Movie Review - The Fantastic Four: First Steps

The Fantastic Four: First Steps [2025]

So, a Fantastic Four reboot! This movie wasn't exactly on my radar. It was going to come, yes, I knew of the casting calls and that it was going to feature Galactus, but otherwise I didn't find myself particularly excited. I will have to admit that the Fantastic Four has never really been that high on classic Marvel superheroes that I was itching and chomping at the bit for adaptations to 'get right'. The first two Fox adaptations were... the first one was all right and honestly quite underrated, but the sequel suffered a lot from sequelitis, and the 2015 reboot was an abomination and easily one of the worst superhero adaptations to have ever graced the silver screen. 

But the Fantastic Four are still a 'big deal', Marvel's First Family that, in theory, should be commanding as much respect and popularity as Spider-Man, Wolverine or Captain America. And yet... they've never been, at least outside of the comic book circles. 

A good chunk of it has been because of how to handle them. Is the reboot going to go full-on Ultimate Universe on them? But would the cheesier tone of the Golden Age comics even work? Would it even be a proper Fantastic Four adaptation without the 'happy family' tones of the original comics? Well, the adaptation for the MCU, The Fantastic Four: First Steps goes full-in with the retro-futuristic themes and the vibes of the older Golden/Silver-Age comics and enjoyed a surprisingly wholesome summer as it released opposite DC's Superman (which I will get to reviewing eventually) which also embraced DC's first son in a back-to-basics approach. 

Fantastic Four: First Steps is extremely divorced from the rest of the MCU other than the post-credits scene, taking place on Earth-828 and having zero multiversal connections to the rest of the MCU universe. Which absolutely plays in their favour, as the Fantastic Four's whole thing in this movie is their relationship with the public, and how the Fantastic Four are the heroes of their time.

After an interesting opening scene where Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards and Invisible Woman/Sue Storm discover that Sue is pregnant, we get an old-school recap about the Fantastic Four's origin story and their career as superheroes. After a mission to outer space, scientists Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm were exposed to cosmic rays and gained superpowers, becoming Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and the Thing. The family of superheroes fought supervillains, with a quick montage showing them fighting threats like Giganto, Mole Man or the Super-Apes... and the movie is really intent on showing what an impact the Fantastic Four made on their world. There's a constant showcase of Reed moonlighting in a science show for kids, little toys with catchphrases made by the Fantastic Four, Sue creating a Future Foundation organization and interacting with the rest of the worlds... they're a perfectly wholesome group of celebrities, and Earth-828 is a much more peaceful place than the more war-torn real world, or even the 'main' MCU. 

And again, such a huge chunk of the early parts of the movie is devoted to this. Showcasing the Four's dynamic as Reed and Sue skirt around revealing the pregnancy to Johnny and Ben; Ben interacting with local kids and schoolteachers; Johnny trying to egg Reed to continue doing their science experiments; their interactions with each other, and showing off bits of the world around them like the adorable little robot butler HERBIE... it's honestly kind of bold to focus so much on the incoming super-baby, particularly Reed's anxiety around being the smartest person in the world and still being terrified of fatherhood.

And for the most part, I think the only character that's really shafted by this is Johnny, who doesn't really have much to do. Reed and Sue have a lot of material to act and pull from, and the 'brains vs. heart' theme going through the movie works well with both their discussions of parentage as well as how to deal with getting the world to work together. Ben/Thing is always the member of the Four that you can get a lot of mileage out of thanks to his more extreme cosmic transformation and the demeaning moniker of 'the Thing', and we get to see his interactions with his community. Johnny? This is a more mature Johnny, so he's not as much a womanizer or a impulsive hothead as his traditional incarnations, but that does kind of reduce him to just 'the other guy'. He theoretically has a bunch to do, being a secondary scientist, but I did feel Johnny is the member of the Four that didn't get the best spotlight. 

But hey, three our of four isn't bad! As Sue approaches her childbirth date, Reed reveals that his little gift to his son is a somewhat twisted but very cool sequence as he essentially brings down all the supervillains singlehandedly in a single night... and then just as if the world is mocking him, the skies explode as an alien, the Silver Surfer (a female version of the character) shows up and heralds the advent of Galactus. Johnny tries to fight and chase down the Surfer, but gets knocked off. He did hear certain alien languages from the Surfer, and he spends all his free time in this movie trying to decode it while his sister and brother-in-law deal with more pressing matters. 

Reed finds out that charting the course of the Silver Surfer, all the planets in her wake has been destroyed, and that this 'Galactus' is real and very deadly. Thus trying to confront Galactus, the Fantastic Four pile into their spaceship the Excelsior, and through a bunch of very cool retro-tech special effects, we get to see them fly off into space through a faster-than-light engine ring. It's a lot of cool stuff. 

