Marvel Studios
I think most people, even the slavishly devoted, have grown a bit tired of the many movies and TV shows that have come out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially in their post Endgame releases. For every Loki there was a Secret Invasion, and for every Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 there’s a Captain America: Brave New World. Of course, this is nothing new — the second movie out of the studio was the mostly forgettable Incredible Hulk, mainly remembered for truly starting off the interconnected universe by having Tony Stark show up in a post-credits scene.
Ah, the post-credits scene! The greatest of all these, of course, is the one from Airplane!, because it was simply a great joke, but Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is pretty iconic as well. But in the modern movie-going experience, it’s become more homework to sit through — and I used to enjoy sitting through credits as part of the experience, even when there was no expectation of anything. Suffice it to say that there are two here, one at the start of the credits that’s important (heard a gasp in my theater) and one at the end that’s simply just funny. So stick around if you want.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps comes from director Matt Shakman (who created the mostly great WandaVision) and a writing team of Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer who have a fairly mixed track record all things considered. Here we start in medias res in Universe 828, a different universe than any we’ve yet seen, in a retrofuture version of the 1960s, where we are introduced to the ‘Fantastic Four’ in a cleverly done montage showing us how they got their powers and how they all work.
Here we are introduced again to Marvel’s original team and the fourth film version of the group (if you include the never officially released Roger Corman one) — stretchy brilliant scientist Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal, playing a little against type), his best friend Ben Grimm as a man turned rocky (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), his wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) — who can turn invisible and project force fields, and his brother-in-law Johnny Storm can ignite and fly (Joseph Quinn).
In this world, the four are a true family unit, all scientists of different stripes, moving away from the previous versions where Ben is mainly just a gruff pilot and Johnny is a flighty self-absorbed ladies man. Here they still retain a little of those characterizations, but nobody’s a dunce here — the team is already internationally famous and highly competent, living in a Technicolor, gorgeously created world of ingenious production design, including their old school robot Herbie (also brilliantly designed).
Marvel Studios
But their tight family unit is interrupted by the arrival of the mysterious Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), a woman convincingly appearing to be purely metallic riding a cosmically powerful surfboard around the universe. She informs the team and the world that she is the Herald to Galactus, an ancient being that simply will soon arrive and devour the planet and nothing can be done about it. Naturally Johnny (being the only one that can fly and is severely single) is immediately enthralled with curiosity, and tries to chase her down, only to receive a mysterious answer in reply.
Of course, the team can’t simply accept such a world ending problem, so they decide to go off and try to save the world. I won’t give away any of the next plotlines, as this all happened so early in the movie, I was impressed — we had the entire adventure to go! The big spotlight goes mostly to Reed and Susan, both critically involved in the adventure and its conclusion. Pedro Pascal plays Reed as a nervous, hyper-overthinker who cares deeply which truly plays perfectly, and Vanessa Kirby manages to pull off that balancing act of the super competent superhero who’s also a highlight of some of the really big action beats.
There’s a bit less from Ben and Johnny, although both have plenty to do with a great, hilarious rapport between them — they even explicitly include references to Ben’s Jewish heritage, which is the first time they did anything more than a tiny background shot of a menorah (the terrible FANT4STIC) or nothing at all (the first two released Fantastic Four movies). But the family — to its credit — focuses heavily on the family part, and it feels truly lived in and real.
Galactus (Ralph Ineson) himself has a fantastic presence and a great, terrifying design, while Julia Garner does a great job with her role as the humanlike alien with more to her than is first apparent. The story is a fairly simple one, all things considered, but it does get to some real emotional payoff moments by the end, and it’s a genuinely funny script.
I would say that there‘s a little bit of CGI-funkiness at times, and just a touch of slop, but for the most part the movie has gorgeous production design, and sets up a really interesting, new take on the Marvel formula without completely straying from it. It’s definitely one of the better movies in the post-Endgame era, probably second to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 — and hopefully too it’s a sign of better things to come.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps has a run time of 1 hour 55 minutes, and is rated PG-13 for action/violence and some language.
Marvel Studios