‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ review: A few steps backward

Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps has style and star power, but not much of a story beyond contractual content obligations.

Marvel’s First Family has finally arrived…again. For the fourth time. In The Fantastic Four: First Steps, director Matt Shakman (WandaVision) reboots the unluckiest IP in superhero history with a shiny coat of retro paint and a cast that absolutely deserves a better movie. And sure, Shakman knows a thing or two about genre pastiche and balancing ensemble dynamics, and to his credit, this thing looks sharp and the costumes pop. On paper, this is a match made in comic book heaven. But in practice, it’s less cosmic marvel and more cardboard cutout.

Set in a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic sandbox, The Fantastic Four: First Steps introduces Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as a tight-knit band of brainy adventurers trying to stop Galactus—played with gravel-throated menace by Ralph Ineson—from snacking on planet Earth because he’s literally just that hungry. And yes the cryptic messenger coming to foretell this doom is of course the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), a coolly detached celestial intern with the same mechanical personality as the movie she inhabits

It’s an amusing enough setup, and the idea of Marvel confronting its own existential threat in the form of a literal planet-eating god as a sign of their own cultural apocalypse is rich with metaphor. But like so many MCU entries of late, the film stretches toward meaning without quite reaching it.

Reboot #4.

Let’s start with the positives, because there are some. The casting, for one, is fittingly fantastic. Joseph Quinn steals the movie with a performance that’s all combustible charm and chaotic heart. His Human Torch is delightfully dumb in a clever way, the only character who seems aware that this movie should have a little pep in its step to match the 60s aesthetic.

Pascal leans into the tortured genius angle, bringing gravity to a Reed Richards who mostly spends his screentime pacing and panicking. Kirby, poised and grounded as ever, makes the most of a role that asks her to be little more than the rational backbone of the group. And Moss-Bachrach’s Ben Grimm is endearingly stoic, though the script treats him like he’s just there to quip and occasionally offer moral support like an anthropomorphic boulder.

So the actors are certainly giving this re-reboot all they’ve got, and that’s of a kind with Fox’s previous attempts to spin and re-spin this franchise. Ultimately, the real issues come down to a lackluster script that comes off like a soulless math equation done by studio note. “Fantastic Four Brand” + “60s vibe” + “Reddit fan-cast” = money.

It might as well have been a formula scribbled on the back of a napkin by a room full of executives, and the result is a movie that feels technically correct but emotionally inert, like a synthetic organism missing a soul and riding a surfboard that looked more convincing in 2007.

Mood without meaning.

You can see the edges where the Marvel machinery crunched the numbers. There’s the obligatory third-act battle in a sky-lit CG wasteland, complete with floating debris and glowy particle effects. And also the sweeping orchestral score by Michael Giacchino, which strains to convince us something profound is happening on the actual screen. There’s even a baby. A deeply unsettling baby. A baby that might actually be the worst fake infant since American Sniper.

What’s truly missing is the why. Why this story? Why now? Again, there are hints of meta-commentary here. Marvel, like Reed Richards, facing its own version of Galactus: the looming threat of cultural apathy. The devourer of worlds, in this case, being a public that’s grown weary of post-credit promises and half-baked reinventions. The film seems aware of this, but offers no real reckoning. It throws money at the problem. It throws plain sentiment. At one point, it literally just throws the problem…somewhere else.

And sometimes, it works. There are flashes of charm, especially when the film stops trying so hard to be Important and leans into its weirdo, space trek roots. The family dynamic, in theory, should be the emotional core, but no real friction or evolution occurs beyond a shouting scene or two. Sue remains the voice of reason throughout. Reed stays the neurotic genius. Ben is Ben. Only Johnny has a genuine arc, and even that feels like the bare minimum effort to make at least one of these characters feel alive and urgent.

The bottom line.

Overall, First Steps is a movie boasting vibes and visuals, but with no real vision. It wants to be a turning point, maybe even a rebirth. Instead, it’s another cog in the Marvel machine, albeit a handsome one, running on nostalgia fumes and the hope that “better than Fan4stic” is still enough.

It isn’t. It’s a cast stretched beyond its material, a concept that flames out too soon, and a studio that might be stonewalled by its own scientific formula. One thing the history books might miss or even overlook about this film’s release down the road, too, is the obvious James Gunn-shadow hanging over it, with Superman triumphantly trouncing everything this movie portends to be a mere two weeks ago. But we’ll set the record straight right here: First Steps is ironically named and mostly trips over itself in its desperate sprint toward relevancy.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens in theaters on July 25. Watch the trailer here.

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Images courtesy of Disney and Marvel Studios. Read more articles by Jon Negroni here.