Review: 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' is a stylish tribute to Jack Kirby

The narrative leading up to The Fantastic Four: First Steps was largely exhausting for those of us in entertainment media. Had Marvel Studios lost it? Could they keep this behemoth of a franchise going amid all the bloat? Would people still turn out, given Thunderbolts* underperformed (by gargantuan Hollywood metrics)? Director Matt Shakman has a tall order with this movie, beginning a new, largely arbitrary at this point, “phase” with a hopefully fresh take on a 60-year-old property. He succeed by doing the most radical thing the MCU has done in years: tell a focused story with loads of humor, heart, and style to spare, and actually make it feel like a comic book.

The trouble with the Fantastic Four, for some, is that they do feel a bit dated and married to the original Stan Lee and Jack Kirby days. Trying to make a gritty or desaturated FF just simply doesn’t work, as we’ve seen. So Shakman and company went t’other way with it, steering into the mid-century futurism and space age wonder. The movie takes place in an entirely Kirby-esque world, even giving us Earth 828 as a setting. (Jack Kirby’s birthday is August 28.) Deeply 1960s-coded.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps takes place four (ha) years into the adventures of the Fantastic Four. Following a space mission which bombarded the crew with cosmic rays, each receives their own, totally separate super power. Dr. Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), the smartest man alive, can stretch his limbs like rubber. Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) can turn invisible and create massive force fields. Her brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn) can set himself on fire and fly. And pilot Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) becomes a giant orange rock person with immense strength. We see a montage of their exploits against various enemies, including Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser).

Just as Reed and Sue learn she’s pregnant, a mysterious emissary, the Silver Surfer Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner), appears in The Fantastic Four: First Steps and heralds the coming of Galactus. Galactus will, in due course, arrive and devour the entire planet. So, good luck and hug your loved ones. This doesn’t sit well with our heroes, who go off into space to learn about their foe. Meeting Galactus himself (Ralph Ineson), the unfathomable being says they can spare their planet if they give up their child. Now, the family has precious little time to come up with a third option.

What works so well, and surprisingly, about The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the style and action hides what is actually a very small story with shockingly few characters. The movie is mainly, almost myopically focused on the Fantastic Four and their intellectual, ethical, and emotional struggle. Aside from the three villains listed above, only Sarah Niles as Lynne Nichols of the Future Foundation, Mark Gatiss as talk show host Ted Gilbert, and Natasha Lyonne as Ben Grimm’s meet-cute Rachel Rozman have major supporting roles. It’s a staggeringly small cast for a Marvel movie.

This allows for actual characterization. Reed’s inability to outthink this existential threat. Sue’s stalwart pledge to save her son and her planet. Johnny and Ben’s near-constant verbal jabs. It’s not just their superpowers and their comfy-looking costumes; it’s—and I can’t believe I’m saying this like it’s revolutionary—it’s characters we actually care about.

This is not to say The Fantastic Four: First Steps is perfect by any means. Ben Grimm’s storyline is severely truncated and Lyonne’s screentime is the bare minimum for any of it to work. Johnny also, weirdly, gets the bulk of the clunky exposition as he’s taken it upon himself to figure out what the Silver Surfer’s deal is. We barely see him do any of it, but he manages to write what amounts to an A&E Biography episode. The film beginning with an already established FF is totally fine. I do, however, wish we’d gotten to see more of the earlier battles, many of which might have fit the tone better. And some of the dialogue is really only saved by having such good actors delivering it.

As much as I enjoyed Galactus actually being the comic book Galactus, it’s almost too big a threat to feel like he’s really a threat. Aside from Doctor Doom (who we’ll see before we know it), Galactus is the most famous of the Fantastic Four villains, and “The Galactus Trilogy” is one of the Lee/Kirby run’s defining moments. The best action in the movie involves the Silver Surfer, but aside from that, she and Galactus kind of feel wasted in a narrative sense.

All that said, I really did enjoy The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The style works so well, if it did feel very Tomorrowland at times. This is perhaps the MCU’s first absolutely, truly, standalone movie, even if we know it will tie in to literally the very next movie. Unlike Superman over at DC, this movie didn’t need to birth a new cinematic universe. All this had to do was “hey look, here are these characters.” Low aim, high success rate. Easily the best Fantastic Four movie (faint praise), and firmly upper tier MCU.

⭐ (4 of 5)

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.