The Fantastic Four: First Steps - Rebooting Four-Lorn Franchise Requires More Clobbering Time

By Jim Slotek

Rating: B-

It’s almost meta that the kitschy The Fantastic Four: First Steps takes place in a world where no other Marvel heroes exist. Here, Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) are the entire roster of potential world-saviors.

And in the days when Marvel cinematic characters were spread between rights-holders Disney/Marvel, Sony and Fox, the Fantastic Four was indeed an orphaned franchise. Its rights had bounced around so long, even B-movie king Roger Corman took a stab at filming one.

Now that Disney has absorbed Fox, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is, literally, a first step in integrating that franchise into an MCU of Avengers, Norse Gods and Spider-Men.

Pedro Pascal as Mr. Fantastic

So, as the title implies, the transition will proceed slowly. (But we are informed in the closing credits that the Fantastic Four will next be seen in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday).

For now, though, The Fantastic Four: First Steps takes place in that over-used locale/storyline the multiverse. Specifically, it takes place on Earth 828, in a vaguely 1960s-inspired New York where cars with fins and excess chrome traverse the streets and occasionally fly. (Fun fact: 8/28 is the birthday of the late Jack Kirby, who co-created the FF with Stan Lee).

In place of an origin story, we get a giddy backstory presented in a ‘60s-style TV newsmagazine, outlining how the four were astronauts who’d encountered cosmic rays that altered their DNA and gave them superpowers (super-stretching for Reed, forcefields and invisibility for Sue, flying flame powers for Johnny and a rock-like body and super-strength for Ben).

It even runs through their record against super-villains, including the Mole Man (the always great Paul Walter Hauser, whose character should have been the main villain in the movie, instead of barely more than a cameo).

Done. What would usually be at least an hour of a typical superhero movie, is distilled into a precis. Which allows the movie to deliver on its main storyline before you’re even an inch into your popcorn.

Enter: The Silver Surfer, herald for Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds.

A slight change: This Silver Surfer is female (Julia Garner), giving Johnny someone to crush on. I can’t imagine angry internet bros getting too worked up over this gender change, though. The Surfer was always kind of androgynous in the comics, like Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan without genitals.

Oh, I also forgot to mention, Sue Storm is pregnant with Reed’s baby – a detail that doesn’t escape the all-powerful eye of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), who sees something literally cosmic in the super-powered embryo and offers to spare Earth if they give up the baby (not a spoiler, this is in the trailer, repeatedly and loudly). So, add Sue’s baby to the list of Earth-threatening Marvel Macguffins that includes the Tesseract and Infinity Stones.

To the movie’s credit, both Galactus and the Surfer are depicted pretty much as they were in the comics. (In one of Fox’s earlier films, Rise of the Silver Surfer, the Devourer of Worlds was shown as a swirling cloud, which gives you an idea how far off-base that trio of movies was).

For all this, the action in The Fantastic Four: First Steps is more like the glue that connects scenes of bickering. Reed and Sue argue over how committed a father he’s going to be. Johnny and Ben argue over who makes better pasta sauce. This is between scenes where the four of them give press conferences.

The bickering often seems forced, like an attempt to mine the vibe of Guardians of the Galaxy, and usually slides into sentimentality (also forced). But in a very non-Marvel less-than-two-hours, The Fantastic Four: First Steps practically races the clock to get us to accept the unbreakable bond between these four cosmic heroes

We get it. This is their entry ticket into the MCU. And the space-age ‘60s vibe does add a little bubblegum to soften any attempt at over-seriousness (it brings to mind the use of ‘50s kitsch in the game-based series Fallout). There are even snippets of the ‘60s Fantastic Four cartoon, with Ben shouting, “It’s clobbering time!”

The next steps will be more important than the first if this open-ended intro is to last long enough for a Fantastic Five.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Directed by Matt Shakman. Stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. Opens in theatres Thursday, July 24.