The Media Man Reviews: Fantastic Four: First Steps

I don't like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Just throwing that out there so you know my stance on this stale, mouldy bread loaf, rotting carcass of a franchise.

When it comes to my experiences with the MCU, my older brother really got into the series and brought me and my younger brother into it with him. At first, I found the whole thing kind of cool and got interested in seeing these big superhero movies that are all connected together in one big universe. But then at around the time of Age of Ultron, I began to notice the flaws with the MCU and it only got worse and worse over time as the films began over-prioritizing comedy, trying to generate memes and trying to please angry feminists on the internet instead of actually giving us good stories and properly developed characters. It also doesn't help how the movies just began to get weaker and dumber with their plots with Captain America: Civil War being one of the worst offenders in that regard. Even now I still can't comprehend how anybody ever thought that trainwreck of a film was any good. Take in the fact that the MCU movies all start blending in together and feeling the same so therefore they get even less enjoyable to watch and you have a cinematic universe that was just doomed to fall apart eventually. In fact, my friend The Wandering Fox wrote a detailed essay all about how the MCU fell apart, and it wasn't recently when it began to decline either. This ship was sinking long before this decade began. And let's not bring up the garbage they've been producing on Disney+ either. Even MCU fans can't defend them because of how bad they are.

So if I hate the MCU so much, why am I doing a review on Fantastic Four: First Steps? Why did I go and see it? By younger brother wanted to watch it and he doesn't like to go alone, so I had to go and take him to see it. I had no interest in it at all and would've skipped it otherwise. As for my stance on the Fantastic Four? Eh...I have none. Sorry, but I've had very little exposure to the team. I haven't read any comics by them, not seen any of their cartoons and while I watched bits of the 2005 movie, I never saw it in full, never saw Rise of the Silver Surfer and I most certainly did NOT watch the 2015 movie! Given how bad that one apparently is, I'm glad I didn't see it. The most exposure I've ever had to the Fantastic Four where when they appeared in some episodes of the 1994 Spider-Man cartoon and that's it. So who knows, maybe this movie will serve as a good introduction to the team for me.

So with this being the fourth attempt to make a Fantastic Four movie (ironic I know), did they finally get it right? Or should we let Galactus eat this thing so we never have to see it again? Let's dive in and find out...

Section 1: The Story

The story is about the titular superhero group who are renowned heroes in their world and they're also a close knit family who always have each other's backs. Reed Richards and Sue Storm are also in for the biggest day of their lives when Sue winds up pregnant. But they may not have time to enjoy parenthood as the Silver Surfer comes to Earth with a cryptic warning: Galactus is coming and will consume their world. Now our heroes have to race against time in order to prevent the planet eater from consuming their world next...

I've already started this review by saying I don't like the MCU, so I went into this movie expecting not to like it and find it as disposable as all the other trash this pathetic excuse for a cinematic universe has thrown our way. So what did I think to Fantastic Four: First Steps? Well... I didn't hate it. I guess that's a plus? But I struggle to say that I liked it either. I'm going to warn you right away that this review is one of the most complicated I've ever written because my thoughts and feelings about the movie are complicated. So please, try to bear with me as I explain as best as I can how I felt about the movie. First, let's start with the good stuff.

The biggest problem I've always had with MCU movies is they over prioritize the comedy and seem more interested in trying to make people laugh than actually giving us a proper story with the Phase 1 movies, Captain America: Winter Soldier and the Avengers: Infinity War two parter being the very few exceptions to this. So does Fantastic Four: First Steps fall into this same problem as the other MCU movies? Thankfully no. While we do still have that typical MCU style of humour where they tell a joke and keep it going for several minutes and thus very quickly wear it out, it's not too overbearing here. They only use the humour sparingly, which I find incredible since the MCU is never usually this restrained with its humour, so the movie didn't feel like an insufferable viewing experience like some of their past movies did. Hell, they actually portray Galactus as a serious threat and not once undermined his presence with a dumb joke! Seriously, anytime Galactus is onscreen, he's treated as a serious threat and the tone of the movie becomes more serious as a result, and they allow it to stay that way! Why the hell can't this film series do that more often? If their films were more restrained with the humour like this movie is, they wouldn't be so annoying to watch half the time!

I also like how for a change, we have a superhero movie in where parenthood is a strong theme in the story. Very few superhero movies ever tackle this aspect of life with Pixar's Incredibles movies feeling like the VERY few exceptions to the rule, so that felt refreshing and like we got a more unique superhero experience as a result. We get a mix of emotions in the story that make the characters feel grounded and real because of this storyline. There's the joy and excitement that one feels when they find out they're expecting a child, then there's the tension as they accept their lives will change forever and then there's the unbreakable bond that forms when a child is born. It also helped to make the stakes of the movie not only feel bigger, but more personal for the characters too as they have to wrestle between saving the world or saving their child.

