Looks like the fourth time is the charm for Marvel’s first family. The iconic superhero team finally gets the proper comic book movie treatment in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a movie that clears the low bar of previous adaptations and delivers one of Marvel’s most solid, down-the-middle hits of the last few years. The team is making their MCU debut after two earlier iterations from their time under Fox, including a dreadful 2015 reboot that remains one of the most bleak and lifeless superhero movies ever made. Fantastic Four succeeds enough to stand alone as an enjoyable moviegoing experience, but what it means for the Marvel Cinematic Universe at large is still quite unclear.
The Fantastic Four is directed by Matt Shakman, his second feature film after a career of TV credits including It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Game of Thrones, and Marvel’s own WandaVision. The film sees Marvel’s First Family in a 1960s, retrofuturist world that is threatened by a planet-eating cosmic entity, Galactus. Reed Richards, played with a focused, powerful interiority by Pedro Pascal, carries the weight of this story for us, as his fears of letting his family down and losing the world they have come to love become all too urgently felt. Vanessa Kirby is a highlight as Sue Storm, who becomes central to the conflict in a manner that fleshes out her heart and humanity as much as it does her unimaginable powers.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn are not emotional anchors in this film, but their interplay as The Thing and Human Torch is great comedy fodder. This is truly the greatest strength of the film; the chemistry of the four leads. Their dynamics feel lived in and easy to latch onto, especially for a movie that skips past their origin story, confident you will catch up if you don’t know these characters.
Along with the character dynamics, the 60s-inspired retrofuturist production design and music are big pluses. Shakman and the crew grant this movie a stronger sense of identity than a lot of Marvel films get. The alternate timeline/planet aspect allows Fantastic Four to distinguish itself from the desaturated grey skies and lifeless feeling of many of the MCU’s latest entries. But it only does this for so long. Fantastic Four packs a punch with its first half, but it crawls to the finish with a by-the-numbers battle that doesn’t deliver the stakes, the action, or the thrills these movies need to hit big.
Galactus, played by the gravely-voiced Ralph Ineson, makes a chilling introduction early on, but by the time he shows up in the final act, the plot feels so laid bare that he brings no sense of real danger. It is like watching tee-ball; they set ‘em up and knock ‘em down so that any cosmic dread in the first act coming from Galactus’ looming presence or the visits by the cryptic Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) falls completely flat when the fighting begins. And the fight is not great. Reed’s powers are utilized in a lazy and unremarkable fashion. He stretches to move around a tiny bit faster in most cases, emblematic of an overall problem which is that the Fantastic Four can be one of the most imaginative sandboxes to play in. This storytelling team seemed too afraid to get weird with it.
One early chase sequence with the Silver Surfer in space delivers on the thrill that only these kinds of movies can offer. There’s great spectacle and fun character work as the family uses their individual strengths to find their way out of an impossible situation. But this is the only solid action sequence in a movie that is otherwise absolutely carried by quieter moments and dialogue scenes, like Reed expressing vulnerability to his child or Sue telling a crowd of people what “family” means to her. These moments are great, brimming with the humanity that superhero movies desperately need more of. But if you come for explosive action set pieces, Fantastic Four may be a let down.
“First Steps,” similar to the “Brave New World” subtitle on the latest Captain America movie, communicates that we are tackling new ground in the MCU, but these movies have still yet to offer anything entirely distinctive from the films that have come before. There’s been a formula to this since 2008. Some movies follow it well, others don’t. Fantastic Four does it well, but is that enough?
In a franchise with over thirty movies and half as many TV series, can the cinematic debut of this prominent, new team really afford to be nothing more than serviceable? Marvel has indicated it is in a bit of a panic mode, with studio head Kevin Feige announcing creative overhauls that hope to get this behemoth of a franchise back on the right track. Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four both pushed the needle back in a positive direction, but it is getting harder to imagine that the height of Marvel’s success in the mid 2010s will ever be replicated again. At least we can say we finally got a decent movie with one of Marvel’s most iconic lineups.
6 out of 10
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is in theaters now.
This article appears in Jul 4-31, 2025.
