LOS ANGELES -- Girls are such buzzkills, man.
When you want to make mischief, break the rules, go rogue, do something cool and spontaneous for a change, there they are -- in arms-akimbo, resting-bitchface disapproval mode. Right, fellas?
So goes the undercurrent of a key sequence in Fantastic Four, which brings a host of problems to theaters this weekend, including -- but certainly not limited to -- one critical body-slam after another and an Esquire interview with star Miles Teller that clearly didn't go as planned.
But the moment when the Four (plus villain-to-be Victor Von Doom, played by Toby Kebbell) gain their powers is the one that will have the internet howling come Monday morning.
Though I do not relish pointing out perceived gender-role slights in popcorn movies -- the high heels-wearing boss-lady in Jurassic World was just a character, okay? -- there was something about this creative choice that really rubbed me, and plenty of others, the wrong way.
Warning: Minor spoilers ahead.
Sue Storm (Kate Mara) is, without a doubt, a key part of the film's team of young minds, which also includes Doom and Reed Richards (Teller) -- who create a sophisticated contraption for traveling to another dimension. (Sue's brother Johnny Storm, played by Michael B. Jordan, is no scientist, but he's good with a welding torch).
She's clearly a brilliant engineer who has a big role as they successfully send a monkey through a space-time rip. So far, so good.
But after that triumphant test, the suits backing the project break the bad news: They're turning to NASA for the device's first manned mission.
Sue chases after her dad Franklin (Reg E. Cathey), presumably to help make the team's case to the brass, while the three boys run off to drink Doom's stash of hooch and commiserate. That's where they realize: Those astronauts are going to get all the glory. Everyone remembers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin -- but who remembers the engineers who actually built Apollo 11?
That's when it's decided: They're going, and they're going now.
But before they suit up for man's first interdimensional trip, Reed (who's been steadily flirting with Sue) has a phone call to make. There's one more person who just can't miss this -- who deserves this place in history.
He dials the number, and it rings to ...
Ben Grimm?
Yep. The first person who springs to Reed Richards' mind isn't the woman who helped build the capsule, and who is fast becoming his love interest. It's his junkyard-punk childhood buddy.
"Bros before hos" never looked so ... thoughtless.
Not once do any of the boys stop to say "gee, maybe Sue should be here, too." They just barrel ahead with their subversive plan, leaving the girl out of it. And I certainly wasn't the only one to notice.
You are telling me Sue is the only one who doesn't get to go on the maiden voyage?!?— Rebecca Ford (@Beccamford) August 6, 2015
I bet whatever dude suggested that Sue Storm shouldn't go on the trip at all and just stare at a screen instead got a bonus— Matt D. Wilson (@TheMattDWilson) August 6, 2015
Apparently Sue Storm doesn't travel to the other world in Fantastic Four, only the boys get to go. What? WHAT? Give me a f--in break.— Jimmy Wong (@jfwong) August 5, 2015
It can be argued that the screenwriters left Sue Storm behind on purpose, so that she could save the boys from their folly -- but there are countless ways they could've gotten around that issue. What's more puzzling is that she was never part of the conversation to begin with.
More puzzling still: Here we are in 2015, when gender representation on film is being scrutinized to a bloody pulp ... and it never dawned on director Josh Trank, fellow screenwriters Simon Kinberg (also a producer) and Jeremy Slater, or any of the faceless Fox executives working on this project to chime in and say "gee, everybody, doesn't this story beat seem kind of exclusionary?"
Black Widow left off of the Avengers: Age of Ultron discs in the UK is one thing -- but Sue Storm being left out of the maiden voyage of the very technology she helped develop? It's not just discriminatory in its overtones, but it doesn't make any sense for the characters.
Forget that two of the boys (Richards and Doom) are competing for her affections, and the other (Johnny Storm) is her brother. Her involvement in the project alone should've been enough for at least one of them to want her there, or at least think to give her a heads up.
Sue gets her powers anyway, through means I won't spoil here. But it sure seems like even before the boys went behind her back, she was already the Invisible Woman.