Review of Fantastic Four: First Steps — Superheroics Are Dead. Long Live Family Drama!

The latest reincarnation of the Fantastic Four has finally hit screens — this time from Marvel Studios. The film was supposed to be a fresh start for the iconic team and the entire Phase Six of the MCU. Instead, what we got wasn't a superhero action flick, but an unexpectedly serious (for a comic book movie format) drama about pregnancy, childbirth, and the life of newly-minted parents. Space is just wallpaper in the background. And Galactus? Hold on, we'll get to him.

First Steps is the 37th MCU film, but not part of the main Earth-616 timeline. Marvel cleverly stepped aside, moving the action to Earth-828: no need to explain why the team was absent for so long and they can start everything from scratch. However, ironically, no new beginning materialized.

This isn't a standard origin story — we see an already established Four with fame, experience, political influence, and contributions to world order. The first 20 minutes tell us: the planet united, armies disbanded, and superheroes practically eliminated crime. The viewer gets a glimpse of how they achieved this — but mostly they're just presented with facts. Plus they explain the peculiar cult of the Fantastic Four. A good chunk of the film is a retrospective report about what happened while the audience wasn't watching.

The deception lies in the genre. Formally, the marketing campaign promised us sci-fi superheroics with a global threat — but in reality the film is structured as family drama. The main conflict isn't with Galactus, but with the nursery. The plot revolves more around Sue Storm's pregnancy and preparing for the baby's arrival: the heroes discuss strollers, childproof the house, and chat about the future child.

At some point, Silver Surfer intrudes into the cozy domestic life and announces Galactus's approach. A threat? Absolutely. Importance? Somewhere between soft rugs and fire safety systems. No wonder Galactus gets tossed out with the rest of the trash in the finale.

We've seen family themes in the MCU before — family relationships in Thor, fatherhood in Ant-Man, or family drama in Black Widow — but there family served as part of the hero's personal conflict. Here it IS the plot. What is this if not a betrayal of expectations at the level of basic audience engagement? Instead of superheroics with philosophy and cosmic-scale threats — two hours of preparing for hospital discharge!

After finishing the viewing, you realize — the new film isn't about the Four at all. It's about Franklin Richards — Reed and Sue's son, the MCU's new hope. Franklin is one of Marvel's most powerful comic characters. An omega-level mutant capable of rewriting reality, stronger than Magneto and Professor X. The connecting link between the Fantastic Four, mutants, and the multiverse. Potentially, he could play a key role in Avengers: Secret Wars. But Marvel introduces this important character not as a hero, but as setup. Franklin isn't the story's goal, but its deferred meaning.

And what about the Four — the film's supposed heroes? Well, the writers substitute narrative completeness with promises of the future. This is the same problem that plagued Thunderbolts. Back then, the film turned out to be a teaser for the Fantastic Four. "Guys, we've got a transitional episode now, wait just a bit more — that's where we'll really deliver", we pointed out in that review.

Now F4 itself has become a transitional product. The audience is told again: buddy, wait, Franklin will grow up — then we'll really deliver. Will the entire Phase Six turn into a series of two-hour teasers without standalone value?! It feels like you're watching a prologue to something non-existent over and over again.

Formally the film has everything to look like a large-scale superhero event: planetary vistas, colossal objects, an antagonist — Galactus himself (Ralph Ineson), the devourer of worlds, a being of cosmic scale and power beyond human comprehension. But behind this facade lies one of the picture's main problems — the complete absence of real conflict.

There's no spectacular action here. And who would they fight? Regular criminals have been locked up in prisons, and someone like Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser) they simply negotiated with. Silver Surfer? A couple of sluggish skirmishes, more ritual-narrative than combative. Galactus? Well, he's clearly no match for the Fantastic Four.

The final battle with him is readable from the start, as the screenwriters follow worn clichés: set a trap, lure with bait, first knock down, then kick while down, strong women. The climax is reached when Galactus — literally — stands between a white woman and her child. No divine power, no strategy, just a clumsy colossus defeated almost bare-handed.

The demonstration of the heroes' abilities is minimized, as if the writers believed the audience already knows anyway. Invisible Woman disappears a couple times throughout the film. Mister Fantastic stretches about three times (at the end he gets stretched like a rubber band again and nearly torn apart — the film's most hilarious moment). Thing remains Thing. Human Torch ignites — flies around four times. On such material, we can't claim you should see the film for spectacle.

One of the film's few unqualified successes was the setting. The alternative 60s in the spirit of utopian retrofuturism are flawlessly realized. Imagine Fallout, but without war, radiation, and devastation — instead, technological progress went down an optimistic path. Flying cars, streamlined forms, button interfaces, round screens, monorails, glass and concrete in architecture — everything is designed with attention to detail and style reflecting that era's naive but charming ideas about the future.

