The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) – Four-tunate!

Released: 24th July
Seen: 7th August

The Fantastic Four might be one of those cursed properties when it comes to movies as it seems like every version that’s been attempted has fallen into some kind of major problem. There was the initial attempt to make a movie back in 1994, which was made in order to maintain the rights and was never meant to be released (Go watch Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s the Fantastic Four for more on that, but it was a fucking debacle). After that was the 2005 version, which is the version most people know but ended up being so cheesy and bad that its main legacy was to give Chris Evans a chance to reveal that he was Human Torch for a reference joke in the Deadpool & Wolverine movie. Lastly, there was Fan4stic, a 2015 gritty reboot that was so bad it made people think that the first family of Marvel just couldn’t be made into a film. Every 10 years they’ve tried and every 10 years they have failed to adapt this iconic quartet to film but now it’s time for the iconic Marvel Studios to have a try. After all, the first three adaptations were done by Roger Corman and Fox Studios, but the MCU hadn’t gotten their hands on it yet… and I don’t know what magic the MCU has that everyone else didn’t, but they finally got a version that works.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps smartly begins by speedrunning the backstory that Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) all went into space and got assorted powers. They get through that before the credits are finished and start the actual story several years after they’ve already been doing hero shit in the mid-60s. First off, Sue is pregnant with a baby that her and Reed worry might have some kind of power but they aren’t sure what, then a naked silver woman on a surfboard that the audience will know as the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) comes down to Earth to tell everyone that the world eater Galactus (Ralph Ineson) is coming to eat the planet. The Fantastic Four now have to work out not only why Galactus has chosen Earth, but how they can stop him from turning their planet into a midnight snack.

From the moment The Fantastic Four: First Steps begins with a retro-futuristic 60s aesthetic, you can feel that the people who made this have nailed something special that’s going to set this film apart. The entire film has this kitschy feeling with stuff that looks like it was lifted right out of Tomorrowland at the Disney parks of old, and it works so well. The era of space travel and Kennedy just feels like the perfect place to set this kind of story with this specific family and everyone feels like they belong in this era. It’s a quaint, charming feeling that really elevates the story and sets this apart from the rest of the MCU. It also lets the film-makers play around with old filming techniques and visual styles for their transitions or little montages that again take full advantage of the time period. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is just a spectacular-looking film, arguably one of the best-looking in the MCU or at least the best-looking since Endgame.

The absolutely perfect aesthetic choice helps elevate the story, feeling like those classic invasion films of the past, with shots that could easily be shown in a drive-in theatre back in the day. Galactus is an effective and fascinating villain who really looks incredible in this film, intimidating as hell with every shot looking like he could just unhinge his jaw and go to town on the planet. It’s potentially world-ending stuff, which is what a good superhero film needs, but the addition of the baby (which is a key part of what Galactus wants) allows them to focus the entire conflict down to a family level, which works great for The Fantastic Four: First Steps. It’s big in scale but somehow still intimate, letting the characters shine.

Those characters are genuinely spectacularly performed by the central cast, proving once again that the MCU has got some kind of gift when it comes to casting because they nail it pretty much every time. While the men of the The Fantastic Four: First Steps are genuinely great, the superstar of this film is Vanessa Kirby as Sue, who gives the film its beating heart and manages to go between benign the loving motherly type of character people expect, but also being an absolute badass who would lay her life on the line to save her family. She’s the one who carries the film through its emotional high points and Vanessa Kirby really feels like the revelation here. Close behind her is Joseph Quinn, who really takes the Human Torch and makes it his own, something that couldn’t be easy since the version people liked the most before this was the Chris Evans version, but Quinn pulls off the magic trick of making Johnny Storm charming, funny and sweet all at once.

It’s honestly just nice to see the Fantastic Four finally work out on the big screen, they feel like a family unit that is super smart and band together to save the universe. The whole film just keeps showing us how good they are as a team, and that connection pulls us through all the trials that they have to go through. It never falters for a second and that’s the secret sauce that makes this version actually work. You can’t help but care about this family, you can’t help but root for them to get the job done and save not only the world but each other. You can’t help but be pulled into this beautifully, fully realised world where the Fantastic Four have been saving the world for a while, we’re just jumping in on their biggest adventure. There’s so much joy and fun being had here that it’s impossible to not just admire it all. Hell, this film even has the time to throw in little cameos for the stars of the 1994 version of the Fantastic Four, the ones who didn’t get to become superstars (granted, would be lovely if those cameos were more of a moment because they’re very ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ but at least they’re there).

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the MCU doing what they do best and getting back on its feet. They’ve been stumbling around for a little while since Endgame, but with Thunderbolts earlier this year and now Fantastic Four, it feels like they’ve found their footing again. Fantastic Four is a glorious film, a fun time capsule that slips the first family of Marvel into the modern MCU with ease in a way that’s going to make them mainstays for years to come. It took a lot of tries but the curse of the Fantastic Four has finally been lifted, and god damn it feels good.