Saturday Coffee: Will ‘Fantastic Four’ reignite my Marvel love?

Also: Trailers! Narnia! Indiana Jones! ‘Witness’! And (sigh) politics.

We made it to the weekend, everyone! I feel like time is moving slowly these days – January seemed to stretch on for a year. But we’re here, it’s the weekend, it’s February and there’s a lot I wanted to hit in this week’s edition of Saturday Coffee, so let’s get right to it!

Trailer Park

Several big trailers dropped this week, and I have thoughts!

Fantastic Four: First Steps

Chrisicism: In its first decade, nothing delighted me more than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s been hit and mostly miss since Avengers: Endgame, and I’ve found my excitement waning. Even with something like Deadpool and Wolverine or Spider-Man: No Way Home, there’s a sameness setting in. But Fantastic Four: First Steps has me excited. I love the bright 60s aesthetic and that the trailer focuses on the family dynamics over bombast. It’s a solid cast and, handled correctly, could be fun. I’m hopeful. Between this and James Gunn’s Superman, I’m optimistic that July could reignite the superhero movie.

Jurassic World Rebirth

Chrisicism: Sure, why not? It can’t be worse than Jurassic World: Dominion. Spielberg’s 1993 movie was crucial in making me a film lover, but every other entry in this franchise has failed to live up to its promise. But moving away from the stupid plot threads of the initial Jurassic World trilogy to get back to the basics – humans in the jungle being hunted by dinosaurs – has promise. Director Gareth Edwards has visual style, and Godzilla, Rogue One and The Creator have shown that he understands scale better than most. The cast is fine – it mostly feels like Universal is trying to figure out which A-list celebs haven’t been to Isla Nublar yet. In the immortal words of Kevin McAllister, I’ll give it a whirl.

Final Destination: Bloodlines

Chrisicism: On the one hand, I think I’m aging out of slashers. On the other hand, one of my favorite moviegoing experiences ever was seeing Final Destination with my friends and jumping about three feet in the air when a bus obliterated one of the characters out of nowhere. This series lost some steam around the fourth entry, but they’re always some of the more enjoyable entries in the subgenre, thanks to their dark humor and elaborate death scenes. There’s not much more to this one than a reassurance that the Rube Goldberg-esque splatter scenes will be back. It’s nice to see that some things never change. And I’ll never get a tattoo.

The Smurfs

Chrisicism: I wouldn’t include this except that The Smurfs was the first bit of pop culture I went nuts for, to the point where my grandparents took me on an amusement park trip chiefly because there was a Smurfs boat ride. I haven’t watched a Smurfs … thing … in probably close to 40 years (my kids turned on one of the previous movies once and turned it off after five minutes). And if this is what The Smurfs were really like (and it’s possible), I think we can do without dumping them on another generation. This is the type of shrill, reference-heavy, smug type of kiddie movie I thought we’d moved past. Smurf it from orbit.

‘Narnia’ casting kids

The big news: Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie for Netflix has started casting and is looking for two lead child actors. Read more.

Chrisicism: Admittedly, there’s not much to this. But it’s interesting that they’re casting for two young children and not four. Conventional wisdom would be that Gerwig’s adaptation would begin with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, because it was the first book published and it’s the most well-known. And maybe that’s the case and they’re not openly searching for the other kids yet. But this article speculates that perhaps Gerwig is filming The Magician’s Nephew first, which also features two young children (/Film points out that it’s not the only Narnia movie to focus on only two kids). I include this article for two main reasons: One is that, in my desire to read more old books this year, I’m going through The Chronicles of Narnia and the first one in my audiobook is “The Magician’s Nephew.” It could be an interesting movie. But also, I just continue to be curious about Gerwig choosing Narnia as her post-Barbie project. She seems an odd fit and yet she hasn’t missed yet. I’m curious, especially since Netflix is committing to putting this on IMAX screens in 2026.

Don’t Believe Trump

The big news: Ezra Klein tells us not to believe Trump’s claims to kingship.

Chrisicism: I don’t want to delve too deeply into politics. But I’ve noticed that everyone around me – and yes, me too – has been fatigued, wearied and frayed by the news. As Klein’s video reminds us, don’t believe his boasts of unprecedented power. We’ve already seen many of his Executive Orders struck down and it appears that several legal challenges to his rulings are moving forward. Getting us exhausted is part of the plan; remember that his power is not ultimate and can be resisted and challenged. This video brought me some peace this week.

Witness turns 40

The big news: Peter Weir’s Witness turns 40

Chrisicism: This seems to be a good place for me to talk about movies I saw recently but don’t have the time to write about. I had never seen Witness before, but I watched it recently in time for its 40th anniversary – which is today! Not sure what more I can say about this movie that hasn’t been said. Harrison Ford’s performance as John Book – a Philadelphia cop who ends up hiding with the Amish when a child witnesses a murder – is one of his best, emotional in ways I hadn’t anticipated. I’d assumed this was either a straight-on thriller or a fish out of water comedy romance. There are elements of that. But Weir – who specializes in stories of colliding cultures – tables most of the thriller elements for the film’s second act and lets this be a romance about two people (Ford and Kelly McGillis’ Amish widow) from different worlds who see and respect each other even if they know they can never completely leave their culture. Smart, tense and also very thoughtful, I really liked this one.