The Fantastic Four: First Steps is fantastically pro-family and pro-life

There can be a cultural connection between the serious and silly. Such is the function of satire and irony. Currently, there is a movie blowing the top off the box office that is either satirical or ironic—that is, it is either making a statement about our malady or unwittingly diagnosing the disease of the day. Whether intentional or accidental, it is strange to see a blockbuster that presents itself like any other blockbuster but is built on ideas that are not typical of the blockbuster, and its message promotes life and family.

James Craig, the Denver dentist, just received a life sentence for the murder of his wife. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers rallied to sue the Trump administration for its efforts to defund Planned Parenthood by barring it from reimbursement for Medicaid. As murder was decried in a Colorado court, it is being called for in courts across the nation. The blood of the American family runs in rivers, and the slaughter of the innocents goes on like clockwork.

Again, as strange as it is, the most popular piece of entertainment in this moment of ongoing murder within the family is an openly pro-life movie. The Fantastic Four is so pro-life and pro-family it hardly feels like it could have come from the same ideologically burnt-out Hollywood that serves as the herald for the culture of death—not unlike the slick silver alien herald in this flick who comes to coldly announce the earth’s impending demise in the maw of a ravenous, world-devouring titan.

This movie is also curiously set in a futuristic-retro version of the 1960s, when the sexual revolution ushered in abortion, pornography, divorce, and all the now common enemies of life, love, and family. Bizarre as it may seem, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a surprisingly fresh superhero celebration of family, children, and life—especially coming, as it does, from the mouth of Marvel and the House of Mouse.

The Fantastic Four isn’t a great movie by any means, but it is certainly not bad, which is saying something these days. It isn’t pushing an agenda. It isn’t woke. It isn’t immoral. It’s fast and fun and flashy—and though its narrative is disjointed with more emphasis on spectacle than cohesive storytelling, it’s all about the essential cultural and even spiritual importance of the family unit and the sacrifice of parents for the life of their child.

The basic premise is kind of simple, silly, and sweet: a superpowered husband and wife welcome their first child (with a pair of superpowered uncles that comprise the Fantastic Four family) and defend it unflinchingly when its life is demanded by a gigantic space monster who will (literally) eat the planet if they don’t surrender their baby to him. The movie shimmers more like a fairy tale than a comic book, and its vibes are so much purer than the gritty, violent, morally compromised, and left-leaning themes that are usually infused in these films.

The Fantastic Four is uncompromising about the beauty that so many take for granted about bringing life into the world, the fundamental importance of having family unity, and the power of choosing to protect the powerless together with the integrity of the family over the whole world. This choice (that word itself being so ironic in the “debate” over human life), this parental commitment to save the life of a baby, is shown as central to redemption and even salvation. It is what good men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and superheroes do. And that’s not typical messaging for a comic book movie.

From the wondrous haven of the womb to the towering priority of parenthood, this movie, for all its schlock and schtick, is a tender, wholesome, heartwarming outing when it comes to the position it takes on family. It is a position that is so odd to see coming from moviemakers and actors that almost certainly support abortion and unbound relationships to some degree.

At best, there is an agnosticism that seems to run through these cinematic themes coming from minds that, like all minds, know abortion is wrong and all life is precious, but refuse to say it loud and clear. But the truth will out as art holds, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature, to use Shakespeare’s quipping about his own dramatic profession. That self-reflection goes on even in theaters, despite the die-hard roaring of pro-abortion liberals.

This is the blind attitude that infests so much of Hollywood, and it is an attitude accepting of the death of millions of babies, even in a post-Roe country. As Archbishop Charles Chaput, then in Philadelphia, once wrote:

The unborn child means exactly zero in the calculus of power for Democratic Party leaders, and the right to an abortion, once described as a tragic necessity, is now a perverse kind of ‘sacrament most holy.’ It will have a candidate’s allegiance and full-throated reverence… or else.

Abortion is, for both sides of the aisle, a matter of life and death, and hence the divisive and vitriolic nature of the struggle. But the attitudes and actions of the Fantastic Four, as trite as that may sound, outline a moral position that is not to be taken lightly—especially since it is the beating heart of a movie that everyone is celebrating—and that position is that ends never justify means. Even when faced with reality-ending consequences, choosing what is natural and upright with courage and parental sacrifice will defeat seemingly unstoppable evil forces—and what’s more, in unexpected and unforeseen ways.

It seems so strange to say, but The Fantastic Four is something of a beautiful and moving movie—and again, strange as it is to say, it is diagnostic of these death-stained days and unequivocal about the life-giving remedy.

The film is a little too safe to be significant, and is also underdeveloped, especially in the sweeping themes it touches upon and then flees from, as set pieces fly by with explosive color and action, without forming a strong enough through line. But what is clear is that the superpowers of the Fantastic Four are the bonds of family and friendship and the commitment to that bond, preserving the innocence entrusted to them, who have vowed to support one another in the good life.

The Fantastic Four may be just another loud summer popcorn affair for most, but there’s more to it than fantastic, if sometimes ham-fisted, entertainment. The movie is clear about the reward that comes to those who trust, who are principled, and who don’t give a grain of incense on the altar of death, and are ready to lay down their lives for their loved ones. Whether it takes first steps to a new, miraculous cultural acknowledgment that all life is precious and sacrifice is central in the act of bringing new life to the world, or whether the movie makes these spiritually powerful points despite itself, The Fantastic Four is still a fantastically pro-life flick.