With theatrical business struggling to recover to pre-Covid levels amid increasing competition for audiences’ attention, the standout performance by premium theaters in the larger context of audience preferences for blockbuster tentpoles with high family appeal makes a new and biggest-in-state IMAX for the region a big deal, and likely to benefit the restaurants, bars, cafes, and parks in the busy area. I will quibble about some choices here or there, such as my preference for Ben to harbor a grudge against Reed (although there’s room for that to manifest differently in coming films) or my feeling that Reed’s fears and uncertainties are so important to his arc that we don’t get much time to see him as his more typical self-assuredness about his intelligence and the team’s status (it’s precisely those attributes that lead him to harbor such fear and doubt once the big threat arrives, because he questions everything he believed). I am avoiding saying too much about the story, but I have to note that Fantastic Four also achieves a sense of Galactus’ massive physical presence, the terror of what it’s like to look up from the sidewalk and witness such a monstrosity stomping through Manhattan, and it reminded me of the way Godzilla: Minus One achieved a similar mind-blowing sense of scale and awe.
Author: Mark Hughes, Contributor, Mark Hughes, Contributor https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/
Published at: 2025-07-26 19:44:41
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