In the early 1960s, astronauts Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) are bombarded by cosmic rays during an interstellar flight, granting them superhuman powers. As the Fantastic Four, they operate as beloved heroes and protectors, promoting science and diplomacy in addition to thwarting criminals. However, a pair of arrivals soon threatens their idyllic status quo: Sue and Reed prepare to welcome their first child unsure of how their powers might affect him, and the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), herald to the godlike planet-devouring Galactus (voiced by Ralph Ineson), tells them that Earth has been targeted for destruction.
Its Space Age origins may mark the Fantastic Four as outdated, but at the time of the team’s creation, public-facing superheroes that were also a flawed, dysfunctional family were something of a radical idea. Adaptations – and there have been plenty over the years – tend to either acknowledge the 60s-spawned cheesiness with a wink or a nod or subvert it by cranking up the dysfunction. Neither approach has been particularly successful. If nothing else, First Steps deserves credit for trying something different.
That something is full-bore, unironic retrofuturism. The team wears bright blue costumes and battles foes such as Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser), the film’s production design nails a period-appropriate look and feel, and Michael Giacchino’s upbeat score is a good fit for the film’s tone. Speaking of design, whereas CGI quality in Marvel films has been hit-or-miss as of late, the team behind the First Steps manages to render characters that might look goofy in lesser hands – such as The Thing and Galactus – convincingly.
The film is also well-cast with all the leads displaying strong chemistry. Pascal is once again protecting a child, but don’t go looking for the hard edges of Joel Miller or Din Djarin: Reed is instead waging an inner war on the worst-case scenarios he can’t help but imagine. Moss-Bachrach (whom no one will confuse with looking or sounding like Jack Kirby but who is, at least and at long last, finally, a Jewish New Yorker playing Ben Grimm) does manage to occasionally evoke The Bear’s Richie, however, albeit the mellower post-“Forks” version. Kirby pushes Sue past one-note “protective mother” cliches, and Ineson’s voice – imposingly deep and threatening yet tinged with weariness (Galactus is clearly over having to feed on planets to survive) – suits the character well.
And yet for as well-performed as they are, the characters do not feel completely written. Reed, Marvel’s poster boy for “insufferable genius,” keeps the genius but does little more to offend than missing a few social cues. Ben lacks both his source material’s coarseness and hang-ups regarding his transformation while Johnny is a far cry from a hotheaded playboy. He and Ben may lightly needle each other but not in a way that suggests any real dysfunction. This idealization extends to the harmonious, unified world which the characters inhabit, a bland pleasantness that saps the film of tension and complexity. Matt Shakman, best known for his television work, is competent enough in the director’s chair, but the screenplay, credited to four writers, is downright weak.
Debuting
shortly after the similarly retro-inspired and optimism-fueled Superman,
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a less cluttered affair. It’s a
nostalgic sop of sorts to those who miss Star Trek: The Original Series’
sense of possibility through exploration and innovation, but amid Marvel’s
increasingly byzantine mythology and countless clumsy attempts at either grit
or relevance, is that simplicity such a bad thing?
