A Retro Fit — The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Congratulations to Kevin Feige for making the very best Fantastic Four movie ever… by default. Yeah, it’s not hard to improve upon the unreleased 1994 Roger Corman abomination, the cringeworthy 2005 film that only existed to make Jessica Alba’s underwear levitate (28% on Rotten Tomatoes), its wholly unnecessary and unwarranted sequel (37%), and the 2015 reboot exactly no one asked for (9%), but God knows Marvel’s made it look that way for the past 20 years. Thankfully, in this latest missive in the MCU that we all wish would just end already, Feige et al at least gave us something competent and entertaining on a basic level. It’s still a flawed movie on several levels, but given that this project (and its upcoming crossovers and sequels within the franchise) has been shoved down our throats for the better part of the past year as THE Marvel event (which calls the last two entries’ existence even further into question) that couldn’t be ignored, it could have been a lot worse.
The best thing about the flick is that, at least for this introductory chapter, we’re not in the MCU proper. Rather than being set on Earth-616, which is the main setting for the series, this film takes place on Earth-828 (named for Jack Kirby’s birthday), where the world takes on a 1960s retro-futuristic aesthetic. The design of this world is a lot of fun, and since we’re for the moment separated from the main canon, the characters are allowed the space to breathe creatively. Sure, we’re still bogged down by the more trite aspects of the studio formula, but we can at least enjoy what is presented as a stand-alone film until the eye roll-inducing cameo during the credits.
Further aiding in this is the fact that director Matt Shakman (former 80s child actor who mostly directs TV, but has one other feature under his belt) and his crew take the much-needed step of assuming that the audience has seen a comic book movie before, and dispenses with the origin story in a montage hosted by Mark Gatiss, joining the action several years into the team’s various acts of derring-do. Given that I had to sit through a solid half hour of trailers (including more ads midway through and an Avatar 3 preview AFTER Nicole Kidman’s bullshit), I’m more than thankful that we can get to the actual meat of the story rather than wasting more time on stuff we already know.
We join the titular quartet as a cohesive family unit, one that is about to get a new addition, as Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) informs Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) that she’s pregnant after several unsuccessful attempts. Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach; part of me wonders if 95% of his screen time is CGI just so they could work around his Bear schedule) are ecstatic for their new roles as blood and adoptive uncles, respectively, and things seem to be going great.
Obviously that can’t last, as the latest existential threat is quickly revealed in the form of Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner) taking on the role of Silver Surfer rather than her romantic interest from the comics. I personally don’t care about that, but some do, and even on its second weekend, I’m sure there are super fanboys out there who use this information as a deciding factor in whether or not to see the picture. She serves as the herald of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a giant, immortal alien cursed with an insatiable hunger to consume entire planets. With Shalla-Bal’s arrival, Earth is next on the list.
Ever the analytical mind, Reed sets to work trying to come up with ways to prevent this literal world-ending disaster, preferably without lethal violence and a ton of collateral damage. Using their space age technology, they track Shalla-Bal and travel beyond light speed to intercept Galactus in hopes of negotiating for Earth to be spared. After scanning the superheroes, Galactus detects something special about the fetus gestating within Sue, and offers to bypass in exchange for the child, who apparently can inherit his curse, allowing Galactus to die in peace at last. Obviously that’s a non-starter, so the race is on to prepare for battle and find a new solution. Meanwhile, Johnny, who feels like he’s too casually dismissed at times, seeks to translate Shalla-Bal’s native tongue so that he can find clues to her past and lure her over to their side.
As comic fare goes, this is pretty solid stuff. The design choices are interesting, the characters work to the extent they need to, their powers make sense within context, and if nothing else, it’s good to see a rendering of Galactus that looks like the actual character rather than the cosmic fart that Rise of the Silver Surfer made him into. The fight scenes are appropriately exciting as well, and the bright color palette aids the visual effects rather than making them look shoddy (though there are notable exceptions below).
Honestly, if there’s one key problem with the film, it’s that it’s an MCU film. What I mean is that while this stands apart from the central timeline for the moment, there are too many tropes from the overall franchise that drag things down unnecessarily. Had this just been a Fantastic Four movie without the larger property attached to it, this would have been great. Unfortunately, because we have to continue this world-building and check off the formula boxes, the flick as a whole settles for merely being good, which to be fair, is a godsend these days.