Such an artistic solution allowed Marvel Studios to distinguish the film from cookie-cutter quasi-contemporary blockbusters. Credit should be given to the team of artists, designers, and decorators — the picture's visual language is cohesive and thoughtful. The special effects are professional and occasionally inventive, though they don't exceed the studio's usual technological standards.

We agree that Galactus's design deserves praise. For the first time in a long while, Marvel departed from realism and showed the classic comic character appearance without embarrassment. This isn't a redesign, but full respect for the source material. It's a shame the antagonist's actual presence doesn't match the visual scale: despite the craftsmanship, he feels like a giant decoration rather than a living threat.

With Silver Surfer's design, conversely, they overcomplicated things. Her embodiment is too glossy. The almost mirror-like coating interferes with reading facial expressions — emotions are there, but they're kind of overexposed. You have to peer at the screen, whereas a more matte texture and at least some makeup on the face could have easily solved the problem while preserving the image's expressiveness.

What happens when you make a superhero action film without action? Lots of walking and talking. Most of the runtime, heroes scurry across the screen, discussing, consulting, weighing options. And, admittedly, the approach itself — think first, then act — is unexpectedly sensible. Even when Silver Surfer appears with news of approaching Galactus, the heroes don't rush into battle shouting charge, let's beat him up, but gather, analyze, make plans. The only element of the film where you can feel Marvel's original formula.

The direction resembles a Brazilian telenovela from the 90s: conversations about feelings, family, career, morning shows, political speeches at an alternative UN General Assembly. Heroes get dressed, appear on talk shows, bask in television glory, eat, sleep, invent. Reed creates super-technologies, Sue pushes progressive manifestos. All this happens against the backdrop of a luxurious skyscraper where the team lives — peaceful bourgeois happiness in a retrofuturistic setting. Even when Galactus appears on the horizon, he's perceived as a technical inconvenience — a problem that can be solved in a planning meeting.

Ultimately the film has neither real movement nor tension: just polite, beautifully shot scenes of ideal people's lives, who face no real threats.

Despite script quirks, all characters look like people — not like celebrities, but as natural participants in events, albeit highly idealized ones. This decision works in favor of the film's family tone: there's no cult of strength, there's a cult of humanity, which reveals the acting roles in an unusual key for Marvel — through behavior, speech, and moral decisions.

Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) — the team's central figure. Presented not as a stereotypical genius-nerd, but as a cautious, rational leader. His approach to the Galactus threat — cold-blooded analysis and creating unconventional solutions, which allows the film to avoid crude superhero clichés.

Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) demonstrates emotional maturity and diplomacy. When it becomes known that Galactus needs Franklin (in exchange for preserving Earth-828), she alone goes out to dialogue with the protesting crowd. The scene is built on the principle: one for all and all for one. The film's true emotional center.

Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) proves useful not in battle, but in linguistics: he's first to recognize that the signals F4 previously received from deep space and Silver Surfer's language match. This allows establishing psychic contact with the opponent and playing an important role in the resolution. His image contains less toxic masculinity and more rational thinking — an unconventional but justified new take on the character from a script function standpoint.

Ben Grimm / Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) — plays more than just a comic bruiser. His arc is an attempt to preserve humanity in a monstrous shell. He cooks, cares for children, communicates with elderly people. The actor clearly tries to give the character inner softness, though he objectively has little time for development.

Shalla-Bal / Silver Surfer — a rare example of successful gender-swapping in casting. Julia Garner managed to show her character as a tragic hero torn between serving Galactus and her own moral limitations. Emotional range, facial expressions, and pauses make her image convincing, despite the visual design flaws mentioned earlier.

The film's dialogue is maintained at a good level: characters don't just exchange lines, but actively discuss events, propose ideas, and react to each other. Phrases sound natural, aren't overloaded with clichés, and give viewers a chance to feel character motivations.

Pascal and Kirby hold the emotional framework — scenes between Reed and Sue turned out best — you can feel real connection, mutual respect, and striving for compromise, making the family storyline the most developed part of the script. The cast keeps the film from falling into sterile, decorative drama territory.

Technically the film is solid — picture, lighting, special effects meet Marvel Studios standards. Audio accompaniment handles the emotional depth the story requires. The soundtrack by Michael Giacchino works in sync with the frame, but barely works as an independent musical theme. There's not a single melody you could hum after leaving the theater — not like Iron Man, not like The Avengers, not even like Loki.

Fantastic Four: First Steps is neither a failure nor a breakthrough. The film leaves a feeling of strange emptiness and boredom. Despite all the technical precision and competent acting work, Marvel once again releases a project where the plot serves the franchise's future, when we'd prefer it to work as a standalone story.

Fine, Secret Wars will come out then we'll really sing .