Film review: ‘THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’

The Fantastic Four has been the problem child of the Marvel cinema family. There have been two previous false starts with the 2005 film starring Chris Evans and Jessica Alba and the 2015 reboot starring Miles Teller and Kate Mara which began promisingly before weirdly falling apart half way through.  Now, in the wake of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s takeover of Earth comes the latest incarnation, Fantastic Four: First Steps.  There was a feeling of grim (pardon the pun) fatalism going into this film and the inescapable sense that another quartet of actors had been handed a poison chalice.  Unexpectedly, though, this one works.  First Steps is a fun, visually stunning escapade that cleverly reimagines the Fantastic Four concept.  While it has familiar Marvel flaws of thin plotting and some slow talky bits, this is one of the better superhero films of recent times.

For those unfamiliar with this combo, the Fantastic Four are genius scientist Reed Richards aka Mr Fantastic (the ubiquitous Pedro Pascal) whose body can stretch like rubber, Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) who can become invisible but also project a powerful force field, Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn, Eddie Munson from Stranger Things), Sue’s brother who can fly and emit flames and not surprisingly is known as The Human Torch and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) aka The Thing, an orange rock monster who is as strong as The Hulk.  All were astronauts who acquired their strange powers and present form when they were zapped by cosmic radiation.

In this film, as a clever montage recapping their origins shows, the Fantastic Four are adored superheroes constantly celebrated on TV including a mock Hanna Barbera-style cartoon.  Behind the adoration, though, each member of the quartet is struggling to adjust to the new person they have become since their transformation to superbeings.  Their biggest challenge appears, though, when shiny naked alien The Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) drops by to inform the world that her boss, the giant meanie Galactus, plans to not just destroy but actually eat Earth.  In their quest to save the world from becoming Galactus’ lunch The Fantastic Four not only have to step into the cage with the skyscraper-sized super villain but also confront a painful moral dilemma.

The masterstroke of this film is that it’s set in an alternate universe version of Earth which allows director Matt Shakman a free hand to play with the design of this world.  The result is a wonderful retro-futuristic look that mixes 1960’s decoration, interior design and costuming with sleek 21st century architecture, flying cars and robots.  It’s one of the most fully realised film aesthetics we’ve seen for some time.

Also, critically, this movie gets the tone right as it cleverly balances energetic, quirky humour with personal drama and a palpable sense of global threat from the evil Galactus.  The film has fun with the characters, pointing out their foibles but never undercuts their credibility with adolescent mocking the way the last couple of Thor films did with their characters.

The action sequences, while featuring the usual city-wide destruction, are kinetic and at times thrilling.  The film could, however, have slotted in a couple more action scenes in place of some unnecessary exposition and a few gags that didn’t quite land.

The film clearly benefits from its well-chosen cast with Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby in particular lending this colourful lark a touch of class.  Still, it needed more Galactus and could have explored in greater depth his destructive motivations the way Avengers: Infinity Wars did with the genocidal Thanos.  Also, a couple of characters such as Paul Walter Hauser’s Mole Man and Natasha Lyon’s Rachel Rozman (a potential love interest for Ben Grimm) are a little underwritten but may become more prominent in subsequent films in the franchise.

With this inspired take on a maligned faction of the Marvel universe and the upcoming all-star Avengers: Doomsday it appears the Marvel Cinematic Universe will continue to gobble up the movie world Galactus-style for some time yet.

Nick’s rating: ***1/2

Genre: Drama/ Action/ Adventure/ Science Fiction/ Comedy.

Classification: PG.

Director(s): Matt Shakman.

Release date: 27th July 2025.

Running time: 114 mins.

Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.

 

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