Movie Reviews
“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is unquestionably the best “Fantastic Four” movie to date. But, it’s not without its problems.
You can say this about “The Fantastic Four: The First Steps”: It’s easily the best “Fantastic Four” movie to date. And thank goodness for that. After three abysmal attempts at adapting the story of Marvel’s first family of superheroes on the big screen, the comic book giant has finally crafted a competent (if somewhat uneven) film to usher in Phase 6 of the MCU.
Like the recently released “Superman,” “First Steps” quickly dispenses with its origin story in the first few minutes, this time via a delightfully retro newscast. It’s been four years since Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/The Human Torch (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) gained their powers in a tragic accident, and things are going … fantastic.
The quartet inhabit Earth 828, a retrofuturistic version of our planet that imagines what it would be like if scientific progress took a giant leap forward in 1960. That means flying cars straight out of “The Jetsons,” a midcentury modern superhero lair, and deep-space transmissions captured on vinyl.
There’s echoes of Pixar in these joyful first 30 minutes, specifically its own retro superhero film, “The Incredibles.” Backed by a peppy Michael Giacchino score, the Fantastic Four dispatch villains of the week with ease, whether it’s Red Ghost and his Super-Apes or the subterranean Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser). On the home front, robot assistant H.E.R.B.I.E. (who could be the great-grandfather of WALL-E) readies the team’s headquarters for its toughest challenge yet: Parenthood.
Reed and Sue are expecting a child, news that both excites them and sends the cerebral Mr. Fantastic into a frenzy of scientific inquiry. Like any parent-to-be, he needs to run every test to ensure that their baby is healthy, particularly because the accident that made Reed and Sue super foundationally altered their molecular structure.
As Reed, Pascal is convincing as the world’s smartest man who is nevertheless overwhelmed by the irrational flood of thoughts and emotions that accompany fatherhood. As written, Sue is a somewhat thankless character, but Kirby manages to add depth to the Invisible Woman with subtle performance choices.
“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” begins to falter slightly when it stops being a Saturday morning cartoon and snaps into the mode of a traditional MCU film. The arrival of the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) brings news that Earth 828 will be destroyed in short order by the planet-consuming villain Galactus (Ralph Ineson). Paying a visit to his inky lair, the shift in tone (and CGI color palette) is noticeable. The back-and-forth banter of Ben and Johnny, light and amusing on Earth, now rings hollow and perfunctory.
The introduction of yet another Thanos-type figure also means that our heroes have little opportunity to showcase their individual powers. The team spends the biggest action scene of the film inside of a ship, hurtling toward a wormhole while outrunning the gravity of a neutron star. Mr. Fantastic, in particular, has no scenes of consequence in the entire film to show off his elasticity, beyond a brief moment where he’s being tortured. Being stretchy doesn’t really put a dent in a villain older than our universe and more powerful than 10,000 Mole Mans and Red Ghosts combined.
After the success of the delightfully retro “WandaVision,” tapping Matt Shakman to direct “First Steps” was a sensible choice for Marvel. But the second half of “First Steps” struggles with cohesiveness — which may also be due to the four credited writers who worked on the screenplay.
The film settles into a pattern of alternating between scenes of character development — Reed and Sue argue about the baby, The Thing has a crush on a local schoolteacher played by Natasha Lyonne — with scenes moving the plot forward. A stronger director would let a character show us what they’re made of in a moment of action rather than taking an inconsequential side trip with The Thing to his childhood neighborhood to buy some cookies.
Ultimately, “Fantastic Four: First Steps” lives up to its title and its central theme. Rather than a bold leap forward, the film is a toddler tentatively putting one foot in front of the other. It never falls – which, given Marvel’s Fantastic Four track record, is a minor miracle. But, you can tell there’s a team of Marvel executives hovering around their baby, anxiously watching for any sign of failure.
Rating: **1/2 stars (out of 4)
“Fantastic Four: First Steps” will be released in theaters July 25.
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