‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Review: The Best FF Movie (By Default)

There have been so many bad Fantastic Four movies at this point that it’s worth asking the question: Why’s it so hard to make a good one?

The Fantastic Four is one of Marvel’s most durable comic-book franchises. They produce a new issue more or less every single month, and have since way back in 1961. Fantastic Four movies tend to be ... a bit less reliable. In contrast to Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron, Man, Captain America, the Avengers, and basically every other major Marvel property, there has never been a good Fantastic Four movie. That makes The Fantastic Four: First Steps the best Fantastic Four film to date basically by default — without being all that great itself.

Yes, it’s better than what’s come before. But there’s still plenty of daylight between First Steps and the best Marvel movies, not to mention the groundbreaking Fantastic Four comics by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby. More than any other series, Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four built the Marvel brand and defined its house style with bold ideas, stunning visuals, complex characters, heady science-fiction, witty banter, and thrilling adventures.

First Steps captures that Lee and Kirby Fantastic Four flavor in fits and starts, mostly when the group confronts the nigh-omnipotent space god Galactus (voiced by Ralph Ineson) and his herald, the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). Towering over the mortal cast, clad in intricate purple and blue armor, Galactus is a pure Kirby creation. First Steps honors “The King”s art by filling Galactus’ corner of the film with all sorts of awe-inspiring and totally incomprehensible cosmic technology.

After the Surfer arrives on Earth and deems it ready for consumption (even giant alien gods need to eat their feelings sometimes) the Fantastic Four — stretchy Reed (Pedro Pascal), invisible Sue (Vanessa Kirby), fiery Johnny (Joseph Quinn), and rock monster Ben (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) — confront the cosmos’ answer to Joey Chestnut in order to save their precious home from extinction. Their conflict is pure old-school Marvel: Eye-popping imagery, apocalyptic stakes, and at least one clever plot twist.

READ MORE: Every Marvel Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best

That FF versus Galactus sequence is as good as First Steps gets, in part because it deemphasizes the weaknesses of earlier scenes — namely the characters and their surprisingly thin relationships. Part of what differentiated Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four (and has continued to define the book in the decades since) was the fact that the Fantastic Four were a family first and a team second. The Fantastic Four: First Steps foregrounds that notion, mostly in superficial ways. It opens with a family dinner scene, and Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben constantly remind each other that they’re a family, and they will tackle their problems together as a family.

But Fantastic Four comics often show the less glamorous side of families; the stuff that had nothing to do with beating up mole men or exploring outer space. Reed and Sue struggle to connect as a married couple. Ben and Johnny squabble constantly.

First Steps never really does any of that, something that could be traced to its one significant break from traditional Fantastic Four mythology. The members of Lee and Kirby’s FF were all so different; brainy Reed, nurturing Sue, brash Johnny, sullen Ben. Admittedly, it never quite made sense why such wildly disparate people — a genius physicist, a gruff pilot, the physicist’s girlfriend, and the girlfriend’s annoying little brother — would all wind up on a rocket ship bombarded with cosmic rays. But that striking clash of personalities fueled much of the interpersonal drama in classic Fantastic Four comics.

First Steps director Matt Shakman and a team of five credited writers tweaked that slightly. Now all four Fantastic Four members are scientists. (At one point, Reed refers to his colleagues as the four most brilliant scientific minds on Earth.) That explains why they’d go to outer space together, and it certainly allows Johnny and Ben to take more active roles in the sci-fi problem solving that forms the backbone of First Steps’ narrative.

But resolving that issue created another problem: It left the group with four members that feel very similar. This Fantastic Four is not very well-differentiated, or even all that well-defined. They’re all super-smart, super well-adjusted superheroes.The only character with any sort of emotional throughline is Reed, who frets about how he and Sue’s altered DNA could affect their new baby.

Otherwise, even moments of family strife — searching in vain for a missing bottle of pills, struggling to get the baby’s car seat locked into place — are played for laughs instead of angst. Where’s the tension? Internally, there’s not much. This Fantastic Four is just a little too ... nice.

One area where this film clearly succeeds right from the very beginning is design. This Fantastic Four does not take place within the primary timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the FF live in their own retro-futuristic New York City, one that’s beautifully appointed with kitschy ’60s-style buildings and fashions. Everything from the group’s headquarters, to their flying Fantasticar, to their blue-and-white costumes all have this very unique and very cohesive aesthetic. Between its 1960s-ish Manhattan, and the bizarre world of Galactus, First Steps is always a fun movie to look at.

Is it a fun movie overall? Yes, although not quite as much fun as I had hoped. On paper, Shakman cast the four lead roles perfectly. In execution, I’m not sure any of his stars really found their groove as these characters yet. Or maybe the script flattened the Fantastic Four to the point where it left them no groove to find. Let’s put it this way: It’s a decent first step. There’s still room for improvement.

Additional Thoughts:

-The Silver Surfer was one of the few elements that the Fox Fantastic Four movies got right; he was sleek and imposing and convincingly alien. First Steps’ Surfer is even better. She really looks a block of precious metal that somehow sprung to life, and when she soars through the spaceways, she moves the grace of an actual surfer. She’s a visual triumph. Too bad she’s not in more of the film.

-Marvel also gave their Fantastic Four a robot sidekick named H.E.R.B.I.E., a character who was first created for a 1970s Fantastic Four cartoon series that wasn’t allowed to use the Human Torch. First Steps’ H.E.R.B.I.E. has an adorable face made out of analog tape reels, and he speaks in cutesy bleeps and bloops, sort of like a less technologically advanced BB-8. He’s charming, but he’s also very present in the early parts of the movie, to the point where he starts to wear out his welcome. A little H.E.R.B.I.E. goes a long way.

-So why is it so hard to make a great Fantastic Four movie? Four main characters plus a couple of villains are a lot to cram into a two-hour story. (That might account for the fact that First Steps has almost no supporting cast.) You can tailor an X-Men or Avengers movie to the talent available; you can also cycle in new characters to liven up the team dynamics or to introduce some novel powers and special effects. The occasional She-Hulk appearance notwithstanding, the Fantastic Four is pretty much always the same four people with the same four powers. How do you make that feel fresh? Marvel made the world around the team different, and that choice absolutely paid off. The group at the center of the film is another matter.

RATING: 6/10

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