The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Our Review

The first family, finally in the right hands. Marvel’s third attempt at the Fantastic Four plants them in a gorgeous retrofuturist 1960s, a Kennedy era New York with chrome rockets, analog televisions, and a public that treats its heroes like astronauts and celebrities rather than vigilantes. Matt Shakman’s film is a family sitcom wearing a space disaster, and the tone is the warmest the franchise had struck in years: the four bicker over breakfast, raise a baby, and run a mission control staffed by mailmen in robot suits.

The casting is the win. Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards is a shy genius whose ambition is the film’s quiet flaw, Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm anchors the emotional weight, Joseph Quinn’s Johnny is a hotrod charm without the smirk overdose, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Ben Grimm does the unthinkable: he plays the tragic rock as the family’s heart, homesick for a body that no longer exists, and the motion capture holds up in closeup.

Julia Garner’s Silver Surfer brings genuine awe, a herald who announces the end with sorrow, and Ralph Ineson’s Galactus is a planet eater staged as a shadow across the sky, a devil in broad daylight rather than a boss fight. The climax turns on the Surfer’s mercy and Reed’s willingness to be wrong, an ending that swaps the customary punch up for a negotiation held at gunpoint by physics.

Our score: 6/10, with the best ceiling of any recent Marvel reboot.