Review by Tim Robins
Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Marvel Studios’ ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ introduces Marvel’s First Family – Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/Human Torch and Ben Grimm/The Thing as they face their most daunting challenge yet.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is an easy-on- the-eye, nostalgic reboot of comic books’ first and most famous family of Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic), Sue and Johnny Storm (Invisible Girl and The Human Torch respectively) and Ben Grimm (The Thing) here joined by Reed and Sue’s newborn baby Franklin Richards.
The film is the fifth attempt to bring the comic that founded the Marvel comics’ universe back in 1961 to the big screen and in a story previous offerings failed to fully realise – the coming of Galactus, a world devouring being from before time, led to Earth by his herald, The Silver Surfer.
This time out, it has been four years since the eponymous FF gained their powers from cosmic radiation during a near fatal trip into space. Reed gained stretching powers that mirrored his plastic intellect, hot headed Johnny gained the ability to burst into flames, gruff man of the people Ben became a humanoid rock pile and Sue became invisible because “Women in men’s imaginations in the early 1960s”.
The film captures the characters’ origin in flashbacks, mostly news reels. We also get asides to the fights that made them famous: against the Mole Man (here given the likeness of a pudgy fanboy) and The Red Ghost and his Super Apes. In this alternate universe, other superheroes don’t seem to exist, so when the ultimate Big Boss, Galactus, shows up it’s left to the FF to send him packing (those familiar with the comic book will know they get a helping hand from out of left field).
Even if you aren’t familiar with the oft reprinted comic book story, you may feel that you’ve seen this story on the screen before. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2004), in which Galactus was a cloud of smoke, wove the tale into the wedding of Sue and Reed Richards, and perennial villain Doctor Doom was apparently intended to become the herald of Galactus in Fantastic Four (2015).
The cast in the new, almost Doom free, movie is fine. Pedro Pascal is entirely convincing as the elasticated Mr Fantastic. He plays Reed as an autistic supernerd. The effects manage not to be ludicrous, even when he is being stretched like a rubber band.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s The Thing is well realised through CGI, although inexplicably grows a beard half way through the film – a change covered only by a line of dialogue. How do the rocks grow on his face? How does he shave? But never mind that, giving The Thing “Turkey Teeth” was a definite mistake.
Of the two Storm siblings, Joseph Quinn struggled to overcome my memories of Chris Evans as The Human Torch, but I finally got into Quinn’s more nuanced character. Vanessa Kirby’s Invisible Girl is the stand out member of the team. It’s not just that Sue’s pregnancy is central to the plot, but we get to see her “invisible force” powers doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
I guess I should acknowledge the inclusion of the robot H.E.R.B.I.E. (Humanoid Experimental Robot B-Type Integrated Electronics), a character created for the 1978 cartoon show to replace The Human Torch because it was felt that the inflammable hero might inspire children to set themselves alight. In the new film, as in the cartoon, the ‘bot is played mostly for fun.
Julia Garner gives us an intimidating Silver Surfer. Her role is greatly enhanced by the dramatic special effects shots of her surfing waves of energy, including the accretion disk and photon sphere of a black hole.
Ralph Ineson plays a comic-book perfect Galactus. A bold move, but you’ll believe a man in a big purple helmet is a menace from before our Universe existed.
The film itself is beguilingly painted in retro Sixties chique, which may have been worth the price of admission for critic Mark Kermode but, if you’ve followed the Loki TV series, has already been used to decorate the offices of the Time Variance Authority. Although orange is my favourite colour, I found the various space ships more visually interesting. They seem inspired by the SF illustrations of David A. Hardy and Vincent Di Fate.
All in all, the film creates a somewhat conservative retro future, whose gender politics doesn’t get much further than “a mother will move the Earth to protect their newborn baby”. Still, that at least has a ring of emotional truth about it. I wasn’t at all impressed by the tokenistic inclusion of Sarah Niles as the CEO of The Future Foundation, no matter how often the camera picked her out from the crowd. The FF themselves are decidedly whitebread.
