Given the notoriously lousy track record of Fantastic Four movies—to say nothing of the dreary post-Endgame slump of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—all Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps had to do to score a win was not be a disaster. Marvel’s revered First Family, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961, finally makes their MCU debut with the bar set embarrassingly low. Yet there they are, on the screen, not content to merely clear that bar but rocket over it with the intrepid adventurousness for which they are world famous.
More than a solid MCU entry, First Steps is among the most vivid, peculiar, and emotionally present superhero films of the past decade. It will make one heck of a double-feature with James Gunn’s Superman, as it also unabashedly shares that movie’s gee-whiz Silver Age earnestness. The strongest part of its function, especially as a critical entry in its franchise, is that its heroes feel like they’re off in the boonies doing their own weirdo thing. In a stroke of creative self-awareness, this iteration of the Four has been isolated from the typical MCU morass, free from continuity encumbrances and empty Whedonisms to set a fresh course and a new tone.
It helps that Shakman, who brought a retro-chic, TV-static mournfulness to WandaVision, knows how to draw from the past for inspiration without getting stuck in it. He takes a similar approach in First Steps, infusing Space Age optimism from an idealized halcyon age, from its Sears catalog set design to the impeccably costumed and diverse extras in this alternate New York City, who are often seen celebrating their heroes, much like the world did with the astronauts who first walked on the moon.
The efforts of Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), siblings Sue and Johnny Storm (Vanessa Kirby and Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) are worthy of this admiration. Their origin story, beamed in via an old-school ABC newsreel (hosted by Mark Gatiss), is boilerplate but brisk: cosmic rays, miraculous powers, and a world forever changed as a consequence. It’s refreshing to see how society has been reshaped for the better by the Four’s intelligence and decency—here, New York hums with flying cars, science spires, and a sense of hope, jejune as it may seem to those of us frowning from our sticky theater seats burdened by non-stop newsfeed anxieties. Here, the Fantastic Four embody unglamorous virtues: celebrity as public service, monster-thwarting as diplomacy (they establish a tenuous peace with Paul Walter Houser’s Mole Man), and scientific discovery as a moral good.
All this atomic-age joie de vivre takes a turn upon the sudden and baleful arrival of the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), who heralds the coming of Galactus, Devourer of Worlds (voiced with a stentorian boom by Ralph Ineson). Earth’s inevitable obliteration, she tells the world, will arrive slowly. “Hold your loved ones close,” the Surfer declares. “Use this time to rejoice and celebrate, for your time is short.” Reed, cursed with a brain that sees doom in every probability curve (not that one; not yet), does what he must with this limited window: charting a lightspeed jump across the cosmic expanse with his teammates (including a very pregnant wife) to confront this absolute unit of insatiable hunger. What follows next is terribly exciting, cathartic, and worth keeping secret. It’s enough to know that, from here, First Steps slips into grimmer terrain, its Space Age sheen dimmed somewhat by overwhelming existential weight.
Shakman’s film, while consistently fun, can give off doomsday clock vibes that feel eerily relevant—and with it, a lingering sense of melancholy found in character beats that sometimes become creased underneath its gargantuan set pieces. Yet its acknowledgement of the void doesn’t dull the film’s pep; it shimmers through terrific and engaging performances. Moss-Bachrach, as the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing, strikes a maudlin figure, despite his enormity; one bit has him observing his old, handsome self on TV, only for the screen to go dark, his rocky visage peering back at him. He visits Yancy Street and is greeted as a hero—children cheer him on, and he laughs—but the brilliant mo-cap performance carries the slump of a man who’s still lost something permanent.
Pascal’s Reed is similarly burdened, an elastic mind made brittle by the scale of his responsibility. Kirby, the core of the film, remains resolute about defeating Galactus, especially after the being declares his cruel price for sparing Earth. Even Quinn’s Human Torch—famously, a hot-rodding showboat—is notably withdrawn, more concerned with his family and their future than showing off his conflagrations to the nearest pretty face. He does, however, form an intriguing bond with the Surfer that bridges the film’s scope from its chipper terra firma to the terrifying vacuum of space. Although First Steps could have used a few more quiet moments to reinforce these characters’ relationships (at just under two hours, it’s a busy movie, made even busier by the ceaseless Michael Giacchino score), the cast is so locked in that they nail a sense of richness anyway, one that has been woefully absent from the MCU for a good, long minute.
There is a keen sense of effort running through all this, as if Shakman and his armada of writers (Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer) carefully weighed the illogic behind their wild sci-fi saga and decided that typical Marvel irony would sink the ship. The film’s oddly unimaginative, one-note Mole Man seems like he was toned down to avoid disrupting things with his aggrieved Morlock idiocy. Completely gone is a scene with John Malkovich’s Red Ghost, whose pack of communist apes might have also led this down a more frivolous road. The silliness that remains is always in service of the story, even if it isn’t always as finely calibrated as it should be—Shakman is in such a constant rush to get to the next awesome setpiece that the oscillation from dread to joy and back can become disorienting. Yet, in this mad dash, for all its sincerity and wonder, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a giant leap forward for the MCU. Like its founding family, Marvel is embracing what it means to be fantastic again, one step at a time.
Director: Matt Shakman Writers: Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer Stars: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, Ralph Ineson Release date: July 25, 2025
Jarrod Jones is a freelance critic based in Chicago, with bylines at The A.V. Club, IGN, and any place that will take him, really. For more of his mindless thoughts on genre trash, cartoons, and comics, follow him on Twitter (@jarrodjones_) or check out his blog, DoomRocket.
