By Nithilan Balachander (26A01C)

As the Marvel Cinematic Universe enters its 18th year, begins its sixth phase, and releases its 54th project, The Fantastic Four has a lot riding on it. With superhero fatigue taking hold, the MCU is desperate for something fresh to break free from its string of stale box office disappointments. Who better for the job than Marvel’s first family?

The Fantastic Four is ambitious—with a 1960s-inspired sci-fi setting, a world-eating Galactus as antagonist, and a storyline spanning time and space, the film is clear in its desire to deviate from the 37 MCU films that came before it and its poorly reviewed and regarded F4 predecessors. 

Yet, despite all its spectacle, grandeur, and ambition, the film fails at being much more than formulaic and forgettable.

By Nithilan Balachander (26A01C)

Superman is the original. The first. The archetype of all superheroes. Debuting in 1938 with a cape and emblem, a secret identity, and an unwavering moral compass, he started what is now the most culturally dominant genre in all of entertainment.

Yet, while the MCU has established itself as a seemingly invincible box office behemoth, Superman—and DC in general, for that matter—has only declined further and further into irrelevance and insignificance.

Now, tasked with reimagining the oldest superhero and resurrecting a dead universe to go with, writer-director James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy”, “The Suicide Squad”) delivers the silliest Superman feature in all of cinematic history—and it is exactly the treatment Superman needs.