The story has an emptiness at its heart from being detached from our present day. The sparky politics that enlivened Superman (2025) is entirely abscent and, perhaps because of this, the story seems slight.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps has been announced as the first film in the Sixth Phase of the MCU. Honestly Marvel Studios, are we still doing this? I guess so, because a mid end credit roll teaser promises the team will return in The Avenger: Doomsday scheduled for release next year. I wish they wouldn’t.
The problem for me is that The Fantastic Four should have been the team that launched the MCU, just as they launched Marvel’s comic book universe. How different it would have been to be introduced to supporting characters such as The Black Panther and The Inhumans through the eyes of an adventuring family.
Watching The Fantastic Four: First Steps was fun and there’s a lot to enjoy, but I couldn’t help thinking that those steps should have been taken way back in 2005/07. As it is, a direct sequel would be nice, but I’m not at all hungry for more Phase Six of the MCU.
Tim Robins
Fantastic Four is flaming well in cinemas now
Dear reader, a review is an opinion. Other opinions are available, including yours
Head downthetubes to…
• The Fantastic Four: First Steps at Marvel.com
• Screenrant: 60 Fantastic Four: First Steps Easter Eggs & Marvel References Explained
• Fantastic Four: First Steps Breakdown – Marvel Easter Eggs
Breathless expo! Spoilers! Product Plugs! But fun…
• Fantastic Four: First Steps #1 is being reprinted, second printing available from 27th August (Forbidden Planet Affiliate Link)
Four brave scientific adventurers are forever changed into iconic superheroes in Fantastic Four: First Steps #1, written by Matt Fraction, drawn by Mark Buckingham, with cover art by Phil Noto
• Fantastic Four #1 (2025) – available from Marvel in comic shops (various covers, Forbidden Planet Affiliate Link) and as a digital edition (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)
The Fantastic Four return with a new issue #1 from Marvel, kicking off a whole new volume of their adventures through time, space, science and the human condition!
When the Fantastic Four take on Doom, things go well until they suddenly go catastrophically wrong – and they’re sent to four different eras in Earth’s history! Alone and isolated in wildly different time periods, Reed, Johnny, Ben and Sue all have to fight to survive.
Their only hope is to reach the Forever Stone: a mass of dense granite that happens to be one of the longest-lasting rocks on the planet, which – through a combination of obscurity and raw geological luck – has stayed both intact and accessible for most of Earth’s history! Also featured in this extra-big, extra-special issue: Ben Grimm fights a dinosaur!
No other comic dares to feature the Thing battling several Mapusauruses, but that’s just where we get started! And it’s all brought to life by the incredible new series artist Humberto Ramos!
• Fantastic Four #1 (2025) – available from Panini UK in UK newsagents and direct from the publisher
By Ryan North and Iban Coello, reprinting material from Fantastic Four (2022) #4-5
Marvel’s First Family of Super Heroes are back in their own comic, full of cosmic adventure, marred by a lot of tedious and inexplicably convoluted science talk from Reed Richards, which makes for a rather disappointing “first issue”.
The art on this book is absolutely fantastic, but goodness only knows who the title is aimed at, script wise, because it isn’t kids.
New York is threatened by an alien invasion and the FF are the only heroes capable of stopping them, but Mister Fantastic’s radical solution threatens to tear the FF apart. Plus, when it doesn’t, the Fantastic Four encounter their old enemies Nicholas Scratch and the Salem Seven. It’s science versus magic in a fearsome fight for survival. Except, it isn’t, really, but spare a thought for a pigeon.
(Mini review by John Freeman)
- About the Author
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A freelance journalist and Doctor Who fanzine editor since 1978, Tim Robins has written on comics, films, books and TV programmes for a wide range of publications including Starburst, Interzone, Primetime and TV Guide.
His brief flirtation with comics includes ghost inking a 2000AD strip and co-writing a Doctor Who strip with Mike Collins. Since 1990 he worked at the University of Glamorgan where he was a Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Media Studies and the social sciences. Academically, he has published on the animation industry in Wales and approaches to social memory. He claims to be a card carrying member of the Politically Correct, a secret cadre bent on ruling the entire world and all human thought.
Categories: downthetubes News, Features, Film, Other Worlds, Reviews, US Comics
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