[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] Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning (2025) | MISSION ALL OVER!(?)

Dropping the “Part 2” from the title, Mission Impossible Final Reckoning is still the direction continuation of the previous film, Dead Reckoning (with a recap of that films events further making clear it was planned as a two parter), that had Ethan Hunt and his team having to go rogue in order to escape the grasp of an IA program (dubbed “The Entity”) that accidentally gained sentience and spread itself all over the globe’s networks, bringing the national networks into chaos, fanning the flames of war, etc.

After the agent working for the Entity, Gabriel, manages to retrieve the “counter program”, Hunt and his team are forced into a desperate gambit to try and retrieve the Entity’s source code (still lost in a sunken submarine near Russian waters), retrieve the counter program from Gabriel, and outsmart the Entity, before it hacks every major nations’ nuclear arsenal and sink the globe into full on nuclear holocaust….

Honestly, i’m kinda impressive how the formula still works wonders, keeping that specific concoction of high octane action, death-defying chases, occasional comedy and espionage extravaganza, straddling the lines between realistic and improbable action movie magic.

And of course, the reminder that Tom Cruise biggest superpower is not his defying the Reaper, but his ability to run on film.

It ain’t trying to revolutionize the genre, at all, but the plot does actually manage to resonate perfectly with today’ fears, without desperately trying to be modern, “hip”, and the execution is pretty damn good, making for a fun and sentimental sendoff of the series altogether, there’s actually a real sense of finality to it, as it ties or brings back events and characters from the older films, gives some closure, and honestly would be the perfect place to end it, or have Hunt/Cruise pass the baton.

[EXPRESSO] Napoleon (2023) | House Of Bonaparte

A new, modern Ridley Scott movie with very split reception, must be a day of the week.

I’ll be frank, i did enjoy House Of Gucci, but i would be lying if i was posivitely surprised by Ridley Scott’s take on a Napoleone Bonaparte historical biopic.

It’s not outright bad, but there’s definitely something wrong when the script manages to almost fumble Joaquin Phoenix playing Napoleon, the performance is great as expect, the problem is that Napoleon is written like a ruffian, pillage-happy tyrant lacking any finesse or complexity, making it harder to believe him as the tactical war mastermind he was, not helped by some scenes that i don’t believe were meant to be funny, but are.

Which is not a small issue for the protagonist of a historical biopic, one that here clearly depicted to be pathetic and petty above anything else, like the usual stock comical depiction of Napoleon… which doesn’t gel with everything else we’re told and shown, so comes off as transparently biased and confusing portrayal of the character that fails to be interesting or in-depth.

As expected it’s a fairly lenghty affair that depicts Napoleon from his early rise to power as a young army officer for France to his crowning as Emperor, until his exile and death, all with a focus on his relationship with Empress Josephine.

Even ignoring the many, deliberate and sometimes really obvious for everyone historical innacuracies. (which i personally don’t care much about)… it just feels lacking, bloated and sometimes kinda random as we skip from event, with years going by and no one looking any older, or with very few of the battles getting any extended focus as the campal magniloquent massacres you expect, but nothing to really write home about for this tier of epics.

Sadly disappointing.