Finally Marvel Delivers A Good “Fantastic Four” Adventure with “First Steps”

For the past couple weeks, I have been going through the previous iterations of the “Fantastic Four.” While the 2005 movie and its 2007 sequel had numerous flaws, they are light-hearted, fun and entertaining. The 2015 reboot, on the other hand, is just not great at all.

Now that Marvel’s First Family is finally part of the MCU, the family of superheroes are back (once again) on the big screen - only this time, this “Fantastic Four” reboot is actually good!

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/Mr. Fantastic, Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/Human Torch and Ben Grimm/The Thing - as they face their most daunting challenge yet.

Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god Galactus and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer.

And if Galatus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.

Finally! Finally we have a decent “Fantastic Four” movie! The latest reboot of Marvel’s First Family, “First Steps” delivers amazing visuals, a truly compelling story and a great depiction of the infamous comic villain, Galactus. “First Steps” also has a good mix between the corny humor and serious moments, especially with the humorous moments from Johnny Storm and the scene-stealing Mole Man character.

From the very start, “Fantastic Four: First Steps” does a great job engaging you to the movie’s story and characters and will have you completely entertained right until the very end. This reboot gives us a real quick glimpse of their origin story since their origin has been told numerous times (just like the recent “Superman”).

The beginning minutes of the MCU introduction of the family also provides us with a montage of the Fantastic Four battling some other villains not long after they received their powers. And, I think the montage sequence works since it skims through their

origins and we can get a glimpse of some of the other villains from their rogue gallery.

We also get introduced to a new version of the Silver Surfer character and the entire introduction of the character really creates a sense of urgency and dread, which is glimpsed in the trailers. While this movie’s version of the Silver Surfer character is a departure from the traditional version, it still works really well and the character has a very intriguing (and compelling) story arc.

Throughout the movie, we get to see more great action, primarily when the Silver Surfer and Galactus are involved. There’s an entire sequence where the Fantastic Four travel out to space to confront Galactus and we see how imposing and menacing the character is. The scene ends with both of them battling the superhero family and the action is visually incredible.

The final battle between Galactus and the Fantastic Four is, honestly, one of the best final battles recently seen in the MCU. The battle leaves you on the very edge of your seat and the battle can really get a little emotional for the heroes as Galactus wants their child due to the boy’s powers. 

There’s also a few moments in the movie where we see some people get upset with the heroes due to Galactus coming to destroy the planet and the only way to save Earth was to give the menacing villain their child - which adds a good amount of emotional depth. The visual effects that we see in the movie are incredibly well done and the 1960s inspired, retro-futuristic look is honestly one of the best looking MCU worlds ever seen!

Overall, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is a great MCU movie and shows that Marvel can still churn out a decent movie. The action is great, the casting of the heroes is honestly amazing and the movie’s villain is truly menacing. And, I highly suggest staying for the extra credit scene that will lead into the next “Avengers” movie!

Cast: Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic); Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman); Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/The Thing); Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm/Human Torch); Ralph Ineson (Galactus); Julia Garner (Shalla-Bal/Silver Surfer); Natasha Lyonne (Rachel Rozman); Paul Waler Hauser (Harvey Elder/Mole Man).

Writer/director: Josh Friedman (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes; Avatar: The Way of Water); Eric Pearson (writer) (Thunderbolts; Transformers One); Jeff Kaplan (writer); Ian Springer (writer); Matt Shakman (director) (WandaVision)

MPA: Rated PG-13 for action/violence and some language   (runtime 115 minutes)

Make sure to check out my Wyoming County Press Examiner reviews page on Facebook for some interesting fun trivia bits about “First Step” and to see what I have coming up on the review front! And here is what I have planned for the Aug. 13 edition: “The Naked Gun” (new release); “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990” (35th anniversary screenings at the Dietrich 8/13 and 8/17); Heretic (recent release); Patch Adams (In Memory - Robin Williams series); “Point Break” (summer throwback).

• The Excelsior rocket, which Reed, Ben, and Susan and Johnny Storm take to space, was named after the catchphrase of Marvel founder Stan Lee. In the comics, the rocket was named "Marvel-1".

• Shalla-Bal was created by Stan Lee and John Buscema for the first Silver Surfer comic-book series, its premiere issue being released in August 1968. In the mainstream comics, she is depicted as the love interest of Norrin Radd, the original Silver Surfer. Radd's version of the Silver Surfer previously appeared in the 2007 live-action film, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007).

• The HERBIE robot was portrayed through a combination of a wooden puppet, a remote-controlled animatronic with a functioning head and arms, and computer-generated imagery.

• Pedro Pascal dropped out of Weapons (2025) to work on this movie.

• Marvel Studios regained the film rights to Fantastic Four after The Walt Disney Company bought most of Twentieth Century Fox's film and TV assets, including franchises.

• The first-live action appearance of H.E.R.B.I.E. He appeared in Fantastic Four (2005), but his scenes were cut.

• On the same day of the film's release day announcement, Kevin Feige confirmed that the film would not be an origin story, a decision compared to that of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).

• Jon Watts was originally announced as the director in December 2020, but stepped down in April 2022 to take a break from superhero projects for a while. Had he stayed, this would've been his fourth Marvel film after the Spider-Man trilogy, tying him with Bryan Singer, the Russo brothers, and Sam Raimi for directing the most Marvel films.

• The first trailer received 202 million online views within the first 24 hours.

• The first trailer featured one shot of John Malkovich playing an at the time unidentified role. It was immediately speculated that he might be playing Mole Man, Nathaniel Richards or Red Ghost. The last character turned out to be correct, but shortly before the film was released, director Matt Shakman announced that Malkovich's part had been cut for time. The Red Ghost is still mentioned during the opening montage and one of his three super-apes is briefly seen being defeated by Mr. Fantastic.

• During the opening, it's established that the Fantastic Four were able to unite all of the world's governments into a utopia with one exception - Latveria, whose leader Doctor Doom is conspicuously absent. This foreshadows Doom's role in Avengers: Doomsday (2026).