I feel like every time I talk about Marvel and the general state of the MCU, it’s to an increasingly apathetic crowd. Both of 2025’s earlier outings for the long-lasting cinematic universe – Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* – have been critical and/or commercial disappointments, with it becoming all too evident that Marvel’s dominance over pop culture was unable to endure beyond Avengers: Endgame. And yet, there was still hype and excitement surrounding The Fantastic Four: First Steps to the point where Marvel fans leading up to the film’s release said that this was the movie that would save the MCU and usher in a new era of box office dominance.
Honestly, it’s a refrain I’ve heard plenty of times before. It seems like every time there’s a new Marvel movie with the slightest bit of buzz, it will somehow fix all the problems that have plagued the series and its lack of direction since entering the 2020s, but there was at least something at first glance with The Fantastic Four: First Steps to support those early assessments. It doesn’t bother with any of the franchise’s bloated continuity, instead opting to tell its own story with an art style that is a sleek and stylish retro-futuristic look. It isn’t afraid to feel like a comic book from the 60s, and since it was clear that the film would set up the next major conflict in Avengers: Doomsday, fans had every reason to be excited about the future of the MCU if the film ended up being good.
For what it’s worth, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a remarkably polished and well-executed movie. It doesn’t course correct the MCU, though that has less to do with the film itself and more to do with the unfair expectations thrust upon it by desperate fans, but it tells a good enough story about family and how parenthood changes a person that is emotionally affecting and effective. At the same time, it’s also a toothless superhero film that’s afraid to rock the boat at the cost of interesting character development and meaningful conflict and is proof positive that Marvel needs to reassess how it plots its content years in advance.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Director: Matt Shakman
Release Date: July 25, 2025 (Theatrical)
Rating: PG-13
On Earth-828, the Fantastic Four are regarded as the premier superheroes of the planet. After a brief introduction for those unfamiliar with the team, we’re shown all their exploits over the course of four years, saving New York City from subterranean villains and super-intelligent apes. It’s all cute and decidedly Silver Age, but two things cause major shake-ups in the lives of Marvel’s first family. First, Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) tells her husband, Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), that she’s pregnant, much to the joy of her brother Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Reed’s best friend Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach).
While all that’s well and good, the other big change is the announcement that the Earth is going to be destroyed by a planetary being called Galactus (Ralph Ineson). The Fantastic Four are visited by Galactus’s herald, the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), and are told that Galactus is coming to consume Earth, nothing they do can stop Galactus’s hunger, and everyone should accept their end sooner rather than later. Naturally, the Fantastic Four won’t stand for this, so head off into space to stop Galactus and save the day, not realizing that they are so out of their depth that it’s almost comical once they realize how impossible their task is.
In a lot of ways, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a love letter to the Silver Age of comics. That era of comics is beloved for its weird and bizarre adventures that gravitated more towards comedy than drama. This was an era where Superman could shoot rainbows from his fingers or the time when Spider-Man grew four additional arms, but that adoration for the Silver Age is a double-edged sword. Sure, the conflicts were always light-hearted and fun, but it all came at the cost of having any meaningful stakes. Most conflicts were never too dark, and if something dark happened, the story usually resolved it quickly or used it as a fake-out to encourage readers to pick up a book.
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I bring this up because The Fantastic Four: First Steps tries to bridge this gap with some degree of success. The first act of the film is light-hearted and fun, mostly filled with comedy about how the Fantastic Four are preparing for Sue’s baby to be born and how the world is reacting to it, given that the team is basically the world’s most popular celebrities. We see The Thing try to impress some kids by picking up a car, Mr. Fantastic teaches children about science on his TV show, and Johnny begs to have the team’s costumes updated so they can go to space again. That comedy is quickly dropped when the seriousness of the situation sets in, as it becomes clear that Galactus is less of a foe that can be punched and more of an unstoppable force barreling towards Earth.
