July 29, 2025 • 8 mins
ICYMI: ‘Later, with Mo’Kelly’ Presents – Mark Rahner’s review of the brand-new Marvel Studios release “Fantastic Four: First Steps” in The Rahner Report - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app & YouTube @MrMoKelly
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from
KFI A M six forty, Mark.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Talks about pontificates about pop culture. Ron and Report with
Mark Ronner.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
It is Later with mo Kelly on k f I
A M six forty live everywhere on the iHeart App.
I'm Mark Ronner and this is the Runner Report. This
portion of the show is live tonight because the Fantastic
Four First Steps is opening and our country needs us.
It's just you and me tonight. Phoosh, we got this.
Let's do it. Okay. There have been a few stabs
at making Fantastic Four movies and they've all sucked the
(00:51):
varying degrees. We've got a new one opening. Now here's
a little of the trailer.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Famous around the world. Please welcome the Fantastic Four. Mister Fantastic,
Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Johnny and the Thing.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Hey, what time is it?
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Say?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
The thing?
Speaker 4 (01:20):
That's not really something. I say it's covering time.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
That's just in the cartoon.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
You get no more. Here's a quick rundown. There was
that infamous cheap Oh Fantastic Four movie from nineteen ninety
four that was made just to hang on to the
rights never meant to be released. It was hilariously bad,
and when saying mister Fantastic stretched out his arm, it
looked like somebody just stuck a glove on the end
of a broom handle. There were a couple from two
thousand and five and two thousand and seven that had
(01:48):
Chris Evans as the human Torch before he became Captain America.
Fairly embarrassing, but they did do a nice job of
him as Johnny and Michael Chickliss as the thing messing
with each other. If I'm remembering those correctly. Through the trauma,
I was watching through my fingers when mister Fantastic did
a stretchy dance at his own bachelor party? Did I
imagine that? Did that really happen? There was an especially
(02:09):
lousy one in twenty fifteen with Miles Teller as mister
Fantastic that was even worse than the nineteen ninety four
cheap O one, which at least had its heart in
the right place absolute code brown, more like a Fantastic two.
There's a documentary about that, the nineteen ninety four one.
It's called Doomed, The Untold Story of Roger Corman's Fantastic
Four made in twenty fifteen that you can find streaming.
(02:31):
Turns out a lot of the people involved in that
really put their hearts into it and didn't know they
were getting screwed at the time. Okay, that brings us
up to speed. Those were all a little heartbreaking because
Fantastic four has always been one of Marvel's best loved comics.
It was originally meant to be Marvel's answer to DC's
Justice League in the early sixties, but it was its
own thing, so to speak, coming from stan Lee and
(02:51):
Jack Kirby, maybe more from Kirby than we thought, depending
on who you talk to now, the Fantastic Four it's
always been a tough nut to crack, And besides that,
the Incredibles got it so right without actually being called
the Fantastic Four that it just seemed to me like
nobody else should bother. And the trailers for this new
one had some concerning stuff in them. Everybody loves Pedro Pascal,
(03:12):
but he looks nothing like the Reid Richard's mister Fantastic.
We all know there is a female silver surfer played
by Julia Garner, which I had no interest in. Yeah,
there's a female one at some point later on in
the Marvel comics. But the Silver Surfer everyone knows is
the dude version named Nouran Rad. He was voiced by
Lawrence Fishburne and that bad one from two thousand and seven.
(03:32):
No one was asking for a chick silver Surfer. No one? Okay,
that's Lane. I didn't know that it made the Silver
Surfer female. Yeah, more on that in a little bit. Also,
the trailers featured Herbie the Robot from the Fantastic Four cartoons. Nope, nope, nope,
that's like putting the Wonder Twins from the super Friends
cartoon into Zack Snyder's Justice League movie What Are You Doing?
(03:57):
And I was wrong about all that fifth times The
charm First Steps is one of the best things Marvel
has ever done. Pedro's fine is read Richard's more vulnerable
than the cold intellectual he's traditionally been portrayed. This iteration
of the Silver Surfer doesn't ruin anything, and the actual
surfing is really fun to watch, and they somehow even
managed to handle Herbie the Robot perfectly could have been
(04:20):
like that awful, tweaky robot that ruined the Old Buck
Rogers TV show. But no, nope, zero problem with that.