They witness Galactus destroying a planet, and eventually get pulled into Galactus's ship. Again, in 2025 I don't think a lot of these special effects are going to be truly mind-blowing, but I still have to give praise to Galactus in particular... for the simple fact that it's actually not CGI, but a dude in a suit. No wonder it looks so good! Galactus is a giant alien titan who is fed the energies of the planets he destroys into himself, and he gives us his cryptic backstory. He is cursed with eternal hunger thanks to something called the Power Cosmic... but during the confrontation with the Four, Galactus demands Sue's unborn child, sensing the Power Cosmic within Sue. Galactus essentially plans to pass his own hunger and curse to the unborn Franklin. 

This leads to a fight and an escape as the Fantastic Four distract Galactus and fight with the Surfer, leading to another fun and very comic-book-y sci-fi sequence as the Silver Surfer pursues them through a wormhole. We get a pretty cool sequence as the Fantastic Four use a collapsing black hole as a way to slingshot them back to Earth, while trapping the Silver Surfer there. Again, this chase scene takes a while, but I really did like it for what it is. While all of this is going on, Sue gives birth inside the ship, and the scene manages to juggle tension and comedy quite well. 

As this second act ends, the Fantastic Four returns back to Earth to an adoring crowd, and you get the feeling that this is perhaps the first time the Fantastic Four has been so humbled and defeated. Being the honest, nice guys that they are, Reed announces that Galactus demanded Franklin and they refused, and they're planning a different strategy. This bout of honesty, however, causes the Fantastic Four's once-adoring public to turn upon them in the face of existential threat. It is quite depressing considering how upbeat and happy-go-lucky the first parts of the movie were, but it was very well executed. 

Sue and Reed get into some, again, well-acted and well-written arguments -- Reed being who he is, being the problem solver, of course has planned for the worst, and has to consider all the most terrible plans... as much as he is loath to do something like sacrificing baby Franklin. Sue also gets a powerful scene where she walks out and addresses the crowd that demands sacrificing Franklin to Galactus. Sue notes that everyone there is their family, whether their biological son or the people of the world, and the Fantastic Four do not plan on sacrificing anyone. 

While all of this is also going on, Reed and Johnny separately reach a breakthrough. Johnny manages to decode the language of Shalla-Bal the Silver Surfer. Meanwhile, Reed realizes that the teleportation bridge that he's been tinkering in the movie's first act could be used as 'Archimedes's Lever' and move the entire Earth itself. The Fantastic Four make use of the Future Foundation to build these massive bridges all over the world, going through a nice, Neon Genesis Evangelion style of cooperation to build these massive locations with the help of everyone in the world. 

It's all very inspiring and we get to see the Fantastic Four's role of superheroes as peacemakers, even convincing countries to shut off power to conserve power for the activation of the teleporter. However, the Silver Surfer arrives and began to systematically dismantle everything they've worked for weeks. She is confronted by Johnny Storm, however, who has decoded her language and transmissions they've picked up over the past couple of years... and confronts Shalla-Bal with her backstory. She's an astronomer from Zenn-La, who willingly gave herself up to Galactus to save her planet and her daughter. This... this is honestly a bit rushed, and the explanation of Surfer's backstory and guilt feels like it could've had a bit more time. It's not bad, but I did feel like this moment could've been done a bit better.

The Silver Surfer is shocked and traumatized enough by a combination of being confronted with the screams of all the dying planets as well as remembering her homeworld, and flies off. However, Galactus is still coming, and Reed devises a plan to use the last remaining teleporter in Times Square and teleport Galactus away. The problem? They need to use Franklin as bait. Reed and Sue get into a brief argument, but they eventually lock in on the plan. There's a short sequence of them asking Mole Man for help to evacuate New York underground, which... again, I like the mole Man, but he didn't really have a presence outside of the five seconds in the opening montage, and I felt like this could've been done a bit better. 

Galactus arrives, though, and this whole sequence to the last battle is amazing. Galactus is shown as an unstoppable titan, walking through the city like a boy would walk through a garden of flowers. The action scenes are a bit more subdued from the Fantastic Four's side compared to a lot of more recent Marvel movies, which I do appreciate... the powers of the Four are very much well-defined, with only Johnny's fire blasts and Sue's invisible barriers really being anything too visually spectacular. There's a lot of fun beats done with the relatively limited powers.

Halfway through the fight, Galactus realizes the ruse and trap when he sees that the decoy crib near the teleporter did not actually contain Franklin. But as the Fantastic Four all get systematically overpowered by Galactus, including a surprisingly painful moment as Reed gets stretched forcibly by the world-devourer, it's Sue that finally decides to make a last stand, using her forcefield to stop Galactus in place and push him towards the portal. There's also a sequence where Johnny decides to sacrifice himself to knock Galactus back... but Silver Surfer zips in, knocks Johnny away, pushes herself and Galactus to the edge of the universe. 

Sue dies from her efforts, but then a crying Franklin shows off his powers and brings her back. The movie ends as the superheroes prepare to appear on a live show... but then leave because there's another distress call. 

