Review: The Fantastic Four: First Steps Is Solid But Unspectacular

Marvel’s First Family enters the MCU in a fairly perfunctory manner.

My friend and fellow critic, Grant Watson, one of the loveliest guys on God’s green earth, unfortunately hobbled by the film taste of a bad scallop, once opined that The Fantastic Four simply didn’t work as a movie. Ever.

This observation came after four attempts to bring Marvel‘s scientific adventurers to the screen, so it wasn’t without merit. There was the 1994 effort, never intended for release – it was a quickie intended to allow German producer Bernd Eichinger to retain his expiring film option. The internet being what it is, you can check it out on the Internet Archive if you’re curious.

Then we had Tim Story’s duology, Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, in 2005 and 2007, which were… fine? Nothing to write home about – enjoyable in the moment, and forgotten immediately after. 2015 saw another Fantastic Four (or Fant4stic, if you prefer), which heralded not the coming of Galactus but the death of Chronicle director Josh Trank’s A-list career.

So, Grant had no small amount of justification for that opinion, but it stuck in my craw a bit. Nothing is unfilmable – you just need to find the right angle. Set it in the ’60s, I thought. Borrow some of that optimistic Space Race/Camelot energy, all those clean lines and shiny gadgets, all that chrome and those tail fins – that’d be the smart play. Which means I was very excited – and not a little smug – when it emerged that Marvel was tacking in that direction.

Well, they got that bit right.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps looks the business – the production design by Kasra Farahani is immaculate, as are Alexandra Byrne’s costumes – that retro-futuristic business really sings. The cast? Well, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more ascendant ensemble. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn are all at the top of their game, abetted by a supporting cast that includes Julia Garner and Natasha Lyonne. Every cast member seems to be in the middle of their Moment, and that kind of unadulterated marketing juice is rare. We’re getting Galactus – not timid, space cloud Galactus, but big, purple and blue, planet-eating Galactus, one of the most iconic Marvel villains of all time. Even tempered expectations might be justifiably high.

And yes, you get all that, and you get Paul Walter Hauser as Mole Man (the clear MVP), and all the Easter eggs and nods to the comics you might want, and some sterling performances from the cast. But what you don’t get is tension. Stakes. The sense that all of this – or any of this – matters. Which is a bit weird when the fate of the Earth is on the line.

Ah, but it’s not our Earth. It’s not even Marvel’s Earth. It’s Earth-828, one of the infinite number of alternate timelines now twisted around each other in Marvel’s continuity, paradoxically offering endless narrative possibilities while at the same time torpedoing the emotional stakes. It’s hard to invest in a character when you know that, whatever that particular version’s fate, an identical copy can be subbed in should circumstances and box office projections allow it. That’s why Deadpool and Wolverine is largely worthless, by the way.

And on Earth-828, the world’s premiere and seemingly only superheroes are the Fantastic Four: stretchy super-scientist Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic (Pascal); his pregnant wife, Sue (Kirby); her hot-headed, flame-throwing brother, Johnny Storm (Quinn); and big ol’ rock-skinned Ben Grimm, the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing (Moss-Bachrach).

First Steps dispense with the origin stuff quickly and elegantly. The Four are beloved by the general populace, and we get the sense that Reed’s scientific innovations have well and truly left their mark on this world, with various bits of tech and sci-fi weirdness cropping up here and there with little fanfare. It’s a bright, optimistic setting, full of hope for the future, and that hope is embodied quite literally when Kirby’s Sue announces she’s pregnant. Ben and Johnny are elated at the prospect of being uncles, Reed is worried that the cosmic radiation that gave them their powers might make their mite a monster, and all that is put on the backburner when Jennifer Garner’s Silver Surfer arrives from outer space to proclaim that Galactus (Ralph Ineson) is coming for the next course of his apocalyptic buffet, and off we go.

But it all feels pretty by the numbers.

More than anything else, The Fantastic Four: First Steps feels obligatory. Disney needed a movie to introduce the team to the MCU, and here’s the film to do it – and little besides. Things happen because they need to happen, and they stop happening when it’s time for something else. On a structural level – pure writing craft – it’s an abysmal effort, a rote story beat map. We get an occasional glimmer of something more interesting, though. At one point there’s a little trolley problem when the world at large learns that Galactus will leave Earth alone if the FF will fork over Franklin, Reed and Sue’s infant son, but it adds up to little and is dispensed with quickly.

Really, nothing here adds up to much. Everything I like about it is a detail, a discrete element. I love that Galactus here feels genuinely huge, his costume looking like nothing so much as a Blade Runner cityscape come to life, all tiny blinking lights and intricate detail. I love H.E.R.B.I.E., the team’s tape drive robot helper. I love that the Thing grows a rocky beard. I love the character dynamics.

But I don’t love that The Fantastic Four: First Steps feels like a rush job – the mandatory origin film before these characters get folded into the sturm und drang of Avengers Doomsday. Before watching, I thought that maybe First Steps would prove to be the MCU’s saving grace. Now I think the entire franchise is in dire straits.

Or possibly Grant was right all along. But for Christ’s sake, don’t tell him.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is in cinemas from July 24 2025.