Like the Superman movie that came out and that we
were viewed here a couple weeks ago, this one embraces
that it's from a comic book, and even the choices
that fans like me might not have made are so
well executed. You'd have to be pretty miserable to find
much wrong with this movie. Can't wait to see it again,
(04:41):
especially without the two dingleberries in front of me and
Tuala talking through the whole thing. Actually, I wanted to
shout its clober in time at them. In the movie.
This story takes place in an alternate earth that looks
like the early sixties. Madmen Ero and men wore hats
and suits everywhere, with an incredibly cool retro futuristic design
that's almost the star of the movie itself. This movie
(05:03):
is production designed right down to its last molecule, and
it's beautiful to look at. It's not another origin movie,
thank god. The ff are already well known and famous.
When the movie starts, Reed's girlfriend or wife, Sue Storm,
played by Vanessa Kirby, who you know from Mission Impossible
and who I first noticed in The Crown. She's pregnant
(05:23):
and maybe since it was the early sixties, they must
have been married, because back then there weren't single moms.
They were unwed mothers, and their kids were bastards. I
should know, because I was one. I wasn't born yet
in the early sixties, but that stuff lasted a while.
If you don't remember, I didn't come from a single
parent household. I was just a bastard, or, as the
(05:44):
joke goes in the movie A thousand clowns, a little bastard,
depending on the day. Anyway, the Fantastic Four discovers a giant,
evil planet eating being called Galactus coming to Earth to
eat Earth. The chick Silver Surfer is his herald. Know
that's rude, get off my back, and they have to
confront him to ask him politely to please not devour
the earth, as that would be ungentlemanly. So Galactus says, oh,
(06:09):
I didn't know, my bad, No problem, big fan of
the Crown. Okay, no, he says, sure, I'll back off
in exchange for your child, which is also fairly ungentlemanly
if we're being honest here, even if that child was
a bastard. Anyway, the Fantastic Four has to save the
world from Galactus and the Silver Surfer and figure out
what's so special about their baby that Galactus would take
(06:30):
him in lieu of the Earth? Is he galactating? I'll
take a rimshot. Phosh, that joke may have been my
crowning achievement. Come on, thank you. Okay. Getting Galactus right
was a major thing, and they do. In one of
those failed earlier attempts, he's portrayed as some sort of
stupid space cloud thing. This one looks like the one
(06:51):
from the comics, with a gigantic helmet, ridiculous yet also magnificent.
And he's also, for all intents and purposes, a Kaiju.
And that's all I'll say about that. Mister Fantastic's powers
were a big hurdle, and I noticed they didn't show
much in the trailers. That's one of those things like
Thor spinning his hammer and flying with it that you think, crap,
that's gonna look. It's gonna be hard to avoid looking silly.
(07:13):
But they made it work for Thor, and they make
it work for mister Fantastic. Stretching here, Like I said,
this is a comic book movie, full stop. The director's
Matt Schackman, who also directed Marvel's Wanda Vision series, but
just as importantly for this forty three episodes of It's
Always Sunny in Philadelphia. They nail the tone here, which
is whimsical with a blend of family comedy and sci
(07:35):
fi action adventure drama. I'm still not paying eighty bucks
for the Galactus Head popcorn bucket. I don't even have
a little bastard to trade for one that is your
run a report. I'm sure we'll talk more about Fantastic
four with Moe when he's back next week. Now, fush,
just real quick, pardon my ignorance? No, no, okay. Is
the Silver Server supposed to be part of the team
(07:57):
or is he like a rebel? The Silver is the
Herald of Galactus, meaning he shows up scouts planet and
shows up to tell people that they're going to be eaten,
and he becomes a hero in I guess the Bronze
Age of Marvel. I think he's part of the Defenders
with Doctor Strange and Hulk, so he's he's a little
bit in the gray area between hero and villain, but
(08:20):
ultimately becomes a hero because he realizes Galactus is a
bad dude.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Got it, you're listening to later with Moe Kelly on
demand from KFI AM six forty
You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from
KFI A M six forty, Mark.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Talks about pontificates about pop culture. Ron and Report with
Mark Ronner.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
It is Later with mo Kelly on k f I
A M six forty live everywhere on the iHeart App.
