Meh. I like how the origin story is shown as a retrospective documentary. Not only does it save time, but also does some world-building by establishing the relationship between the team and the city. Galactus looks somewhat good, maybe even cool. Until he sniffs a tree. That's just weird. But other than that... Totally forgettable.
This is not a bad movie, but I do not think it has any hooks in it. It does not have anything memorable. I finished watching it like 10 minutes ago, and I already am starting to forget it. It also felt padded in some places, even though it was obviously cut to be less than 2 hours. Those paddings might have worked better if this was a TV show like The Penguin, where there was a lot of intentionality behind these kind of "optional" scenes. In this movie, though...
They are kinda soulless. I'd argue everything is soulless here even. Or at least "bland". I appreciate, that in this interpretation Johnny is not just a hothead, and does show some smarts (others often forget, that he was a scientist, too), but where is the hotheadedness here, really? Where's the spark, where's the humor? They briefly touched on Reed's tendency of imagining the worse, but did not go deep enough, too.
As such, I think I like Thunderbolts more. That one knew that it's about losers trying to step up and did not try to pretend to be anything else. F4 seems lost in itself. Maybe it should have been a TV show? To have more time to explore what made F4 stand out in the first place? That is family dynamics, and how these standard routines and interactions work in a super-family. Could have been like some old cartoons or TV shows with every episode being standalone. Charmed, but super-heroes.
You may still be able to enjoy this movie for one evening, though. Just don't expect anything more.
