Unexpected weekend with Pedro Pascal as a father figure

Unlike with last month’s Saoirse Ronan Appreciation Week, this weekend’s Pedro Pascal as a father figure marathon was wholly accidental.

I ended up watching the newest Fantastic Four movie, The Last of Us’s first season and The Mandalorian and Groku.

Only when I was watching him as Mandalorian, I realised the common thread with all of these is him being a father figure: to his son Franklin, to his daughter Sarah, to Ellie and to his protégé Groku.

Here’s my spoiler free mini reviews for all three!

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

As a kid, I was obsessed with the Fantastic Four. Some of the more recent retellings have been better than the others. As a kid, I often related mostly with Ben Grimm as I was always a bit of an outcast kid.

This introduction of them to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the better ones. I'm not excited about the casting (other than Pedro Pascal who is fantastic, no pun intended) but over the course of the movie they all started to grow on me.

The 1960s aesthetics is fantastic albeit it could have been a bit more prominent as it's also easy to forget it's set in the 60s during certain parts of the movie.

One thing I particularly loved is how they didn't spend the entire movie going through their origin story because we've seen that a million times. Straight into action, I like that.

The Last of Us: Season 1

The Last of Us and The Last of Us: Part 2 are some of my all-time favourite video games, as you can read from the linked notes (spoilers there!). I saw the first episode of the tv series when it came out in 2023 but only now borrowed the first season DVD box from library to watch it.

It’s not exactly my genre of tv: I don’t particularly enjoy zombie horror but since I’ve played through the games multiple times, I figured I know pretty much what’s coming and wouldn’t lose my sleep like I would with other horror-y stuff.

The Last of Us is a very well made series but I have a few issues with it. First, the casting — while full of great actors — is different enough from the games that for a fan, it was hard to really immerse into their performances. Don’t get me wrong: Pedro Pascal does a great job as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie but when you’ve seen them look and act differently in the game, it’s hard to silence in my mind.

Second, most of the time I kept thinking “why wouldn’t I just play the games instead”. I chose not to because I just finished a replay in March but otherwise I probably would have. I think the story is so much better told through the game. The intensity of the situation and the relationships feel so much stronger when you’re an active participant rather than just a viewer.

The Mandalorian and Grogu

Before heading to the theaters to see this movie, I had seen a lot of negative reviews and press. I'm glad I didn't trust their judgement.

Mandalorian and Groku is a good scifi action adventure movie. Sure, it's no Empire Strikes Back or Rogue One when compared to other Star Wars movies but it holds on its own as a nice side story next to the main line movies.

It took me a couple of seasons to start liking the Mandalorian TV series that is leading into this movie but slowly over time I started to enjoy it. You don't need to have seen any of that to enjoy this movie. It answers a few questions about the main characters Mandalorian and Grogu that might arise from this movie alone but nothing is fundamentally missed if you just go watch this.

It's a relatively light bounty hunter story with stunning set design. Whether we talk about the planets, the cities or the interior of buildings, I was at awe most of the time. Nal Hutta is a lively swamp planet with lots of nature and wild life while Shakari's dark cityscape and nightlife offer an experience of tight interior spaces and streets.

This is the way.