister of Scarlett Johansson’s late Black Widow.
John Walker / U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell) – a knockoff Captain America with none of the goody two-shoes quality about him, only hostility.
Ava Starr / Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) – she has the power to pass through objects as a result of a molecular instability, first seen in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp‘.
Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster – a professional killer who can mimic others’ fighting styles, introduced in ‘Black Widow‘ (2021) alongside Belova.

Throw in the new character of Bob (Lewis Pullman); one of de Fontaine’s human guinea pigs, plus the returning Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and Red Guardian (David Harbour), Yelena’s father-figure, and you have the Thunderbolts, a bunch of lovable rogues thrust together in less-than-perfect circumstances – Marvel’s answer to Suicide Squad. There are bad guys and there are worse guys, these are the former.

It may seem a lot of info to take in, since the characters come from separate corners of the vast MCU but the writing deftly weaves their narratives into one entertaining action romp. It’s not just hits and giggles however, there’s a real vein of existentialism throbbing underneath the superhero armour.

As ever, the final scenes are crucial – they set up the stage for Phase 6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

My rating: 8 / 10

Kraven the Hunter (2024)

Director: J.C. Chandor
Screenplay: Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, Russell Crowe
Cinematography: Ben Davis
Editing: Chris Lebenzon, Craig Wood
Score: Benjamin Wallfisch, Evgueni Galperine, Sacha Galperine
Genre: Superhero
Runtime: 127 minutes

Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (the SSU for short) has paled in comparison to Marvel’s MCU and even DC’s DCEU (which had its fair share of duds). With only six films in its catalog, ‘Kraven the Hunter‘ is the final nail in the coffin, following on from the disastrous ‘Madame Web‘ earlier this year, which left the SSU on life support, and while the ‘Venom‘ series was popular, each entry was noticeably weaker than the previous.

‘Kraven‘ was actually filmed in 2022, and now released after multiple delays. There’s an air of doom hanging over this movie; as if it’s an imperilled afterthought – the makers didn’t really care about it to put any actual effort in. And it shows; a half-baked plot, underdeveloped characters and underutilised superpowers (the ability to slow down time, chameleon-like mimicry).

Our titular hero (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the son of a Russian gangster (Russell Crowe, playing the epitome of toxic masculinity), learns of his mother’s suicide in his teenagehood. His way of grieving: running away from home and spending 16 years in the Siberian wilderness, seemingly able to fend for himself. Another inexplicable thing to happen to him: he was mauled by a lion and resurrected with voodoo. Okay then. In the present day, he spends his days hunting poachers and other threats to nature, he’s something of an animal lover. He has a list of targets – the one way to get off it…is death.

Mr. Taylor-Johnson (a future James Bond?) has rarely taken the lead in the latter half of his career, not since his ‘Kick-Ass‘ era; he’s more of a supporting actor in films (‘Tenet‘, ‘Bullet Train‘, ‘The Fall Guy‘). This being his moment to shine in a leading capacity – and he’s wasted. I’m sure he was ‘kraven’ a project worth his energy.

Once the big bad has inevitably been dispatched, there’s a little bit at the end setting up a sequel…which is obviously not going ahead. Just a squandering of resources from everyone involved. Usually with these superhero blockbusters, there’s a post-credits scene to decipher. With ‘Kraven‘, none exist, probably because the writers thought nobody would stick around long enough to find out.

My rating: 4 / 10

Venom: The Last Dance (2024)

Director: Kelly Marcel
Screenwriter: Kelly Marcel
Cast: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Clark Backo, Alanna Ubach
Cinematography: Fabian Wagner
Editing: Mark Sanger
Score: Dan Deacon
Genre: Superhero
Runtime: 109 minutes

Following the chaos of ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage‘, Eddie Brock (and Venom) are fugitives hiding out in Mexico. In a bid to clear Brock’s name in New York City, the pair take a road trip of sorts to get there. I can’t fathom spending any time with the annoying symbiote, constantly wisecracking with a gravelly Christian Bale-esque voice. Throw me out the van, please.

Hot on their trail are government soldiers (led by Chiwetel Ejiofor), intent on capturing Venom for their research on alien symbiotes, aided by Area 51 scientists (Juno Temple and Clark Backo). Meanwhile, some imprisoned evil force seeks ‘the Codex’, the vaguest of MacGuffins created once a symbiote brings its host back to life (which happened to Eddie in the original ‘Venom‘). This confusing bad guy lore bogs the movie down; it works better when there’s action sequences, especially the final showdown within the Area 51 compound. Another highlight is Rhys Ifans’ extraterrestrial-obsessed hippie and his family the duo meet en route.

The only other returning characters from the first two ‘Venoms‘ are Mulligan (Stephen Graham, bridging the gap between the previous installment and this film) and Mrs. Chen, the convenience store owner who randomly pops up in Las Vegas, clearly living her best life. Gone is the emotional baggage of Eddie’s broken relationship with Anne Weying. Instead, we have the symbiosis of Eddie and his old friend and its looming conclusion. Their ‘last dance’. I say ‘old friend’; it transpires the events of the trilogy have occurred in the space of a single year. Madness.

A schmaltzy goodbye later…but before long, there’s not one, but two post-credits scenes that undo this rare attempt to end a franchise by setting up a future storyline. I mean, I’m not surprised but this Hollywood trend of pumping needless sequels out is tiresome.

My rating: 5 / 10