Fantastic Four Reimagined: Marvel Goes Back to Basics

Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a pretty, breezy take on one of the publisher’s earliest superhero teams. Chock-full of enjoyable performances (Pedro Pascal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are particular standouts), it dives into the lumpy expanse of its 1960s-inspired costume aesthetic. But for all the kitsch style and well-acted heart, it never generates the emotional or dramatic swell to become something special.

Marvel producer Kevin Feige described First Steps as “a no-homework-required” film. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is sprawling; in addition to the movies, there are multiverses to track, cameos to anticipate, and new spin-offs to see. First Steps is a standalone story. It reintroduces Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm without the weight of complicated continuity from earlier adaptations. The movie doesn’t care about your homework—or, at times, the absence of it.

In a present-day scene that will be familiar to any fan of the Marvel universe, an all-ages talk show is hosted by Mark Gatiss, who conveniently recapitulates the central origin story for the Fantastic Four, as is, er, customary in talk shows: four years ago, a spacefaring mission to “the farthest reaches of the cosmos” went wrong and a strange energy bombarded the crew with radiation, mutating their DNA. Reed, now played with a thoughtful earnestness and a flair for comic-book-assembled one-liners by Pedro Pascal, developed an uncanny elasticity. Vanessa Kirby’s Sue can bend her body out of sight and launch concentrated bursts of force energy from her hands. Joseph Quinn is Johnny Storm, a slim teenager whose skin combusts into a flame-retardant firestorm that lets him fly around. Ebon Moss-Bachrach is Ben Grimm, who can now stretch his muscles only a bit, as he is The Thing, a bald rock giant with prodigious strength.

Together, they live in a mid-century modern space compound with flying cars, giant chalkboard equations on the wall, and a toddler-size robot named H.E.R.B.I.E. that does menial work around the house. First Steps’ world is retro-futurist: square television sets, few, if any, cell phones, and a giddy-but-somehow-skeptical take on science fiction and design. It looks like The Jetsons and Lost in Space had an amazing, comics-inspired baby.

In tone, however, First Steps is a bit sleepy. The film’s central theme is family: the nuclear family of Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben. Sue gets pregnant early on, and Reed frets about their readiness to be parents; in one delightful sequence, he tells H.E.R.B.I.E. to baby-proof both the house and the lab. Johnny and Ben fall into sibling banter and jealousy, but enjoy their new roles as fraternal baby daddies. But before they can properly bask in the glow of Sue’s expanding baby bump, a regular old-world-ending situation rears its mighty head.

Galactus, an armored skyscraper with glowing eyes, is on his way to Earth to eat it. To save time, he sent ahead a silver-skinned herald—Julia Garner in a motion-capture performance—as the Silver Surfer. The Surfer glides on a sleek, groovy board through space, collecting samples of energy from nearby planets. She does initially swoop in with ominous menace, but the guys quickly flip the script, and she is objectified (and more importantly, objectifying) by Johnny.

Galactus does have his rugged allure, but the action is not that intense. The heroes beam up and fly after him in space, are pelted with cosmic energy by the Silver Surfer, duck and weave from flying towers of rubble, and zoom through radiant flames. The effects mostly reflect the movie’s retro futurism: bursts of light, streaks of flame trailing behind, blocky flying vehicles, and cartoony explosions. Sue goes into labor on an alien planet at one of the film’s most visually climactic moments. We’re looking at birth pangs and crumbling skylines, rendered in psychedelic hues.

That’s the movie in microcosm: sincere and silly. The film has earnest emotions but gets lost in its very soft colors, more primary than primary; the stakes never seem high, even when the end of the world hangs in the balance. It’s more an adventure story than a straight-ahead action one.

In the end, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is inoffensive, well-acted, but soft. It is a piece of a candy wrapper, Marvel, just not to the center. For those who like their space-based cosmic adventures more Mad Magazine than Marvel, this might be the right fit. For those looking for real stakes and for a Marvel film to care about, it might not be.