Which Movie of the Fantastic Four Lives Up to the Name?

Remakes, reimaginings, and readaptations have been a part of the movies as long as the medium has existed. With the series Version Control, Jesse Hassenger explores stories with multiple notable incarnations throughout cinema history, to help determine which movie version may be right for your streaming needs.

There are many superhero characters with more movie appearances than the Fantastic Four. But few if any have been rebooted with such clockwork consistency. Roughly every ten years, a Fantastic Four movie emerges (or in one case, fails to emerge) and – with the exception of one that did well enough to spur a sequel – inspires the characters to retreat into hibernation. Now that Marvel’s so-called First Family (consisting of married couple Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman; her brother The Human Torch; and his best friend The Thing) has returned to the Disney-owned parent company, they’re getting yet another shot with The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which introduces the characters into the MCU.

Well, sort of; the movie is set in an alternate universe where the Fantastic Four have been the world’s most beloved (and possibly only) superheroes for several years. It’s a clever way of eliding all of the origin-story business that takes up so much screen time in previous big-screen versions of the super-team. That said, with four different iterations of the team over the past 30 years, there’s also been plenty of overlap between them. So how does the new movie stack up to the previous franchise-starters that didn’t pay off? Does the MCU really know best, or is this a Spider-Man situation, where most of the best movies featuring the character were made outside of Disney’s purview? As always, Version Control is here to help! Here’s a chronological run-through of four Fantastic Four movies, to sort out which version of the team is hottest – er, we mean, best!

1. The Fantastic Four (1994)

   The team got off to an inauspicious (or maybe auspicious-in-the-wrong-way) start in the early ’90s, when Constantin Films (which later became known in the U.S. for making the Resident Evil movies) had to act fast on an expiring option and threw together a Fantastic Four movie with the help of low-budget maestro Roger Corman. Various parties have debated over whether this movie was ever intended to be released, made entirely as a rights play, or simply hidden out of embarrassment. Regardless, the movie was pulled off an announced Labor Day 1993 release date, had its early 1994 Mall of America premiere canceled, and never received an official theatrical or video berth. As such, it became an object of fascination over the years, and widely bootlegged; because of the internet, a subpar but watchable copy is now available to anyone who wants to check it out.

   Should anyone, though? As fun as it would be to recommend this scrappy enterprise as a hidden gem, there’s not much worthwhile in the First Family’s first try at a movie. Though the cut-rate special effects are likely to get the most negative attention, they’re actually some of the most endearing stuff in the film (and honestly, the Mr. Fantastic stretchiness doesn’t look way worse in subsequent bigger-budget entries). It’s a neat time-capsule of a pre-CG era, even if the climactic Human Torch heroics look ghastly by 1970s standards, nevermind the early ’90s. Less enjoyable is the movie’s protracted origin story, which it weirdly has in common with the 2015 version; some unpleasant story choices (Reed Richards first meets Sue Storm when she’s a little girl, a creepy plot point in a movie that ends with them married); and, sorry to these folks doing their best under presumably limited circumstances, TV-movie acting. It’s sort of interesting to see glimmers of Joel Schumacher’s Batman aesthetic before those movies actually came out, and the Thing gets to say “it’s clobberin’ time!” with pleasing frequency, but mostly this remains a cult curiosity.

2. Inspired by the then-recent success of the X-Men and Spider-Man series, 20th Century Fox scooped up the Fantastic Four rights (though Constantin Films is still credited as well) and produced a bigger-budget version in 2005. This hasty if efficient origin story re-introduces brilliant scientist Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), his ex-girlfriend Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), her brother Johnny (Chris Evans), and Reed’s gruff pal Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), who wind up on a space mission exposing them to cosmic rays, granting them superpowers. For all of the supposed upgrades in visual effects and star power – not exactly an all-star cast, but Evans was an up-and-comer and Alba was (is) one of the most beautiful people in the world – Tim Story’s movie doesn’t feel that far removed from the Corman version in spirit. It’s similarly dopey and cartoonish, and while 20 years ago these effects would have looked way better than the cheaper versions, today they’re, if anything, less charming. The movie was not especially well-regarded, but it made about the same amount of money as the first X-Men did five years earlier, and as such was considered successful enough for a sequel. And even Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (which barely clears 90 minutes with credits) did well enough at the box office. But the sense that no one particularly loved these movies, as well as the dip in grosses from the first to the second, allowed the franchise to die on the vine. Chris Evans, for one, was eventually cast as Captain America in the MCU, though he did revive his Johnny Storm as a solid supporting role/gag in last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine.

   Stream Fantastic Four (2005) on Disney+

4. Here’s where things got really messy. With the superhero craze still going strong, Fox decided to take another shot at the characters, this time enlisting Chronicle director Josh Trank and a cadre of hot younger stars: Miles Teller (Reed), Kate Mara (Sue), Michael B. Jordan (Johnny), and Jamie Bell (Ben). What happened next is a little difficult to parse in terms of how much of the screenplay Trank was allowed to shoot, whether he was behaving erratically on set as some reported or just being scapegoated by a nervous studio, and what a director’s cut of this movie might have looked like. But the released version is weirder than just an obvious compromise. It offers an extended origin story for the central quartet where they don’t really get their powers until close to an hour in, at which point there’s roughly 30 minutes’ worth of truncated action leading into an abrupt ending. Basically, the movie feels like it was shut down about two-thirds of the way through and forced to make do with whatever had been shot so far.

   Even more vexing: The first hour of Fantastic Four ’15 is really pretty good! It takes a darker sci-fi approach to the material, and if there are only hints of the body horror that Trank supposedly wanted to lead the characters’ transformations, it does recall the 2003 Ang Lee version of Hulk (also known as the good one). It doesn’t feel overfamiliar like so many MCU pictures, and it has a bunch of fascinating ideas, like the Fantastic Four being separated while Reed goes on the run and The Thing becomes a government operative. Not great on the family-togetherness front, but dramatically compelling. Unfortunately, the movie collapses into forest-and-hallway murk in its final stretch, wasting a solid origin story on a movie that feels unfinished.

   Stream Fantastic Four (2015) on Disney+

5. Blessedly, the MCU take on the Fantastic Four trusts that (as with DC’s recent Superman reboot) audiences can understand the characters’ origins without spending an hour of screen time re-explaining it. Set in an alternate universe from most of the rest of the MCU characters, First Steps tells a nominally stand-alone story where the Fantastic Four have been Earth’s mightiest (and possibly only) superheroes for roughly the length of a presidential term. The retro-future 1960s-inspired setting gives Matt Shakman’s movie the instant edge in the fields of production design, costumes, and visual effects, even if it still feels underpopulated (like the Corman version) and has a story similar to the Silver Surfer sequel from 2007. With Vanessa Kirby (Sue), Pedro Pascal (Reed), Joseph Quinn (Johnny), and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben) leading the cast, plus a nude silver version of Julia Garner, this should also be the hottest Fantastic Four movie ever, though of course the MCU neuters as much of that as possible, leaving the 2015 movie still competitive for that title. Still, while this isn’t top-tier Marvel, it’s the first movie about these characters where it feels like everyone making it was more or less on the same page.

   THE VERSION CONTROL VERDICT: THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS (2025)

   Honestly, the best adaptation of the Fantastic Four characters is The Incredibles and the second-best is Incredibles 2. But those are homages to the characters, not the genuine article. In that area, Pixar’s corporate siblings at the MCU have squeaked out a win with the best-looking, most polished Fantastic Four adventure so far.