Fantastic Four
Marvel has a lot riding on the success of Fantastic Four, not only bringing the iconic heroes to life after middling-to-awful attempts pre-MCU, but having them be a key face of the next Avengers movie, Doomsday. It turns out their faith in the cast and WandaVision director Matt Shakman was well-placed.
The review embargo for Fantastic Four has lifted, with the movie out for the rest of us on Friday, July 25, and the critic scores are mostly glowing. Though more reviews are filtering in over time, as I write this, Fantastic Four has an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Here’s how that stacks up to the other post-Endgame films in this era, where, as you can see, it compares favorably.
- Fantastic Four – 88%
- Thunderbolts – 88%
- Captain America: Brave New World – 51%
- The Marvels – 62%
- Deadpool & Wolverine – 78%
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – 82%
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – 46%
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – 84%
- Thor: Love and Thunder – 64%
- Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness – 73%
- Spider-Man: No Way Home – 93%
- Eternals – 47%
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – 92%
- Black Widow – 79%
- Spider-Man: Far From Home – 90%
That does not put it inside the top 10 in the MCU, but critics have been, on average, harsher on MCU films compared to audiences since Endgame, which can be seen in the data. That score ties it with the very good, though underwatched, Thunderbolts, from just a few months back, which is interesting to see. It also means that the tie is for the fourth best-scored MCU film since Avengers: Endgame in 2019, with this often being a bit of a tough era. Though two of the others were huge Spider-Man films, to be fair. Notably, this is also a bit higher than DCU’s popular Superman film that just released, which scored an 83% (though it has a stellar 92% audience score).
Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four is an out-there move for the MCU, making a ‘60s-era movie set in a completely different universe from the main MCU Earth, disconnected from the rest of it until, of course, it won’t be. It’s no spoiler to say that the First Family will soon head over to the rest of the MCU, and we already know they will join the likes of Thor, Captain America, the Thunderbolts and the old FOX X-Men for Avengers: Doomsday.
What do critics like? The term “a breath of fresh air” for the MCU comes up a lot in these reviews, and praise for the cast and some individual members. Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm, often perhaps an overlooked member of the team, is supposed to be a real standout.
So, what will audiences think? Those scores will start coming in Thursday or Friday, and if once again the movie mirrors Thunderbolts, they should be stellar.
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