The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Rating

Director

Matt Shakman

Screenplay

Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer

Length

1h 55m

Starring

Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Ralph Ineson, Julia Garner, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Houser, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, Ada Scott, Matthew Wood

MPAA Rating

PG-13

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Review

Finally finding the right formula for the beloved The Fantastic Four comics, First Steps doesn’t take us back to the space accident that gave them their powers but brings the audience in after years of success as the titular team. After so many origin stories in superhero film history, it’s nice to get in when things are already established.

Set in a quasifuturistic version of the 1960s, Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) have a solid working relationship. Having defended Earth many times over, the quartet has managed to successfully blend their personal and public lives, though the public can’t seem to get enough. It’s through this lens that when an existential threat reveals itself, including the very pregnant Sue, they head into space to find out why their planet has been targeted for elimination in the hopes of staving off the very real threat Galactus (Ralph Ineson) poses.

Galactus is a major threat in the Marvel universe but has only ever been faced by the Fantastic Four. His monolithic stature was the prime foe of the 2007 sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer but his use in this film seems monumentally more dangerous. Perhaps that’s because the team of screenwriters who workshopped the plot put in just enough background characters to give the film stakes. By rooting the four main characters in relatable situations, we come to appreciate their nobility, sacrifices, and flaws as defining elements of the story rather than focusing entirely on catastrophic, city-destroying events.

The history of the Fantastic Four on film is a long and painful one. It began with an unreleased adaptation in 1994 that looked like it was made in the 1980s; Then there was the successful but hollow pair of films Sony put together for the characters in 2005 and 2007; and finally a failed, darker reboot in 2015. Some franchises reboot when the popularity isn’t right or the series ran its course (think Spider-Man or Superman) but no comic characters have had such a dismal track record in cinematic terms.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is finally a “step” in the right direction. Anchored by six solid performances, the main four as well as Ineson and Julia Garner as Silver Surfer, the film feels like a fresh take on a stale formula. The MCU still has a lot of room to grow to escape the confines of its own designs but by setting this in that tech-fueled future that 1960s science fiction fans imagined, Marvel has finally broken its logjam of creative delusion. The best film since The Marvels and Eternals, it’s not certain that Disney has learned from its past mistakes but we can only hope that the limited build up to Avengers: Doomsday won’t “doom” that film in the opposite direction.

Review Written

September 16, 2026