Fantastic Four First Steps is Mid-Century but also mid

2 days ago 6

I don’t begrudge anyone who found Fantastic Four First Steps a delightful film that evoked feelings of joy over the Fantastic Four. These OG Marvel characters have always had an endearing, old timey feel, and many fans have a big soft spot for them.

For myself, it was a pleasant two hours (plus a half hour of short 2 minute films, i.e. trailers), but I could also see the desperation sweat pooling under those thick ban-lon turtlenecks.

FF:FA is a crucial movie for the MCU – we could even call it the MCU’s Justice League, a movie with so much riding on it for the future of the franchise. But not just any franchise: THE franchise of the 21st Century, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With recent outings performing like just another mediocre movie and not a cultural event, Fantastic Four has to stop the slide and usher in the next two Avengers movies.

The film, directed by Matt Shakman and written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer, is obviously sincere in its desire to bring Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny to the screen as compelling characters in a very different Marvel Universe. But whenever you see that many writers on a project you have to be suspicious. And indeed, the script – and the entire production really – shows many signs of decisions being made for future Hasbro playsets and not moviemaking, at least for me.

The Beat staff has an immense roundtable with many different opinions running as you read this, most of them positive, but there are many inevitable comparisons to Superman. But it isn’t really a competition: James Gunn on his own is a far superior filmmaker to the Marvel braintrust or whatever they are. His unity of vision is what gives Superman its power and charm: the script came first and sets up character arcs, moments, motivation and unexpected laughs in a way that feels united and organic. James Gunn wanted to make the best Superman movie possible in 2025, and the studio – having messed things up so many times before – decided to let him pull it off.

But Fantastic Four has so many masters to serve. As the kick-off the Phase Six, it shows all the cracks and shortcuts that made Thunderbolts• a very very mid outing for me. While again, I don’t question the sincerity and talent of the filmmakers, they wanted to make the very best MCU FF film possible, and that is a big distinction.

As many have noted, the script is all over the place, with a particularly slapdash second act. SPOILERS FOLLOW: Galactus asks the FF to give him Franklin in exchange for not eating Earth, but Reed (Pedro Pascal) and Sue (Vanessa Kirby) don’t want to. Instead they put their infant in jeopardy as bait to get the Big G to walk into a trap. In a film that is meant to be lighthearted and cozy, parents dealing with a gruesome Sophie’s choice over saving their planet or their child isn’t really a drama that is going to be explored in depth, but it gets even shorter shrift.

Before this there was a scene which puzzled me greatly. Michael Giacchino’s score is one of the highlights of the movie – and a nice bookend to his score for The Incredibles, which was also based on the Fantastic Four, although covertly. As in most modern movies, the score plays incessantly. Even in a scene where Reed talks to his baby son, Franklin, and confesses his doubts about their plans….and about Franklin’s powers and his own fatherhood. It’s the dramatic center of the movie, really. Most such scenes in films don’t have a soundtrack playing, but in FF First Steps not only is Giacchino’s score playing, it’s the ‘chugga chugga string section” montage music that EVERY DAMN SUPERHERO MOVIE HAS. It took me right out of the scene and showed me that no one was seriously trying to make a film that moved you.

The final edit was whittled down quite a bit and entire characters were left on the floor – including John Malkovich’s Red Ghost. I feel like a lot of characterization also got snipped. Take Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn). Johnny’s early comics characterization was a womanizing hot headed kid, and the previous two versions of the film stuck with that. The previous two Johnnys were also played by Chris Evans and Michael B. Jordan, both of them certified Sexiest Man Alive, so we have to believe these Johnnys were successful on Hinge. But this Johnny’s love of the ladies was also left on the FF:FA cutting room floor – or perhaps left out entirely because people in the MCU never ever do, you know, that thing. (A line where Reed and Sue hint that Franklin’s origin involved more than just holding hands shocked me, so chaste is the MCU.)

Anyway, instead of showing us anything about Johnny’s social life, we’re told he likes girls by other people all the time…so that when Shalla Bal (Julia Garner) shows up, he’s obsessed with her and everyone jokes about it. It’s telling and not showing, and it’s weak storytelling. (BTW, I wasn’t in love with Space Gidget, but Garner was fine.)

Or take the Mid-Century setting, which has garnered much praise – and deservedly. FF:FA is an art director’s dream and they really went to town on it. But why this setting? Yes, it fits with the aesthetic of the FF as a chummy family with a conversation pit in the middle of their home, but (and here I am venturing a bit into conspiracy theories) it’s also ultra marketable. The Marvel COMICS booth at SDCC 2025 was really a Fantastic Four First Steps booth, with the entire thing redesigned to spotlight the costumes and the Ted Gilbert Show and mod sofas and so on. (Comics were very hard to spot anywhere.) While I noted that the set design evoked a Tomorrowland feeling, if you were Disney wouldn’t you LOVE to just rebrand parts of Tomorrowland as Fantastic Four Land? You hardly need to do much of a makeover. You can hear the gears of synergy in Burbank grinding from here.

