Fantastic Four: First Steps is a 2025 superhero film directed by Matt Shakman which delves into the 1960-era retro-futurstic world of Earth-828 where beloved superheroes, the Fantastic Four, must save the world from complete destruction.

I really enjoyed the retro-futuristic look and feel of this film. I also really appreciated the great acting, particularly from Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards) and Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm) who really nailed their role as not only superheroes, but also husband and wife. While I’ve grown weary of the cosmic threat trope in superhero films, I appreciated the slight twist this film provided where not only is Earth’s existence threatened, but also the bonds of love and family are stressed as well. The interplay between those two realms was engaging and even thought-provoking.

Ultimately, the movie’s central theme is family. What does it mean to be family? What are and should we be willing to do for our family? How do we truly love one another as family? Without giving away too much, at a pivotal point in the movie, Sue Storm gives a brief speech and says what she believes about family: “It’s about fighting for something bigger than yourself. It’s about connecting to something bigger than yourself. It’s about having something bigger than yourself.” According to Sue and the movie, family is about being together, about facing and fighting what threatens to divide and destroy us.

From a Christian perspective, there is much to commend here. Family is a good gift from God. The devotion, care and sacrifice that the Fantastic Four family show for each other is admirable – and something we should seek to emulate in our relationships. While the characters may jest and disagree with one another at times, they truly do love one another.

However, from a Biblical perspective, the good gift of family is not our final hope. Working together and being committed to each other is massively important, but it cannot save us from the brokenness inside us or outside of us. Ultimately, we have to look outside ourselves. We have to look to the One who created family and human relationships. He alone can rescue and redeem us. He alone can give strength to love our families well even in the hardest of times – and provide forgiveness for all those times we haven’t. And He did that by doing the unthinkable – by sending and sacrificing His only Son, so that we might life, so that by faith in Christ, we might be adopted as sons and daughters into His forever family. The Apostle Paul put it like this in Galatians 4:4-5: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

In closing, Fantastic Four: First Steps is a fantastic superhero movie. It’s one of the best superhero films I’ve seen in a long time. But it’s even more fantastic when you realize that the truth and beauty in this movie is just a faint shadow of the solid reality to which the Bible points and for which our hearts long for.

Last night, my wife and I had the chance to watch the 2019 film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Starring Tom Hanks as the iconic Mr. Rogers, the movie presents a troubled journalist, Lloyd Vogel (played by Matthew Rhys) who is assigned a piece on the famous children’s TV show host. Although Vogel is known for his ruthless writing style, his interactions with Mr. Rogers begin to soften, expose and heal him and his broken family relationships. In the end, the thing that stands out most in the movie is the overwhelming kindness and generosity of Mr. Rogers. From his warm welcome of others to his nurturing words to his willingness to befriend those who are difficult to love, Mr. Rogers is presented in the movie as the good neighbor that all of us should aspire to be. Thankfully, the movie doesn’t present Mr. Rogers as a perfect character, but it does show him as a man who worked incredibly hard to be truly friendly to others.

Seeing kindness embodied like that inspires me. It makes me want to treat each person I meet as one who is made in the image of God. It makes me want to spend more time listening to people and asking good questions instead of just thinking about what I can say next. It makes me want to be a good neighbor to others, particularly those who are difficult to love.

However, I know that I cannot do that through sheer moral willpower. If there is any major fault in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, it’s that it didn’t spend enough time exploring the spiritual underpinnings of Mr. Rogers’ kindness and generosity of spirit. Sure, it nodded to his regular reading of the Scriptures, praying for people by name and occasionally has him referring to God, but it all feels somewhat secondary to the amount of effort Mr. Rogers’ put into loving others.

Yes, loving others is costly, hard work. It takes self-control and a willingness to consistently put others first. But as a follower of Jesus (which is what I understand Mr. Rogers to be), love for others isn’t just a byproduct of our effort, but is first and foremost, the fruit of God’s work in us. As 1 John 4:19 reminds, “We love because he first loved us.” For Christ-followers, it is because of the kindness, the generosity, the lavish, welcoming love of God, that we can love anyone. Because the Father sent Jesus into our broken world, because Jesus was willing to lay His perfect life down for our guilty ones, because the Spirit regenerates and empowers every believer, we not only have the inspiration, but also the spiritual wherewithal to be kind to others. For in loving each person we meet, we are not just trying hard to be nice, but we are also putting on the display once again the glorious Gospel of grace for all the world to see.

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” – Ephesians 5:1-2

 

I just finished watching Christopher Nolan’s 2017 film, Dunkirk. The movie chronicles the massive evacuation operation of over 300,000 men from the beaches of Dunkirk, France. Here’s a few things that stood out to me:

1) The film follows the stories of three different groups of people: 1) A group of soldiers trying to escape from the beach, 2) The crew of a private yacht sailing to the rescue and 3) Two RAF fighters providing air cover. The movie starts with three separate timelines, but gradually and skillfully, these story threads end up converging in the end.

2) The film’s driving, haunting musical score was truly fantastic. It really added to the suspense and the feeling that time is running out.

3) There was not a lot of dialogue in this film, but there didn’t need to be. It’s an action-oriented film where the evacuation and rescue attempts speak for themselves. Although it would have been helpful to have a little more background on how this disastrous military situation originally developed, I thought the movie did a good job of explaining its plot through the (brief) dialogue of its characters.

4) As someone who has been interested in World War 2 history since childhood, I really appreciated how the movie helped me inhabit the cockpit of a Spitfire or the chaos of a ship that was just torpedoed or the gloomy dread of a beach full of defenseless men about to be attacked by a German dive-bomber. The horrors these men faced was truly terrifying. Dunkirk helped me understand and appreciate their tragic plight better.

5) The message of the movie seems to be that sometimes in a fight, survival is good enough. But there’s nuance to this message. At one point in the movie, some of soldiers from the beach are in the bowels of a discarded ship waiting for the tide to rise so that they can escape the beach. The Germans begin shooting at the ship for target practice. If that’s not bad enough, the tide begins to rise and water begins to pour in through the bullet holes in the ship’s hull. The men quickly determine that they need to lighten the weight in the ship so that it can float. One of them has to go. But who will it be? After a quick interrogation of one particularly quiet soldier, the men realize he is French, not British. A number of the soldiers quickly want to sacrifice this French soldier to German gunfire. If it’s all about survival, then the ends justify the means, right? But not so fast. One of the movie’s central characters agrees that he wants to survive, but he doesn’t want to have to live with the thought that he sacrificed this man’s life. Not all survival is created equal. Doing the right thing even if it costs you your life is worth more than jettisoning your ethics to survive. If I’m understanding the movie correctly, then I would heartily concur. It’s refreshing to see utilitarianism unmasked for the ethical dead-end that it is.

All in all, I’m really glad I watched Dunkirk. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the heroism of so many during World War 2, from soldiers to sailors to fighter pilots to English yacht owners. There is still much we can learn from their courage, their sacrifice, their survival.