Overall? The movie feels quite by-the-books, if we're being honest. And not all of the moments landed as well as it should, with the act three Mole Man moment being a particular 'hmm, I feel I'm missing the set-up' scene for me. The Silver Surfer stuff was done competently, but I also felt like we could've had more scenes with her. And Galactus... is all right, even if the way he's taken out is quite simple. But there's nothing wrong with simple -- this movie is really just trying to give us the Fantastic Four dynamics, to give us two major moments in a Fantastic Four franchise (a Galactus battle and Franklin's birth) and to sell a new generation on the concept of Marvel's First Family. And whether it's the simple goofy costumes, the simpler stakes and even just how the old-school aesthetics and music of the movie, I feel this was a well-done labour of love. I really respect this movie.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Post-Credits Scene:
• 
  The mid-credits scene show four years later, when Franklin is a bit older and is shown to be a bit smarter than your average four-year old. As Susan goes off to get a book, she comes back to see Franklin interacting with a green hooded figure holding an iron mask... Doctor Doom!
  
• The post-credits scene is an excerpt of the in-universe Fantastic Four cartoon. 
• Past Movies Continuity:
• This taking place in an alternate Earth, we don't actually get many continuity nods other than a sign saying 'Westview Appliance Television', referencing the town of Westview where WandaVision is set. Ironically, Wanda Maximoff the Scarlet Witch was the cause of an alternate universe Mr. Fantastic's famously brutal death. 
• Movie Superhero Codenames: Very interestingly, only 'Mr. Fantastic' is only ever referred to by name, and it's made clear that it's something that's tacked on as part of his public persona. Sue, Johnny and Ben are notably never referred to by their superhero sobriquets of Invisible Woman, Human Torch or the Thing, even by the public. Shalla-Bal is also never referred to as the Silver Surfer, only as 'the Herald'. Mole Man is referred to by that name several times, but it's meant as an insult.
• This also extends to the catchphrases too, where the implication is that Human Torch's "flame on" and Thing's "it's clobberin' time" are marketing tools more for cartoons and cereal tie-in toys than something they actually say, just like the 2005 Fox movie. And just like that movie, Thing embraces his catchphrase in the climax. 
• Franklin's never referred to by his codename, but he's a baby. And to be fair, the editors could never decide on a codename for comics!Franklin either. 
• The mostly-unseen villains like the Red Ghost, the Super-Apes, Wizard, Diablo, Mad Thinker and Puppet Master are all referred to only by their codenames. 
• Favourite Action Scene: Less of an action scene, but the scene when Galactus finally makes planetfall and starts interacting with the world around him. A good runner-up is the subsequent fight as the Four try their best to stop this walking titan.  
• Funniest Line: "There's gonna be a time dilation." "Is it as big as mine?"
• During the montage of the Fantastic Four's superheroics, we get a recreation of their very iconic Fantastic Four #1, mirrored here, where they fought a giant green monster called Giganto. 
  
• While the content is new, the constant showcases of cheesy old cartoons are likely based on the '70's cartoon, The New Fantastic Four. Incidentally, that cartoon also infamously replaced the Human Torch with the robot assistant HERBIE who tended to be made fun of by the fandom, but later proved popular enough to make it into this movie. 
• In addition to the name-dropped Fantastic Four enemies above, the cartoons also show depictions of some other Fantastic Four characters like Dragon Man. 
• Just like Fantastic Four: Rise of the Siler Surfer, this movie features a scene of Human Torch chasing Silver Surfer in flight before running out of oxygen in space, and getting knocked down back to earth. 
• The cast of the unreleased 1994 Fantastic Four movie all make cameos. Alex Hyde-White (Mr. Fantastic) plays the newscaster William Russell, Rebecca Staab (Invisible Girl) portrays newscaster Carolyn Haynes, while two of the power plant workers rescued by Johnny are Jay Underwood (Human Torch) and Michael Bailey Smith (Thing).
• This universe is numbered Earth-828, based on Fantastic Four creator Jack Kirby's birthday (August 28th). 
• Shalla-Bal is traditionally the wife of Silver Surfer's alter-ego, Norin Radd. It is noted that Shalla-Bal has been the Silver Surfer in the Earth-X alternate continuity.
• Johnny's interest in her seems to imply that she also takes nods from Frankie Raye, a.k.a. Nova, an ex-girlfriend of Johnny in the comics that became a herald of Galactus.
• The Fantastic Four's company, the Future Foundation, is a team formed by Reed Richards in the comics that also features several guest stars (famously Spider-Man) that is a philanthropic organization meant to better the world. 
• Their spaceship, the Excelsior, is their creator Stan Lee's catchphrase in all of the letters he writes. 
• The cereal box Johnny holds is a homage to the Human Torch pin-up page from Fantastic Four #3. 
• One of the background signs references Timely Comics, the first name of the company that would later be renamed into Marvel comics. The two citizens in that shop are intentionally dressed up to look like young Stan Lee and young Jack Kirby, the two co-creators of the Fantastic Four. 
• A 'Cult of Galactus' is briefly mentioned in a montage all over the world. Humans that formed a cult worshipping Galactus was the plot of Silver Surfer: Parable, a book that won the Eisner Award.