Movie Review: ‘First Steps’ is Marvel’s best effort for Fantastic Four to date

One of the great mysteries of pop culture is why the classic Marvel superhero characters — The Fantastic Four — can’t seem to get a decent movie in Hollywood.

There’s Oley Sassone’s unreleased B-movie The Fantastic Four from 1994, Tim Story’s campy schlock Fantastic Four (2005) and Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Josh Trank’s colossal disaster Fant4stic (2015), along with various comics and cartoons. As someone who isn’t a F4 fanatic, what I’ve gathered from cultural osmosis is simple: Spider-man, Iron Man and Captain America are just cooler heroes in the modern world.

Another element is how Disney/Pixar beat the rest of the film industry to the punch with their CG animated super-powerful family of Brad Bird’s The Incredibles (2004), which is essentially everything you could ask for in a F4 flick and then some. I’m sure Alan Moore’s famous deconstruction of the superhero mythos throughout his 1985 graphic novel Watchmen probably had something to do with F4’s decline in popularity too. So now, a decade later, the MCU finally introduces Marvel’s first set of superheroes into their current iteration in Matt Shakman’s Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Despite the movie’s title, First Steps is similar to James Gunn’s Superman, in that it speed-runs through the group’s origin story and sets them up with their very first big bad right off the bat. The film starts with Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby) revealing to her husband, Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), her brother Johnny/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn), and longtime family friend Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) that she’s pregnant.

At the same time, an all-powerful entity called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) feeds off planets and has his sights set on Earth. That is until he discovers the conception of the Richards-Storm baby and is willing to sacrifice humanity — in exchange for the new, special child.

Julia Garner co-stars as Galactus’ trusty sidekick Silver Surfer and Paul Walter Hauser plays local baddie Mole Man. Jay Underwood, Alex Hyde-White, Michael Bailey Smith and Rebecca Staab from Sassone’s F4 appear in bit parts, whilethe Incredibles composer is even recruited for the score of First Steps.

In terms of pure entertainment value, Shakman’s Fantastic Four is fine, and probably the first cinematic effort of the heroic crew to feel like a “real” movie. There’s nothing technically distracting or upsetting, and I enjoyed the scenes with Garner’s Silver Surfer quite a bit. But the outcome is just kind of there.

The most consistent complaint I’ve seen about the movie is that the tone is too serious, and I have to agree. Even the comic relief doesn’t ever really feel funny. For a retro, old school comic book setting, you don’t want the now common gritty, realistic takes like Batman or Watchmen. You want the fun, likable, strong characters who enjoy saving the day. If there are two superhero universes that don’t need dark makeovers, they’re Superman and Fantastic Four.

Superman ’25 embraced its wholesome, traditional optimistic roots successfully, while First Steps chooses to double down on the dourness. Superman, as well as Jake Schreier’s Thunderbolts, also executed the “found family” trope more effectively this season, and for general summer blockbusters, Joseph Kosinski’s F1 continues to be the biggest must-see picture.

By the end of First Steps, I felt more in the mood to revisit The Incredibles than curious where the Fantastics are headed next.