Marvel finally got it right. After three wildly different and wildly uneven attempts, Fantastic Four: First Steps arrives like a cosmic reset button. This one’s bright, bold, charming, and finally understands the most important thing about Marvel’s first family. They’re not just superheroes. They’re people. And they’re weird in the best way.
Set in a retro-futurist 1960s Manhattan, this version of the Fantastic Four skips the usual crash-landing origin story and drops us straight into a world where Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben are already world-famous. They’ve been stopping minor villains for four years and are now something between astronauts, celebrities, and sitcom characters. The whole movie opens with them appearing on a black-and-white variety show, and somehow it works. The tone immediately sets it apart from Marvel’s recent output, which has felt a little too serious, a little too crowded, and a little too afraid to just have fun.
The best decision this movie makes is its focus. Instead of trying to link directly into ten other films or tease endless post-credits cameos, it gives the Fantastic Four their own clean little corner of the multiverse. That clarity lets the characters breathe. Pedro Pascal brings a grounded warmth to Reed Richards. Vanessa Kirby makes Sue Storm feel like the team’s emotional core. Joseph Quinn plays Johnny like a golden retriever with a flame switch. And Ebon Moss-Bachrach is, somehow, the most expressive rock monster ever rendered on screen.
There’s a subplot about Sue being pregnant, and yes, that ends up going full Incredibles, but with some deeply Marvel consequences. The cosmic radiation that gave them their powers could affect the baby. Reed doesn’t know how to fix it. And as always, he buries his feelings behind equations. That conflict lands because it’s rooted in something real. It’s about fear and family and science not being enough. This movie constantly circles back to the very human side of superhuman people.
The visuals pop. Reed’s lab and the Baxter Building feel pulled straight out of a 60s sci-fi comic, only polished with Imax gloss. There’s a flying car. There’s a chrome-plated cosmic messenger played by Julia Garner. There’s even a robot named Herbie cooking breakfast. It’s the kind of aesthetic confidence that’s been missing from a lot of recent Marvel entries. This one looks like it knows what it is.
Then comes Galactus. And he’s big. Like, bigger-than-Thanos big. He doesn’t need to snap fingers. He just shows up and starts eating planets. The film wisely keeps him more conceptual than conversational. Shalla-Bal, his newly gender-swapped herald, handles most of the communication. She’s not quite as iconic as the Silver Surfer, but she’s stylish, efficient, and opens the door to something new. There’s even a flirtation between her and Johnny, which is not something I expected from a Galactus movie, but honestly, go off.
The one major drawback is the third act pacing. For all its restraint early on, the finale still gets a little overstuffed. Galactus deserves to feel like the ultimate threat, and while the scale is impressive, the emotional stakes get a little diluted by the visual chaos. Still, that’s a small price to pay for a film that delivers personality over punchlines and lets its heroes be more than action figures.
This movie might not save the MCU, and it might not crack a billion dollars, but it absolutely earns its place. First Steps doesn’t just reboot the Fantastic Four. It reclaims them. It reminds us why they matter and why they’ve endured since the 1960s. It’s not just about powers or villains or even multiverses. It’s about a family. And in a franchise full of gods, mutants, aliens, and time cops, sometimes four weirdos in a flying car are all you need.
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