'First Steps' revives the Fantastic Four

   I'm not sure what it means, but if you look at the photo above, the blue and white outfits worn by the Fantastic Four may remind you of pajamas you'd expect find at a kiddie sleepover. I mention it because it's not easy to take Fantastic Four: First Steps, the movie from which this photo was taken, too seriously. Consider that a good thing.

  This fourth Fantastic Four movie represents an upbeat improvement over its three predecessors, which may be enough to kick it into recommendable territory -- provided you have any interest in another Marvel movie.

 Given a 60's aura by director Matt Shakman and recast with Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby in pivotal roles, First Steps has a welcome low-tech quality in which a robot looks more clunky than sleek. Sci-fi elements such as teleportation operate at rudimentary levels, as does a story that expeditiously introduces the Four while taking care of world-building.

  Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach complete the Fantastic quartet. A ton of CGI effects turn Moss-Bachrach into The Thing, a powerhouse who can lift a Volkswagen bug as if it weighed no more than a pebble. Quinn's Human Torch blazes his way through numerous action scenes.

   I'm to going to waste space describing all the superpowers of the Four, but it's important to know that when we meet them, they're living as a family in a New York apartment that has a mid-century garnish.

   For the record, Pascal's Reed Richard (a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic) and Kirby's Sue Storm (a.k.a. Invisible Woman) are married and expecting a child, which leads to scene in which Sue gives birth aboard a spaceship while dealing with a zero-gravity environment.

   The newborn, a mixture of CGI and a real infant, becomes an important plot element. The world-devouring villain, Galactus (Ralph Ineson), offers to spare Earth if Sue gives him Baby Franklin. When Sue declines, the failure of the Four to stave off doom raises the ire of the world's populace. Sue chooses the one above the many.

   Looking like a sleek statue inspired by an awards show, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) serves as Galactus's reconnaissance specialist. She surfs to new worlds, identifying planets that will feed her overlord's voracious appetite, although he's a bit tired of roaming galaxy after galaxy in search of nourishment. 

   The effects employed in the movie's finale are effectively realized, and Galactus's ominous-looking space ship reinforces the sense of doom facing Earth's inhabitants.

    Happily, First Steps doesn't overdo the interconnections that burden many Marvel films. You won't need a glossary to follow a plot designed for efficiency.

   I can't say that I was emotionally invested in First Steps. The movie's comic-book artifice makes it difficult really to fear for Earth's future, but a bit more than tolerable beats the heck out of terrible.

   On that level, First Steps satisfies.

A movie that brings war close

  In 2006, a platoon of Navy SEALs entered a two-story apartment building in Ramadi, Iraq. One apartment was still occupied.

  Through an interpreter, the SEALs informed the civilians that they wouldn't be hurt. The SEALs then  set up a post from which they observed the street, possibly preparing for trouble. They weren't sure what awaited them.

  In the new movie Warfare, the SEALs begin their mission after whooping it up in manic fashion while watching an exercise video featuring women in skimpy outfits. Like everything else in the movie, which chronicles a real incident, the scene is based on the accounts of SEALs who fought in the Iraq war.

   It doesn't take long for macho ritual, if that's what we're seeing, to give way to a forceful portrayal of relentless combat during the course of a single day.

    Director Alex Garland (Civil War) and co-director Ray Mendoza, who served as a Navy SEAL and advised Garland on the battle sequences in Civil War, team for a movie that eventually concentrates on SEAL efforts to evacuate the platoon from the besieged house, and more importantly, to save the lives of  two badly wounded SEALs.

    We don't know these men as fully developed characters, but as part of a team. Garland resists further elaboration. Early on, the dialogue consists mostly of military information related to the job. 

    The SEALs are well-equipped and have high-tech gear at their disposal. Yet, Garland makes us aware that beneath helmets and body armor, these men are made of flesh that can be torn apart and blood that can be spilled.

   Garland often allows the action to unfold in real-time, and sound designer Glenn Freemantle recreates the shock of explosions and their impact on woozy SEALS.  At one point, the SEALs request what's called "a show of force," and a jet buzzes the street with ear-shattering intensity. It's meant to distract the enemy.

