Fantastic Four: First Steps Is Marvel's Big Budget Remake Of A SpongeBob Episode (You Know The One)

After three attempts (including an unreleased movie), we finally have a movie about Marvel Comics' first family that actually works. "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" is a movie that shows a world made better in every way by the existence of heroes, a fun and hopeful superhero movie with exquisite production design worthy of awards and a retro-futuristic aesthetic that stands out from every other superhero movie in the last decade.

The movie works because the main characters sell their family dynamic and uphold their place as the biggest (maybe only) heroes on the planet. Even when Galactus (Ralph Ineson) is first mentioned, the movie manages to use the literally larger-than-life villain in order to ponder some interesting questions about what the role of a superhero is meant to be within society and what responsibility heroes have to everyday people. Seeing the family struggle with whether they should put their little family above the fate of the entire earth is compelling and emotional.

But then it all goes downhill. This is a movie that sort of falls apart in its third act, specifically the moment Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), supposedly the smartest man on Earth, unveils his big idea to save the world from Galactus. Not only is it a ludicrous and terrible plan that inevitably misfires in a spectacular fashion, but it is also essentially an episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants."

"The Fantastic Four: First Steps" spends a lot of its runtime trying to convince the audience that Reed Richards is the smartest man alive, showing the kind of amazing technology he's helped bring to the world. We are led to believe this is the only man in the world who could be prepared to face Galactus, that his plans would be intricate, elaborate, and intelligent.

But that's not what we see when he proposes his plan to save the Earth by "moving heaven and Earth," literally. The biggest genius on the planet decides to prevent Galactus from arriving on Earth and eating it by teleporting the entire planet somewhere else. Yes, this is exactly the same plan the notoriously stupid Patrick Star (Bill Fagerbakke) has in the "SpongeBob" episode "Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm," where the town is terrorized by an Alaskan Bull Worm. Patrick's suggestion is to just physically take the entire town of Bikini Bottom (also known as the birthplace of Godzilla) and push it somewhere else.

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Sure, the plan leads to a rather cool montage where the entire world unites to help build giant towers to help teleport the Earth, a rather uplifting moment that brings to mind a similar montage in "The Martian." Still, it doesn't take away from the fact that it's a silly plan, one followed by an even more stupid plan where Reed thinks Galactus can be baited into walking into a giant triangle that's obviously a trap and teleported away.

Reed's plan is also quite similar to the gigantic sci-fi spectacle "The Wandering Earth," a Chinese movie about the world coming together to build giant rockets that can move the Earth away from a solar explosion that would destroy the planet. Regardless of how many times someone suggests taking a big location and physically move it, it will never stop sounding silly.

Now, let's have the next "Fantastic Four" movie feature a marching band performance at a Super Bowl-like sports event like in "Band Geeks." Please?