Stream It Or Skip It?

For many years we’ve wondered if Hollywood would ever get the cornerstone Marvel Comics property, the Fantastic Four, right. After an unreleased 1990s laffer three post-millennial sub-mediocrities, I’m happy to report that The Fantastic Four: First Steps (now streaming on VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video) is at least pretty damn good. The result of the Disney-Fox merger puts the FF firmly – finally! – in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Matt Shakman directing, having proven his Marvel bona-fides with a well-received run on TV series Wandavision. The filmmaker oversaw a retro-futuristic take on the superteam that made Marvel a funnybook house to be reckoned with in the 1960s, and audiences responded warmly, if not overwhelmingly, pushing it to a healthy $521 million at the worldwide box office. For my nickel, First Steps is the best MCU outing in quite a while, and it’s nice as a career critic to look at a movie in this wildly up-and-down franchise and not say, “It’s clobberin’ time!”  

The Gist: First things first: First Steps is set in an alternate timeline, Earth 828 (if you want to get a bit nerdy about it, the majority of the MCU films are set on Earth 616). That might explain why the New York City the Fantastic Four call home looks very mid-century retro, with flying cars, fedoras and zero cigarettes – and why the general populace is optimistic and actually works together for the common good to save the planet from an existential threat. Fiction! One of the nifty skyscrapers poking the sky of this beautifully gee-whiz reality belongs to the Fantastic Four, who are celebrating the fourth anniversary of the fateful day they rocketed into space, were bombarded with cosmic rays and came home with superpowers: Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) is a megabrain scientist with Stretch Armstrong limbs, Mr. Fantastic. His wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) is the Invisible Woman, who can turn invisible (duh) and project force fields. Her brother Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) can flame on to become the flying, self-explanatory Human Torch. And Reed’s best pal and crack pilot Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is a superstrong pile of boulders in human form known as The Thing. 

The world loves the FF. They’re heroes and political leaders and figureheads for science and truth and justice and general goodness, which we learn during a quick debriefing that recaps their origin story in the form of an in-universe TV special. Such is life for the FF: Reed tinkers in his lab, Sue handles the political stuff, Johnny enjoys his bachelorhood and the gentle giant Ben does all the cooking and entertains the neighborhood kids by lifting Volkswagens and makes eyes at a sweetie schoolteacher (the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Natasha Lyonne, who deserves way more screentime). They’re like another FF in America – the First Family. And the fam’s growing: Sue’s pregnant. After trying for two years and seeing their hopes dwindle. Sue and Reed sit down with Ben and Johnny for FF dinner, as they apparently routinely do, and the uncles-to-be don’t know they’re gonna be uncles yet, but they can just sense the good vibes in the air. Of course, pending parenthood comes with the usual anxieties, but in this case, it’s amplified. When he’s not sussing out the science of teleportation(!), Reed really sweats the baby’s genetic makeup. The kid’s gonna have “cosmically compromised DNA,” he asserts. Oh boy. 

With that general source of uncertainty and suspense humming the background, a new threat to everything emerges. And I mean everything: The mysterious Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) arrives from way out wherever in the universe to tell Earth that her boss, Galactus (Ralph Inseson), an extra-giant giant from outer space, will arrive soon to eat the planet. Yep, the whole thing. Dude’s got an appetite-and-a-half, like a friend of mine who once housed three Little Ceasars Hot ‘n’ Readys in one sitting. (He ate two for dinner and leisurely snacked on a third.) Some people are just hungry. Anyway, this plan doesn’t sit well with the denizens of Earth, so the FF readies the rocket ship – Sue has a new maternity spacesuit! – so they can go talk to the humongous guy and, I dunno, maybe convince him to hit the Taco Bell out by Zarquon-4 instead? “The unknown will become known, and we will protect you. We will protect you,” Reed tells the population. Easier said than done!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Let’s play a game of Let’s Rank The Top Five MCU Movies Since Endgame:

5. Thunderbolts* – It might be generous to include this one, but I can’t overlook a movie that climaxes not with a cataclysmic slab of CG violence, but a group hug.

4. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – A couple of cracking action sequences and some choice Awkwafina one-liners go a long way.

3. Spider-Man: No Way Home – Three Spider-Men! Neat!

2. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness – Underrated! Sam Raimi’s signature visual dynamics and horror-movie fringe put this one over the top.

1.The Fantastic Four: First Steps – As front-to-back solid as the MCU has been in many years. It looks great, it’s entertaining, it follows a directorial vision and it doesn’t require several hours of MCU homework to enjoy it.

Performance Worth Watching: I’ve always found it far too silly to watch superhero movies in which the use of superpowers requires actors who normally have an aversion to looking goofy as hell on screen stand with their arms outstretched making constipated noises and faces as they exert themselves mentally. If anyone is going to do this at least somewhat convincingly, it’s Vanessa Kirby, who brings some intense dramatic oomph to a movie that otherwise might reside in the heart of Kitsch City.

Memorable Dialogue: Reed talks to his infant offspring: “I’m gonna let you tell me who you are. And if you’d like to tell me now, that would be helpful. Especially if you’re an all-powerful space god, I’d like to know sooner rather than later, if you don’t mind.” (He picks up the baby and takes a sniff.) “You’re busy peeing.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Those of you arguing that First Steps doesn’t adequately connect itself to the rest of the MCU, please can it. We’ve been griping about homework for years, and some of y’all are beefing that the film fails to address the end-credits sequence from Thunderbolts*. This is why society is disintegrating before our very eyes, people. Beyond a mid-credits bit and a promise that the FF will return in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday, First Steps is a robustly entertaining standalone film that more than adequately introduces characters, engages them in meaningful conflict and concludes said conflict in a satisfying manner. This is how movies usually work, and when they work the best. Are we not exhausted by endless serialized sagas, our brains taxed by dozens of characters and overarching plots? This FF gives us four characters who do neat things for two hours, and makes us feel happy and excited in the doing. Its relative simplicity is a virtue.

Not that the film is a rich commentary on society or the human condition, mind you. At best, its subtextual depth is limited to a tonal portrayal of optimism that apes and reflects the national unity America felt during the scientific advancements of the Space Race. It smartly balances the macrodrama of an interstellar clash with an intimidating space being with the microdrama of family dynamics. First Steps takes the time to simply hang out with its protagonists as they do by-turns ordinary and extraordinary things, capturing a sense of intimacy among them that’s warm and charming. These four individuals simply work together to make the world a better place, whether it’s concocting a plan to stymie a towering villain or to make sure a baby grows up in a loving home (and here’s a hat tip to the winning big uncle energy Quinn and Moss-Bachrach give to their characters). The movie is very sweet and pure in that sense. There isn’t a cynical bone in its body.

Structurally, the film starts and finishes strong, with a standout middle section that boasts a crackerjack sci-fi action sequence that counters on-the-fly scientific problem-solving with a very intently human ordeal – it’s a wild, gently intense chase featuring the Surfer, a black hole, a damaged spacecraft and a zero-gravity birth. One feels Reed’s middling but never overbearing concern with how to solve the Galactus problem as he wrestles with the mysterious nature of his child. And Sue gets an opportunity to channel her mama bear instincts during a thrilling climax, Kirby groaning in a way that surely intentionally mirrors the birth scene. 

Which isn’t to say this is heavy duty drama. It’s throwback comic book stuff, stuffed with sci-fi out-thereness that reflects its origins in GOAT comic artist Jack Kirby’s fiercely creative brain. It’s lightweight but not insubstantial, entertaining but never empty. Sure, some of it’s CGI overload, but Shakman assures consistency within a distinctive visual style that’s as close as the MCU comes to auteurism. It’s been a while since this franchise was this much fun.

Our Call: IT’S NOT CLOBBERIN’ TIME! STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.