Here are the major beats that just don’t work because of the MCU machine. One, Shalla-Bal really serves as the Silver Surfer because it gives Johnny a potential love interest. Reed and Sue have each other, and Ben flirts with a school teacher played by Natasha Lyonne. Given Johnny’s character trait of being something of a lothario, we have to give him someone to, if not lust over, at least remain interested in on a purely romantic level. As such, instead of the traditional Silver Surfer, we get a CGI hood ornament with Julia Garner’s voice that looks nothing like her (she appears in live action for a single flashback scene). Two, along similar lines, the baby, named Franklin, falls squarely into the Uncanny Valley due to a combination of several infant actors and CGI, especially when Ben holds him. Seriously, he looks even more nightmarish than the Twilight baby sometimes. Then, of course, there’s H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot (sound editor/voice actor Matthew Wood, probably best known as General Grievous), who only exists to sell toys.
We have to have stakes in this movie, so Galactus is a good candidate for villain, and his motivation works to decent effect. What doesn’t work is the manufactured drama around him. In order to have third act conflict, there has to be this dangling moral dilemma about whether to take Galactus up on his offer and hand Franklin over. It rings hollow, however, because we know they’d never actually do it, and every scene where some member of the public or media calls Sue selfish is just straight up lunacy. This is right up there with how Squid Game ended, which I could appreciate up to a point, but when it goes fully absurd, I just can’t get behind it. This is especially true when the obvious logical response is never once brought up. You can say “the needs of the many” all you want, but I defy any person to tell a mother to give up her child, especially if it’s a baby, or for any mother to tell their kid that they’re to be a sacrificial lamb. The baby can’t consent to any of this, and there is not a fit parent on this planet that would literally tell their child that they should potentially die so that mommy can live. It just doesn’t happen, and the fact that no one calls it out is infuriating. At no point does Sue look someone denigrating her in the face, tell them to fuck off, and then ask if they’d sincerely sacrifice their own flesh and blood.
This leads in to my main complaint with the film’s climax. The action is fun, but all I could do was yawn when each of the Four had their individual brushes with death and defeat. The team is already confirmed for at least two more movies. We all knew that going in. So this is just empty pathos. We know they’ll be back, and even if they weren’t locked in, we know the MCU doesn’t have the balls to actually kill any of them off, so why are we wasting everyone’s time pretending there’s any real danger? Just let them beat Galactus because they kick ass!
There are other silly bits as well, but those are outside of the tropes. Quinn and Moss-Bachrach are very well balanced with their seriousness and humor, and the two have great chemistry with one another. Unfortunately, as great of actors as Pascal and Kirby are, outside of the opening scene when the pregnancy is discovered, they have absolutely none. Their line deliveries to each other feel more mechanical than the actual robot playing comic relief. Also, for all the bullshit science on display, the part that made me laugh the most was in the main idea of using teleportation to essentially “hide the Earth” somewhere else. Early in the film Reed is able to transport an egg a few feet away in an experiment that nearly cuts all power to New York City (in a surprising plus, the city feels like its own character for really the first time in the MCU, despite several films being set there). He’s then able to extrapolate that the whole planet can be moved, which is insane on its face, but he justifies it by saying, and I’m not kidding here, “The only difference between an egg and a planet is a matter of scale.” Are you shitting me? I’m pretty sure chicken albumen is a bit different than a molten core. What in the actual retail fuck?
Those are minor points, but they’re compounded by the plot holes and bad faith character beats foisted on the film by the MCU process. The Fantastic Four are basically the new lynchpin for the idiotic “Multiverse Saga,” and so they have to finally be introduced and subsumed by the assembly line. As such, I can genuinely say that I enjoyed myself watching this, but this is far from the series pantheon. The MCU still hasn’t righted the ship, merely repositioned just enough to bear the brunt of its own weight and expectations, giving us something passable but not revolutionary by any means. It’s somewhat ironic that they call this film First Steps, because it’s clear that in the incomprehensible IKEA instruction booklet that is the MCU at this point, we’re clearly on step 90, and we’re all just hoping that by the time we’re finished we have something resembling the photo on the cover. As that goes, this is a much more palatable step than others, but it’s still just another checkpoint.
Grade: B
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? How much more MCU can we put up with before we demand a definitive end? How exactly does Johnny plan on wooing a being encased in metal? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on August 4, 2025.
