[EXPRESSO] Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) | Freaks On A Leash

I didn’t see the 2015 reboot and i barely remember some things from the 2005 iteration (“no one” has seen the Roger Corman version so i’m not gonna ask), but i’d say fans of the Fantastic Four will be pleased with finally having a more than solid film made about the beloved superhero quartet.

It definitely helps that Fantastic Four: First Steps is basically a standalone entry, taking place in another version of Earth where everything is a retrofuturistic 60s space age utopia, and (like the recent Superman reboot) it skips doing the origin story and it starts with the team already established, with a ABC style show recapping how they got their powers and became the city heroes/guardians, mythologized and even with their own saturday morning cartoon.

It does indeed play heavily on the family angle, as Sue and Richard are to have a baby….a joy shortlived by the appearance of a female Silver Surfer announcing their planet will be destroyed by Galactus, prompting the team to go back to space and trying to resolve the situation, complicated by an odd proposition i won’t spoil…

Again, it does play his card sincerely (as did Gunn’s Superman, guess this is new style for comic book movies now), there’s space travel, a bit of fighting, and it’s definitely the best offering from Marvel in a while…. it’s simply not as good as the James Gunn’s Superman reboot that we saw just 2 weeks ago, but i can’t fault the movie for that.

I can fault it for the characterization being somewhat lacking, as the Fantastic Four come off – despite the great performances – as a bit too perfect, too easily accepted and with any rough edges or weirdness (mostly) sanded off, like their media image plastered on ads or products.

[EXPRESSO] Gladiator II (2024) | Caligulas IV: The Untold Story

I have expressed my qualms with this era of Ridley Scott films before, same for the industry doing legacy sequels and so on.

But in this case, i do have some simpathy for Gladiator II, at least from a conceptual standpoint, given the odds stacked against it by default of following up such a revered movie, especially when the finale of the first did had closure. So, regardless of demand or cliffhangers to continue from, here’s a sequel that picks up almost two decades after Maximus’ death, and focuses on its son, Lucius, sent away to avoid being targeted, only to grow up as a Numidian general and being brought back to Rome as a slave, where he collaborates as a gladiator fighting for slave master/coliseum mogul Macrinus, intent of overthrowing the deranged, deprived and tyrannical twin emperors Geta and Caracalla…

It’s not a bad plot, the new characters are actually quite good and interesting, especially Pedro Pascal as general Acacius, and ESPECIALLY Denzel Washington as the devious Macrinus, the latter actually being far more interesting than the protagonist, Lucius, the reluctant heir to Maximus’s legacy (both literally and figuratively), ast Paul Mescal’s character & performance are simply not as memorable as Crowe’s, even when given more dialogues and speeches.

And that’s the issue, as this sequel struggles with the nigh-impossible quest of replicating the magnitude of the original… and doesn’t manage to catch lightning in a bottle twice.

But to be fair, for a movie that we didn’t really quite need, its attempt at recapturing the spirit and spark of the first movie is quite good, just not as good, but the spectacle is there, the plot is intriguing, the sets magnificent, Rome even more decadent, the political intrigue satisfying, the action brutal, and it does entertain quite a lot.

[EXPRESSO] A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) | The Cat Will Inherit The Earth

The acclaimed horror series about an alien invasion of sound-receptive creatures continues…. as it actually does not, by playing the classic “prequel” card, which is often a double edged sword, as it can actually expand upon the material or just feel like a stop-gap “filler” release.

In this case – as the title lays out – we go back to the very first day of the invasion, breaking out in New York, and we follow a terminal cancer-diagnosed woman (and her support cat) brought with the rest of the hospice to see a show, when suddendly vicious alien monsters fall from the skies and rampage, blind as bats but immediatly snapping in chase of of any loud noise…

In many ways, there’s little to say about A Quiet Place Day One that couldn’t/hasn’t already been discussed plenty about the previous movies, it doesn’t add really much “lore”, it just has some characters that will show up in the mainline films, but in this case it’s actually a good thing, as we have another good horror thriller with great suspence, a relatively novel twist on the monsters, excellent effects, good characters, and most importantly the ability to keep things simple at heart but far from boring, without bogging down the dread by forcing a mythos, for example.

Honestly i feel the “Day One/Origin” spin works well enough, i’m quite okay with it following mostly new people, as the “cancer-not-the-sign woman” is actually a pretty good main character, relatable, and while there’s nothing new or mindblowing added to the series, the execution it’s still quite good enough to make for a great film.

It’s a rare case when the “if not broken, don’t fix it” approach does actually still pay off, with the only little wart being the humdrum, shoehorned dream sequence.