‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Review

After dozens of Marvel movies over the past few decades, it can be hard for any new movie to distinguish itself. And yet with its midcentury-futurism aesthetic and cartoony action, ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ does just that. Despite an uneven tone and some lackluster action sequences, this film is competent and entertaining, thankfully avoiding disaster.

We open with The Ted Gilbert Show, a Marvel universe version of Johnny Carson, as the host introduces the Fantastic Four, worldwide celebrities who four years earlier went up to space and returned with superpowers. These four are Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), his wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), her brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn), and Reed’s best friend Ben (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). Together they make up an oddball family, earning the love and admiration the world over for their heroic acts. Just as Sue becomes pregnant, the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) visits Earth to warn them of their impending destruction at the hands of her master, Galactus. Thus the Fantastic Four are set into action to save their family and their planet.

The film is at its best when it leans fully into its own silliness. In so many ways, the Fantastic Four is the most childish of superhero teams, with absurd comic book logic, individual catchphrases (“Flame on”, “It’s clobberin’ time”), and kid friendly villains like Mole Man. Much of the humor falls disproportionately on Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who are more than up to the challenge with fun screwball chemistry while Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby are more serious and dour. In fact, I’m not sure that Pedro Pascal smiles once in the entire movie. Having different characters portray different moods isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it highlights just how disjointed the film can feel when the zany comic book energy clashes with the self serious approach to its central drama.

When it gets away from its silly core, the film becomes more boring than outright bad. The action sequences are mundane and the villains are not compelling. Galactus is less interesting than he is … big. He’s an intimidating bad guy, sure, not because of any nuanced motivations but because he’s the size of a skyscraper and eats planets. Galactus is an absurdity in a movie filled with absurdities and if the movie committed more fully to its own ridiculousness it would have been better off for it.

Ultimately, ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ is a lightweight entertainment, neither exceptional nor an embarrassment. That alone makes it the greatest film adaptation of the Fantastic Four by default, even if the potential for an even better film was not fully realized.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Rated PG-13 for action/violence and some language.
Running Time: 1 hour and 55 minutes

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
Rating PG-13
Running Time 115 Minutes
Genres Superhero, Action, Adventure