I'm Mark Ronner and this is the Runner Report. This
portion of the show is live tonight because the Fantastic
Four First Steps is opening and our country needs us.
It's just you and me tonight. Phoosh, we got this.
Let's do it. Okay. There have been a few stabs
at making Fantastic Four movies and they've all sucked the
(00:51):
varying degrees. We've got a new one opening. Now here's
a little of the trailer.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Famous around the world. Please welcome the Fantastic Four. Mister Fantastic,
Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Johnny and the Thing.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Hey, what time is it?
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Say?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
The thing?
Speaker 4 (01:20):
That's not really something. I say it's covering time.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
That's just in the cartoon.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
You get no more. Here's a quick rundown. There was
that infamous cheap Oh Fantastic Four movie from nineteen ninety
four that was made just to hang on to the
rights never meant to be released. It was hilariously bad,
and when saying mister Fantastic stretched out his arm, it
looked like somebody just stuck a glove on the end
of a broom handle. There were a couple from two
thousand and five and two thousand and seven that had
(01:48):
Chris Evans as the human Torch before he became Captain America.
Fairly embarrassing, but they did do a nice job of
him as Johnny and Michael Chickliss as the thing messing
with each other. If I'm remembering those correctly. Through the trauma,
I was watching through my fingers when mister Fantastic did
a stretchy dance at his own bachelor party? Did I
imagine that? Did that really happen? There was an especially
(02:09):
lousy one in twenty fifteen with Miles Teller as mister
Fantastic that was even worse than the nineteen ninety four
cheap O one, which at least had its heart in
the right place absolute code brown, more like a Fantastic two.
There's a documentary about that, the nineteen ninety four one.
It's called Doomed, The Untold Story of Roger Corman's Fantastic
Four made in twenty fifteen that you can find streaming.
(02:31):
Turns out a lot of the people involved in that
really put their hearts into it and didn't know they
were getting screwed at the time. Okay, that brings us
up to speed. Those were all a little heartbreaking because
Fantastic four has always been one of Marvel's best loved comics.
It was originally meant to be Marvel's answer to DC's
Justice League in the early sixties, but it was its
own thing, so to speak, coming from stan Lee and
(02:51):
Jack Kirby, maybe more from Kirby than we thought, depending
on who you talk to now, the Fantastic Four it's
always been a tough nut to crack, And besides that,
the Incredibles got it so right without actually being called
the Fantastic Four that it just seemed to me like
nobody else should bother. And the trailers for this new
one had some concerning stuff in them. Everybody loves Pedro Pascal,
(03:12):
but he looks nothing like the Reid Richard's mister Fantastic.
We all know there is a female silver surfer played
by Julia Garner, which I had no interest in. Yeah,
there's a female one at some point later on in
the Marvel comics. But the Silver Surfer everyone knows is
the dude version named Nouran Rad. He was voiced by
Lawrence Fishburne and that bad one from two thousand and seven.
(03:32):
No one was asking for a chick silver Surfer. No one? Okay,
that's Lane. I didn't know that it made the Silver
Surfer female. Yeah, more on that in a little bit. Also,
the trailers featured Herbie the Robot from the Fantastic Four cartoons. Nope, nope, nope,
that's like putting the Wonder Twins from the super Friends
cartoon into Zack Snyder's Justice League movie What Are You Doing?
(03:57):
And I was wrong about all that fifth times The
charm First Steps is one of the best things Marvel
has ever done. Pedro's fine is read Richard's more vulnerable
than the cold intellectual he's traditionally been portrayed. This iteration
of the Silver Surfer doesn't ruin anything, and the actual
surfing is really fun to watch, and they somehow even
managed to handle Herbie the Robot perfectly could have been
(04:20):
like that awful, tweaky robot that ruined the Old Buck
Rogers TV show. But no, nope, zero problem with that.
