JofiElias

It may not be a perfect film, but Fantastic Four: First Steps delivers something that has long felt impossible: a faithful, heartfelt translation of the Lee/Kirby era of Marvel Comics onto the big screen - without irony, without condescension, and without unnecessary modern filters.

Director Matt Shakman makes a bold choice by setting the film in a stylized 1960s alternate Earth. It's a stroke of genius that pays off: the production design is rich and immersive, evoking the spirit of Silver Age comics through colors, sounds, and aesthetics. Everything from costumes to architecture contributes to a consistent and charming retro-futuristic atmosphere.

The storytelling is tight and smart. Instead of dwelling on yet another detailed origin story, the film cleverly condenses it into a faux documentary that plays during the opening credits - a witty and efficient solution. What follows is a brisk two hours of adventure, character dynamics, and emotional momentum. The tone strikes a rare balance: sincere without being naive, fantastical without being absurd, light-hearted but never trivial.

The characters are vividly drawn, with Sue Storm standing out as the film's emotional core. Vanessa Kirby brings depth and strength to the role, while Pedro Pascal's Reed Richards is charismatic and believable, offering a fresh but respectful take on the character. Johnny Storm gets plenty of screen time and energy, but it's Ben Grimm who surprises the most - the melancholic undertone and subtle cultural references (especially to Jewish-American identity) add a layer of richness rarely seen in superhero films.

Even the humor is well-calibrated: present, but never overwhelming. And while Mole Man's appearance is brief, it's a memorable and well-executed nod to classic fans.

This isn't science fiction, fantasy, or action-thriller pretending to be a superhero movie. It is a superhero movie - unapologetically so - made with honesty, clarity, and love for its source material. It resists both the urge to over-intellectualize and the temptation of ideological posturing. Instead, it honors the legacy of characters that defined generations of fans.

In a time when the MCU often feels bloated and self-referential, Fantastic Four: First Steps offers a refreshing reminder of what made these stories resonate in the first place. Here's hoping it marks a new beginning, not just for Marvel's First Family, but for the entire cinematic universe.

When there's no genuine trust in a director's vision, the film shouldn't be produced, especially if the producer, fearing financial loss, ends up meddling with the artistic identity of a filmmaker as idiosyncratic as Dario Argento.

The American production managed to sabotage Trauma in every major department. Let's take a closer look at how.

The screenplay.

American producers do not understand the internal logic of an Argento film. His works are not realistic, nor are they thrillers in the conventional sense: they are nightmares. For Argento, the plot is purely functional: a thread designed to connect the real centrepieces of his films-the stylised murder set-pieces. Each killing is a meticulously timed audiovisual experience, a miniature music video that gives fear a physical, almost tangible, shape. Whether or not the plot joins these moments coherently is largely irrelevant. If the story happens to make sense, all the better, but the fewer psychological detours and explanatory scenes, the more effectively the film operates as a dreamlike horror.

The cinematography.

Failing to grasp the above, the American producers hired a cinematographer with a penchant for naturalistic, moody visuals in the vein of The Silence of the Lambs. A grave misstep. Argento's characters are not living, breathing humans; they are puppets awaiting slaughter. They require harsh lighting and bold, primary colours-not dusk and shadow. In choosing an impressionist over an expressionist, the visuals are not merely weakened, they are reduced to a tenth of their potential power.

The music.

Perhaps the most ruinous element is the score. In a bid to make the film more palatable to American audiences, the producers brought in Pino Donaggio. His syrupy, sentimental soundtrack is an outright betrayal of Argento's aesthetic. These films require music that is as inhuman, as unempathetic, as possible. Consider the scene in which the young boy chases the butterfly: the music is utterly inappropriate, draining all tension from the moment and leaving it emotionally incoherent.

The editing.

You cannot excise the brutal scenes from an Argento film. That would be like asking Edgar Allan Poe to write bedtime stories. It is not a compromise-it is artistic castration.

In short, the American production misunderstood Argento at every level, and in doing so caused 75% of the film to collapse. As for the remaining 25%, Argento himself is to blame-casting his daughter in a lead role before she was ready for the screen.

Stunning cinematography, outstanding performances, and a genuinely intriguing premise. The screenplay, however... The first half hour is powerful, tight, and wouldn't be out of place in a film by Miike or Tarantino. At the outset, the blend of Eastern action cinema and Italian-style comedy seems to work miraculously well. The two genres manage to coexist because each character is sketched just enough to give the film its necessary weight.

Then suddenly, right after the Chinese woman asks Marcello to set her free, the film collapses-spectacularly. The two of them go for a stroll around Rome and, out of the blue, she transforms from The Bride in Kill Bill into Alice in Wonderland. From that point on, her personality begins to swing wildly: one moment she's a wild tigress, the next she's Audrey Hepburn perched on the back of a Vespa, and then suddenly she's a picture-perfect housewife from a breakfast cereal advert.

The film never quite recovers its thread. It spirals into needless psychologising and tearful lamentations. There are also some musical Morettisms that feel entirely redundant. It all wraps up like a vaguely Italian noir, with a final scene that feels clumsily tacked on.

Gabriel Mainetti is an extraordinarily gifted filmmaker-but he'd do well to follow a coherent narrative line rather than raiding his cinephile's memory bank and stitching together mismatched bits of other people's films.