The Fantastic Four: First Steps Review & Analysis

The Fantastic Four: First Steps – 2025

Director Matt Shakman
Screenplay Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer
Starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, Ralph Ineson

The cinematic history of The Fantastic Four is checkered, to say the least. When Roger Corman makes the most amusing of the four prior films, that’s saying something. This time, they have a solid cast. The script by the fourth authors is amazingly cohesive. They’ve made a film worth remembering, even if it’s not close to perfect.

The story starts with the team already back from their transformative event. They’re even established as heroes and have a firmly established place in Earth 828, 1964. Then the team encounters first The Silver Surfer (Garner) as the herald of Galactus (Ineson). The massive being, she says, will soon devour the Earth, like it does every other planet it encounters.

The team takes on the role of protectors of Earth. They head back out to space with a pregnant Sue Storm (Kirby). Once they arrive, while Reed Richards (Pascal, who survives the movie for once) seeks to bargain with Galactus. The bargain Galactus seeks is to take their unborn child as his successor. Ben Grimm, Johnny Storm (Moss-Bacharach, Quinn) and the rest of the team barely survive their meeting. In the process, Franklin is born in space.

The first press conference upon the return home goes horribly, and the team is now scorned. What happens next I will leave for the viewer.

The film is a very confident, self-contained story. The screenplay needs more fleshing out of the characters. It is a positive sign that the characters are interesting enough that one would want to see more of them. This attempt with Galactus and the Silver Surfer is still enigmatic. However, it is leagues better than 2007’s The Rise of the Silver Surfer in both effects and story.

It’s a smart choice to give these heroes their own timeline. It’s not clear how they make it back to the Earth of MCU. Without any other supers to contend with, the story is much more linear than recent films.

The backdrop of the film has a clean sheen of yesteryear U.S.A.. The Fantastic Four works best in the futuristic look of the 1960s. There is no depression of Vietnam, 9/11, or modern cynicism. There are also no girl bosses to be found. It’s just a well-adjusted family doing their best to love one another and fight crime.

Shakman does a decent job pulling together the scraps of what feels like a much longer film with a portions left on the cutting room floor. The remaining parts are effectively assembled. They serve as a fitting introduction to a team we’ve been introduced to too many times before.

(**** out of *****)