Like the Superman movie that came out and that we
were viewed here a couple weeks ago, this one embraces
that it's from a comic book, and even the choices
that fans like me might not have made are so
well executed. You'd have to be pretty miserable to find
much wrong with this movie. Can't wait to see it again,
(04:41):
especially without the two dingleberries in front of me and
Tuala talking through the whole thing. Actually, I wanted to
shout its clober in time at them. In the movie.
This story takes place in an alternate earth that looks
like the early sixties. Madmen Ero and men wore hats
and suits everywhere, with an incredibly cool retro futuristic design
that's almost the star of the movie itself. This movie
(05:03):
is production designed right down to its last molecule, and
it's beautiful to look at. It's not another origin movie,
thank god. The ff are already well known and famous.
When the movie starts, Reed's girlfriend or wife, Sue Storm,
played by Vanessa Kirby, who you know from Mission Impossible
and who I first noticed in The Crown. She's pregnant
(05:23):
and maybe since it was the early sixties, they must
have been married, because back then there weren't single moms.
They were unwed mothers, and their kids were bastards. I
should know, because I was one. I wasn't born yet
in the early sixties, but that stuff lasted a while.
If you don't remember, I didn't come from a single
parent household. I was just a bastard, or, as the
(05:44):
joke goes in the movie A thousand clowns, a little bastard,
depending on the day. Anyway, the Fantastic Four discovers a giant,
evil planet eating being called Galactus coming to Earth to
eat Earth. The chick Silver Surfer is his herald. Know
that's rude, get off my back, and they have to
confront him to ask him politely to please not devour
the earth, as that would be ungentlemanly. So Galactus says, oh,
(06:09):
I didn't know, my bad, No problem, big fan of
the Crown. Okay, no, he says, sure, I'll back off
in exchange for your child, which is also fairly ungentlemanly
if we're being honest here, even if that child was
a bastard. Anyway, the Fantastic Four has to save the
world from Galactus and the Silver Surfer and figure out
what's so special about their baby that Galactus would take
(06:30):
him in lieu of the Earth? Is he galactating? I'll
take a rimshot. Phosh, that joke may have been my
crowning achievement. Come on, thank you. Okay. Getting Galactus right
was a major thing, and they do. In one of
those failed earlier attempts, he's portrayed as some sort of
stupid space cloud thing. This one looks like the one
(06:51):
from the comics, with a gigantic helmet, ridiculous yet also magnificent.
And he's also, for all intents and purposes, a Kaiju.
And that's all I'll say about that. Mister Fantastic's powers
were a big hurdle, and I noticed they didn't show
much in the trailers. That's one of those things like
Thor spinning his hammer and flying with it that you think, crap,
that's gonna look. It's gonna be hard to avoid looking silly.
(07:13):
But they made it work for Thor, and they make
it work for mister Fantastic. Stretching here, Like I said,
this is a comic book movie, full stop. The director's
Matt Schackman, who also directed Marvel's Wanda Vision series, but
just as importantly for this forty three episodes of It's
Always Sunny in Philadelphia. They nail the tone here, which
is whimsical with a blend of family comedy and sci
(07:35):
fi action adventure drama. I'm still not paying eighty bucks
for the Galactus Head popcorn bucket. I don't even have
a little bastard to trade for one that is your
run a report. I'm sure we'll talk more about Fantastic
four with Moe when he's back next week. Now, fush,
just real quick, pardon my ignorance? No, no, okay. Is
the Silver Server supposed to be part of the team
(07:57):
or is he like a rebel? The Silver is the
Herald of Galactus, meaning he shows up scouts planet and
shows up to tell people that they're going to be eaten,
and he becomes a hero in I guess the Bronze
Age of Marvel. I think he's part of the Defenders
with Doctor Strange and Hulk, so he's he's a little
bit in the gray area between hero and villain, but
(08:20):
ultimately becomes a hero because he realizes Galactus is a
bad dude.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Got it, you're listening to later with Moe Kelly on
demand from KFI AM six forty
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