    When one of the SEALs (Cosmo Jarvis) is severely wounded, his sustained screams are chilling. Another wounded SEAL (Joseph Quinn) begs for morphine.

    For most of the film, Garland almost makes us forget that innocent civilians, including children, remain in the house.  Maybe that's the point: The SEALs don't want the building's occupants to be hurt but they're busy fighting for their lives, tending to the wounded, and communicating with the SEALs who ultimately will come to their aid. They continue to function.

   Garland, Mendoza, and a cast that includes D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and Charles Melton bring considerable skill to the task of making us feel the desperate urgency of a combat situation.

   So what to make of all this?

   I'm not sure how to process the movie beyond acknowledging its experiential power. Warfare isn't concerned with the rights or wrongs of the Iraq War. It's not about the policy decisions that led to the SEALs to combat; it operates on a narrower gauge, immersing us in a specific and dangerous moment in the Iraq War.

   If there's a conclusion to be drawn from all this, it may involve recognizing the stark gap between unseen policy makers and on-the-ground combatants. Who bothers with political thoughts when an IED delivers its shocking blow or when a friend and fellow SEAL is on the verge of bleeding out?

   Brutally effective, Warfare brings a vivid helping of Iraq war realism to the screen. Maybe that's enough of an accomplishment for a movie that reminds us that whatever else we might think about war, there's nothing abstract about it -- not for those who have to fight and possibly die.

A tense new 'Quiet Place' movie

 

  Did we really need a prequel to 2018's clever, scary A Quiet Place, which had a sequel in 2021?

  Probably not, but we have one now, and director Michael Sarnoski, who debuted with the impressive Nicolas Cage movie, The Pig, makes the most of it. Sarnoski overloads A Quiet Place: Day One with stomping, leaping aliens, and turns his plot into a swift straight-line affair, sustaining high-pitched tension throughout.

   I wouldn’t say the movie is a classic of its kind. But Sarnoski, with help from his creative sound design and effects teams, fills a fleet 99 minutes with the high-anxiety stress movies such as this are meant to deliver.

  Day One begins with a title card informing us that the daily noise level in New York City averages 90 decibels, which explains why aliens attracted to loud sounds might seek it out. The aliens don't tiptoe around, either. Their screeching and smashing ways boost both the city's and the movie’s noise levels.

  Any success the movie attains qualifies as improbable. We don’t know what the invading aliens want or why they've come. We’ve seen computer-generated urban destruction before, and we know the alien MO from previous movies. 

    Fortunately for Sarnoski, the urban setting provides a new playground for the aliens. A scene in which ash-covered New Yorkers walk zombie-like through streets evokes memories of 9/11, one line in the grim poetry of destruction.

   Dropping an animal into the mayhem might seem like a cheap bid for sentiment, but Sarnoski fully embraces it. A pet cat — cutely named Yoda — belongs to Lupita Nyong’o's Samira, a hospice patient with terminal cancer. 

    Samira can't beat cancer, but maybe she can outlive the alien onslaught, and, at least, save her cat.

     Samira soon meets a fellow traveler. Dazed and bewildered, Eric (Joseph Quinn) follows Samira despite her desire to be left alone. The two develop a relationship, and a major set piece involves Eric's attempt to secure a transdermal fentanyl patch to relieve Samira's pain.

    And, yes, without many words, the actors must use their faces in the ways silent film stars might have. Nyong'o proves more than up to the task.

   Attempts at humor are marginal. Samira introduces a running joke about her desire to find a slice of New York pizza, which she prizes above any other variety, a subject audiences can debate on their way to the parking lot.

      As fast as the movie moves, there's still time to wonder about a few things. Why, for example, does Eric never remove his tie, even amid so much physical trauma? What keeps the white of Yoda's fur from ever seeming dirty?

     I've read that Yoda is played by two cats that prove that some cats do have nine lives — at least in movies that are less committed to pinpoint logic than to maintaining the intensity that results from knowing terror is seldom more than a beat away.