The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
Directed by: Matt Shakman
Premise: Part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Four astronauts with superpowers have assumed the role of Earth’s protectors. The extraterrestrial being Galactus wants Reed Richards and Sue Storm’s newborn child.
What Works: The Fantastic Four is fundamentally about a family. These superheroes are bound by blood, marriage, and friendship and that familial relationship forms the basis of the team. First Steps succeeds in large part due to the casting. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn play the Fantastic Four and everyone is well matched with their roles. They cohere as a team. Everyone has specific character territory and the actors slip into those positions naturally without resorting to clunky exposition. This is the first appearance of the Fantastic Four in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but the filmmakers eschew the origin story, opening First Steps with the Fantastic Four as established heroes. This works well for the movie especially since First Steps is the fourth attempt to bring the Fantastic Four to the movie screen. The 2025 Fantastic Four picture has a unique look. It combines futurism with 1960s Art Deco and the tone of the film is similarly upbeat with a sense of optimism. The movie has a pulp adventure feel in keeping with its comic book source and the 1967 television series. The style and the cast make this is a likable movie.
What Doesn’t: The characters of Fantastic Four are generally flat. The film centers around the idea of family but it doesn’t do anything interesting with it. Reed Richards and Sue Storm are having a child and there are hints of tension as they adjust to parenthood and the changes that brings but there’s no real friction and neither of them learn anything. Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm don’t have much to do and they don’t have character arcs. In the world of this movie, humanity has put its faith in The Fantastic Four and that faith is briefly shaken but nothing comes of it. The filmmakers try to do something with the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) but this character isn’t given the dramatic moments to make it work and the ending comes across as a deus ex machina resolution. Everyone in First Steps is basically the same at the end of the story as they were at the beginning and the Fantastic Four don’t grow as a team. As a result, this film plays a lot like the Fantastic Four cartoon; the heroes defeat the villain of the week but nothing changes.
Bottom Line: Fantastic Four: First Steps is easily the best live action version of these characters. The characters are shallow and the storytelling is flimsy but First Steps is a solid reintroduction that lays the groundwork for future movies.
Episode: #1059 (August 3, 2025)