• By John Hansen
• 26 Nov, 2025
• Marvel Cinematic Universe

‘Fantastic Four: First Steps’ is a fantastic bore

It’s a year ending in 5, so that means it’s time for another “Fantastic Four” movie so Fox (and now Disney) doesn’t lose the license. Following the cheap 1990s version (never intended for release), the fun but light 2000s duology and the grimdark 2010s version, the FF enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe with “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

To contrast the previous versions, the MCU team flat-out captures the style of the comic that put artist Jack Kirby and storyteller Stan Lee on the map in 1961. Production designers don’t win Oscars for bad movies, but perhaps they should here, as they vibrantly bring us into the retro-futurism of Kirby’s circular computer monitors and pastel-colored science labs.

It’s like the style of the Fifties got locked in on this alternate Earth (a quick title card tells us it’s Earth-828) while tech progressed into modern times. “First Steps” smartly does the “Spider-Man: Homecoming” thing of not giving the origin story all over again — except in a brief news-reel montage that also lays down the retro media feel.

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The look and feel of the film is so good at first that it doesn’t matter that the conflict’s introduction is delayed. The team of astronauts-turned-superheroes has established family chemistry. There’s stretchy science genius Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal); pregnant Sue (Storm) Richards/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby); impulsive Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn); and wry Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, combined with special effects 100 percent of the time).

The Space Race meets comic thrills

When launching the title, Lee and Kirby infused personalities and grand adventure into the space race, which – while exciting in a real-world way – featured staid military men and hard science. Some early thoughts about the moon included the idea of bonus resources. Flipping that against the human race, Galactus (voiced by Ralph Ineson) goes around the galaxy devouring worlds. He’s the giant stone vacuum-cleaning maid from “Spaceballs,” essentially.

His herald is the Silver Surfer, turned female for this movie and performed by Julia Garner (“Weapons”). She’ll win an Oscar someday to go with her Emmys, but it won’t be for this role, as her acting doesn’t break through the CGI slather of an all-silver being; ironically, it’s like watching an Oscar statuette.

“First Steps” starts as a sleepy inoffensive journey, but when it becomes clear the story is simply that Galactus aims to eat the Earth and the FF will science the shit out of the problem, it hits even bigger snags than the previous maligned “FF” films. The threat is so big that a viewer can’t possibly care.

A team of five writers strives to personalize the story by having Galactus say he’ll spare the Earth if Sue and Reed turn over their newborn, Franklin, to him. The baby is brought to nominal life with as much CGI as the Silver Surfer. Which isn’t to say he looks horrible or exists in the uncanny valley, but it’s obviously not a real baby most of the time.

The brief thematic issue – the Fifties version of a social-media-frenzy – is that the populace dislikes the selfishness of the Richardses not turning over their baby to Galactus, but then Sue gives a speech that makes everyone sympathize with them. Which they should, granted. But we don’t care about the human race on Earth-828 because they have homogenous and shallow collective feelings; they are billions of Non-Player Characters. Even though it’s nice to have a superhero team that’s so reliable, likeable and uncontroversial that we don’t have to keep an eye on them, it also rings false.

Baby don’t go

Sue and Reed don’t turn over Franklin, and instead aim to repel Galactus with a tech defense that’s – again – so large in scale that we can’t possibly care or believe it. Since it’s a movie, they have a fair chance. Thank goodness Galactus didn’t make the ultimatum that the scripters had to write a clever or funny line. The cast is so much better than the screenplay that they almost paper over this glaring problem, but there’s no wit to “First Steps,” even though Pascal always seems on the verge of a Nathan Fillion-esque zinger. It’s strikingly flat compared to the superhero films and TV around it, for example the MCU’s “Thunderbolts” and James Gunn’s early work in the DCU (“Superman” and “Peacemaker” Season 2).

There’s no narrative tension. “First Steps” delays the explanations for why Silver Surfer helps Galactus, and why Galactus wants the kid, but neither is much of a mystery, and the reveals land with a shrug. (SPOILERS FOLLOW.) She took a previous bargain to spare her world; the kid has super healing powers.  

A good way to tell if you are invested in a movie is when it gets to the resuscitation scene of a supposedly dead hero. Of course Sue will revive – even good movies can’t avoid the cliché – but are you into the tension and the emotions, or do you feel like the dragging out of the scene is indulgent?

The Fantastic Four will return in “Avengers: Doomsday,” even though – rather frustratingly – “First Steps” does not move them to the MCU’s Prime Earth just yet. I guess it’s inevitable they’ll join “our Earth’s” roster of do-gooders, because Doctor Doom is an “FF” villain, but I’d rather spend time with the colorful and humorous Thunderbolts. Maybe keep Reed and his team as tech support. (END OF SPOILERS.)

“Fantastic Four’s” place in Marvel history can’t be denied, and purely in production design, “First Steps” is a nice way to honor that. But maybe we have to conclude that the Richards clan doesn’t provide big-screen thrills and intrigue the way more troubled and reluctant superheroes do. They are a likeable family, but man are they dull.

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