It’s that dread that makes the film stand out. Galactus is depicted as this huge and imposing villain, but he’s also shown to be a force of nature, much like a natural disaster. He’s amoral and is doing what he does solely because he needs to destroy planets to stay alive, and as the film progresses, that hopelessness becomes palpable and all-encompassing. The best scenes are in the second act as we see the world and the Fantastic Four come to grips with the fact that Galactus is a problem that they can’t simply be defeated.
However, it’s during these scenes that some of the problems of The Fantastic Four: First Steps begin to crop up, namely that while we easily understand the relationship that the team members have with each other, they don’t feel like fully developed characters. This is undeniably a result of not making this film an origin movie, which was the right call by the way, but it also comes with the expectation that you already know these characters and what their personalities are like. Because of this, the writing feels a lot more expository than usual, like when Sue calls her brother a ladies’ man, it’s not really based on anything that Johnny did in the moment, but rather a line directed at the audience to let everyone know something that wouldn’t be apparent in the main plot.
Copyright: Marvel
The same goes for The Thing and the struggle he has with his appearance. Ben’s inner turmoil about the loss of his looks is a fundamental part of his character, but outside of a single shot, that’s not present in First Steps. Reed and Sue are the same way, but while Reed benefits from having more dialogue and being played pretty competently by Pedro Pascal, the same can’t be said for Sue. Don’t get me wrong, Vanessa Kirby does well with what she’s given, but you can’t help but feel that her character is meant to provide exposition and espouse the morals of the film rather than be her own person.
If we knew these characters already, I would be more forgiving of this lack of development, but because we don’t, many of the big emotional moments don’t land as well as they could have. There’s a scene towards the end of the movie where Sue gives a monologue about the need to work together and stand as one against Galactus, but it’s only effective because the movie says it was. In context, the monologue is hokey and barely addresses any of the real problems the characters are facing with Galactus’ impending arrival. Since the film needs to get to a certain point, it has to be effective, whether the actual speech is convincing or not. If this were a Silver Age superhero comic book where plots were generally simplistic and straightforward, I would be accepting of it, but the film tries to have it both ways and doesn’t quite come together.
It’s funny though, because despite the film being marketed as a superhero summer blockbuster, there’s hardly any action in it. There’s really only two action scenes, but I’m okay with that because the drama surrounding Galactus’s arrival is far more interesting than any CGI battle involving the team could ever be. I mean, it’s there for those who like it, but it’s obvious that action was never The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ focus. The focus is on seeing the characters interact with one another, and even though they may be underdeveloped, the banter between the four of them is enjoyable. They feel like a well-oiled machine, working alongside each other to save the day, as they’ve done for years in-universe. So when the climax does start, I’m invested in it not because of the action, but because of the core dynamics of the team and the lingering question of whether they can stop Galactus.
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Without going into spoilers, the ending is probably my biggest gripe with The Fantastic Four: First Steps because of how toothless it is. It feels as if the film undermined everything that it had set up and everything that it did during the climax in favor of trying to ensure this could be the next major franchise for Marvel. I was rolling my eyes each time the movie wrote itself into a corner and then used a deus ex machina to undo whatever happened because it would hurt the future of the team. You would think that, given the post-credits scene of Thunderbolts*, that something was going to happen to subvert our expectations, but nope. It goes the safe route, and the ending suffers for it. Consequences mean nothing, and the drama becomes all but irrelevant by the time the credits roll.
That’s why The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ homage to the Silver Age doesn’t quite work. Yes, it offers a good story about superheroes that excels at showing the Fantastic Four as a team and showing how gargantuan the threat of Galactus is for them. At the same time, it forgets to actually develop its characters and is desperate to maintain the status quo just because it would ruin future plans for the MCU. It’s one of the reasons why I stopped caring about following the ongoing plot of the MCU, because individual films can’t tell the stories they want to tell. After all, it could interfere with what three other movies are trying to do with their stories! There is a great movie in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but its limited writing, plot, and characterization hold back what could have been a genuinely great superhero movie. At least the art style is nice.