All that said, I’m very glad that Shakman and Feige and Co. decided to make this a charming period piece. It is certainly a lot different from other MCU movies, and they also wisely used SETS and IN-CAMERA EFFECTS wherever possible instead of the dodgy CGI that has been plaguing recent outings. Galactus was very cool (and again a guy in a suit in some shots) and got his due. H.E.R.B.I.E. was great and this should have been called “The Fantastic Five.” While noted Marvel critic Rob Liefeld has been all over Twitter complaining about a Thing who makes pasta instead of clobbering things, Ebon Moss-Bachrach was perfect casting for a mostly CGI character. Kirby’s Sue joins Scarlet Witch and Jean Grey as underpowered Stan Lee superheroines who have gradually become the most powerful characters in their respective franchises. And if you think anything she did at the end was overblown, well just watch some videos of mama bears.

Finally, all the homages to Jack Kirby – Earth 828 (Kirby’s birthday) and the quote at the end – were wonderful. I will never, ever hate this movie just for that reason.

https://x.com/Comixace/status/1947547117850886217

WHAT COMES NEXT FOR THE FF?

Marvel and Disney are now left feeling around for a plan: FF:FA was meant to be a blockbuster reset for the entire MCU. Instead it had a 66% drop off in its second weekend, less than Thunderbolts but a lot more than Superman (which had a 53% drop-off). Even worse, Superman now looks to be the #1 superhero movie of the year, and in a blow to SndrBr*s, will surpass Batman V. Superman at the box office (but not in inflation adjusted dollars)

A lengthy piece at The Wrap analyzing Fantastic Four’s box office disappointment, laid it all out:

The retrofuturistic spin on Marvel’s “first family” has largely failed to make the leap from hardcore fans to a wider audience despite that buzz from the former, resulting in a hold that was only two percentage points better than the 68% drop of the tepidly received “Captain America: Brave New World” earlier this year and the critically lambasted 2015 “Fantastic Four” film, which also dropped 68% from its poor $25 million opening.

Critics also compared it to Superman unfavorably:

Film critic Aaron Neuwirth compared the buzz around “First Steps” to that of “Superman,” saying that while “First Steps” pleased most longtime Marvel fans with what is widely considered to be the best cinematic interpretation of Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben, the film “lacked an ‘X’ factor” that the DC reboot film had.

‘”Superman’ had a lot of things people enjoyed that they weren’t necessarily expecting. For weeks, people have been talking about Krypto, Mr. Terrific and the Justice Gang, etc. ‘Fantastic Four,’ which I did like, didn’t have that by comparison,” he said.

Oh dear, X-factor. Maybe yuo should have left that Red Ghost in after all, eh?

In a piece by one of my favorite critics, VF’s Richard Lawson, he called the film a hit, but pointed out that might not be the best result; maybe a failure would teach Marvel some needed lessons:

A dark part of me almost welcomes that potential future. Even vaguely rooting for a movie to fail is a reckless thing to do in these days of fading industry; we’re talking about thousands of jobs here, done by people who have little say over the creative decisions at the top, not to mention the tastes of moviegoers. I don’t actually want any new movie to stumble. (Except maybe one.) Yet a failure could be valuable for Marvel, could help the studio learn a lesson so that the inevitable superhero movies to come might, at least, be better.

It wouldn’t be hard to improve upon Fantastic Four, an occasionally stylish but otherwise totally boilerplate superhero movie. At this uncertain point in MCU history, it’s a little shocking that the studio was comfortable delivering such a bland and perfunctory film—especially when it’s arriving at a crucial inflection point for both Marvel and the wider business.

I’d point to another issue with Fantastic Four: it is not a movie that will especially appeal to kids, despite H.E.R.B.I.E.’s humorous antics. Say what you will about the film but it is not silly; however kids like silly stuff, and I didn’t see much that would make this repeated viewing for them.

Another thought struck me while I was writing this very piece and noted the “X-factor” comment. The X-men cast is the next big introduction to the MCU, but a funny thing has happened to the Marvel characters in the 17 years since Robert Downey Jr. debuted as Iron Man: they’re not really for kids any more. There are a few cartoons starring the Marvel characters being broadcast in various places, but not a lot. Aside from Spider-Man, who remains eternally relevant to all ages, kids aren’t really learning about their new Marvel favorites from shows aimed at them. Of course they are getting a healthy dose of books and comics that spin out of the MCU, but that’s the cart behind the horse, not the horse.

Why do I bring this up? It is a very important part of comics history that Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series airing in the 90s are part of why older teens and young adults still even knew who the DC and Marvel characters were by the time they were ready to go to the movies to see them from 2000 on. Without X-Men TAS, there would have been no X-men the movie. Kids – children – simply aren’t nostalgic for the FF. Adults are, but not enough of them. I do acknowledge that kids don’t sit down at 4 pm every day to watch cartoons on linear TV, like they did 30 years ago, but you can’t be nostalgic for characters you never experienced.

The MCU films have of course been wildly popular with all ages, and Marvel characters are certainly better known with the general public than they ever were before. But it’s unlikely that Feige & Co will ever recapture the magic of the Thanos Saga. The sprawling X-men saga that Fox put out spanned 14 films (counting Deadpool & Wolverine, which I certainly do) over 20 years. Are young audiences really going to be so excited to see a new version of Nightcrawler that they leave their YouTube surfing on the couch to go to a movie theater? I would submit that if Nightcrawler is presented in the now threadbare house style of the MCU, they will not.

Fantastic Four First Steps is a cute film that I would watch again, and makes some first steps toward breaking out of the house style. But unlike Shalla-Bal heralding the arrival of the planet-earing Galactus, the main thing Fantastic Four is heralding is more questions about where the MCU goes from here.