The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) Review
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
Prepare for a contrarian opinion...I thought The Fantastic Four: First Steps was only ok...in fact, it's so ‘only ok’, it's a little boring.
An attempt at the Fantastic Four has been made and remade for the big screen seemingly every decade since the 90's, and with varying degrees of success. The 1994 unreleased first entry about Marvel's First Family wouldn't see the light of day, made only in an effort for the studio at the time to retain rights, while the other three varied in their fun factor as campy superhero romps in the 2000's and a disturbingly dour outing in the 2010's. Now in 2025, the superhero landscape looks very different a further decade on, and with the rights squarely back in Marvel Studios hands, it's time for a new introduction to Marvel comics most famous family.
Set in the 60s, and on an alternate earth (earth-828 for those keeping score), the Fantastic Four are four years into their careers as superheroes. The public have fallen in love with the family, and each member has a prominent role in society, even outside of their superheroics. One evening however, the nighttime vista from the Fantastic Four’s Baxter Building turns orange, as a powerful being from another planet enters earth's atmosphere carrying a warning. The herald to the evil, planet-devouring Galactus has selected earth for Galactus's next meal, and that the countdown to earth's demise has now begun. With this warning echoing across the planet and with the world looking up to the heroes to save them, it's up to the Fantastic Four to defeat the threat and save the planet from extinction.
Setting the film four years in the future is a clever way to tell an origin story without all the exposition of an origin story. The family are into their superhero career, with nothing but a quirky 60s inspired vignette alluding to the events that gave them their powers rather than feeling the need to do it on screen. It's a great device for catching the audience up, particularly given the criticism that Marvel has faced from audiences long bored of the generic and overly familiar template for origin movies, but the real benefit is felt in the storytelling. Not having to spend time on the origin story gives more time to the actual film you're watching and with First Steps definitely on the pacier side of the MCU, it wastes no time in getting the story moving - no doubt an influence of the film’s director, Matt Shakman and his extensive work in television.
Luckily, having little time to linger does give us the benefit of avoiding some very questionable CGI, an issue the film struggles with in droves. Whether it's The Thing seemingly floating in the frame whenever he's added to a bustling New York City street, or Sue and Reed's son, baby Franklin's uncanny valley presence, it's really not that great and is incredibly distracting for a film that's inevitably going to be 60% green screen. It's particularly jarring when the Cronenbergian baby is paired with The Thing, as two CGI models - probably rendered at different studios - are forced to play with one another. A floating mess.
Now, there are obvious reasons why using a CGI baby is not only needed, but is necessary for a production of this scale, but in losing the physical presence of anything, and in particular the baby, we definitely lose something to connect to as an audience and it makes everything seem strangely hollow. Think back to how bad the baby was in American Sniper, all you could think about was how awful it looked, and it's the same here. The weighty gravitas of some scenes just evaporate once you see the lifeless deep fake of Franklin's face move ghoulishly one way while the CGI model moves in another.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
CGI aside, performance-wise the rest of the ensemble is aptly cast and play the roles in exactly the way you'd expect them to. Despite the characters they're playing not exactly reinventing the wheel, the actors playing them are doing their best and earning their place at the table. Easy standouts, mostly due to having something to do other than just be there, are Vanessa Kirby and Joseph Quinn. They are great as matriarch and jester, and give you a sense of who they are and how they will fit in within the inevitable roles they’ll play in the future web of movies. It would have been nice to see more of Ebon Moss-Bachrach, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I’m sure he’ll have much more to do in the inevitable sequel and Avengers spin-off’s.
As taken as a whole package, the movie is absolutely fine, and easily enough if all you’re looking for is a safe way to start the next phase of Marvel movies, but the issue I can’t seem to shake is one that many others don’t seem to have had now the film has rolled into cinemas. At the core of the film, in spite of all its fine-ness, it doesn’t really do much more than what the phase one movies were doing back in the late 2000’s. It falls back on old processes, very generic in its storytelling, under-using the villains, and relying on very familiar tropes to tell the story. While it succeeds for the most part in taking advantage of the films it's trying to emulate, its paint by numbers approach is ultimately too safe for its own good, and I’m not sure that’s good enough. If we take our heroes as an example, they are all very fine, but Reed Richards is just a panic stricken super scientist at his core, Sue Storm is the heart of the group, The Human Torch, and Thing, both working as the comedic relief - haven't we seen these traits before? It all feels very familiar, very phase one, and very 'let's give this a go and hope people like it'.
Now this isn't me having a go at phase one movies, or even really a criticism of First Steps per se. The early films were a perfectly fine way to kick things off, and it's the same here too, but given how many origins we've had over the last 12 years, it's quite hard not to expect a little more. Something akin to Guardians of the Galaxy, or Black Panther would be a tall ask, but given the sheer number of attempts this franchise has now had at bringing new heroes to the big screen, I can’t help feeling that this should have been one massive First Step in a new direction, rather than 37 steps back to a place we know all too well.