Also fans of Fantastic Four can rest easy knowing that unlike in previous Fantastic Four movies, the titular team are actually likeable heroes for once and don't have a dysfunctional relationship. I'd probably say their relationships together might be a little too perfect, but hey, at least we can like these versions of the characters and that makes the viewing experience more pleasant. Also tonally, the movie is much closer to the source material than the infamous Fant4stic was as it's more light-hearted and the scenery doesn't constantly look dark. Hell, even the pacing is much improved with the four depicted as being heroes already so now we can focus on who they are as characters and not developing them into becoming heroes. This allows for the movie to breathe and tell its own story for a change while providing more opportunities for the Fantastic Four to be heroes. Oh and the fact it's very standalone and has very little, if any connections, to the MCU at large really helps too. Newcomers like me can just dive into this movie and just focus on the Fantastic Four themselves with no need to worry about baggage from other MCU products. I've missed out on a lot of the MCU since I quite after Endgame, so it was nice that this movie was very stand alone so anyone like me who might not be keeping up with the MCU didn't feel the need to play catchup.

And as expected from a superhero movie, there's plenty of action to go around. They don't make it too action-packed to the point it gets tiring though, they use the action just right so that it gets thrilling to watch and it doesn't feel overbeating or overdone as a result. I'll cover more of the action later, but the most I can say is given the MCU's been doing this sort of thing since 2008, I'd be worried if they weren't able to do good action scenes at this point. XD It's like the one thing these films are usually good at...

So overall, the movie sounds pretty good, right? Well yes...but now we get to my complicated feelings about the movie. The thing is, I do think the script is competently written and there are some interesting things about it like putting parenthood at the forefront of the story...yet for whatever reason I was going through the movie just feeling nothing. No joke, this felt like the most nothing movie I've ever seen in my life. Nothing particularly wowed me or surprised me or got me engaged or anything. It just felt like I was going through the motions and more just seeing the movie, but not really getting into it if that makes any sense. It's so confusing, because the movie does have a pretty decent story with little to complain about, so how did it end up being so boring? I've seen one review saying the film felt "dull and lifeless" and I'd probably agree with him. It just felt like everyone was doing this movie because they had to, not because they wanted to, and they gave us very safe and very generic movie as a result. Maybe it's because superhero movies are so overdone that they've gotten boring now, and yet here I was mostly having a good time with Superman 2025. So why is it that movie technically has a worse story compared to this one and thus should be seen as inferior and yet I enjoyed Superman more than this movie? Once again, execution makes or breaks a story and in this case, it made Superman but broke this one. Most good superhero movies have a lively tone, incredible action, memorable characters and interesting commentary on the world around them. Fantastic Four: First Steps...has none of that. The tone is pretty even and doesn't really get that fun or lively, the action is pretty standard, the characters are pretty surface level and it has nothing insightful or thoughtful to say. It's also very predictable too with practically nothing that'll surprise you as the film goes along. It's just a very safe, very paint-by-numbers superhero flick that felt like it was just over and done with very quickly. This is a movie where you'll probably forget about it by the time it's over.

Also there are things in the plot that don't add up, like how or why Franklin is so powerful despite neither of his parents having god like powers, why on Earth they bring Sue on the mission despite her being pregnant at the time (seriously, even Reed, a very smart guy, should see why that's a bad idea!) or how Johnny was able to learn Silver Surfer's language despite her only speaking a single phrase to him. Come on, you expect me to believe that nonsense? That's as stupid as The Engineer somehow being able to translate Kryptonian despite being a human. You can't learn a language just from somebody giving you a single phrase! By that logic, I should be able to learn Spanish just becomes somebody said one sentence of Spanish to me! Also the Silver Surfer's heel-turn felt very forced and unearned in the end. I'll explain more in the character's section later.

So this, this really was such a weird viewing experience. The story has little to criticize about it and is technically a competently written story that surprisingly manages to keep the MCU's trademark humour restrained and has that nice theme of parenthood to give it its own identity and yet it somehow managed to feel very boring and very generic. While the previous FF movies are definitely worse than this one, I bet they're way more memorable by comparison since they're memorably bad and all. This one just isn't memorable at all, and by the time this year is over I'll barely remember how I felt about it...

Section 2: The Characters

This won't take long as there's not a lot to say about these characters, nor is there a lot of characters to talk about.

Naturally, we've got to start with the titular four heroes themselves, the Fantastic Four. Consisting of Reed Richards (played by Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (played by Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (played by Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm (played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach) , the Fantastic Four are not just a superhero team, they're also a family. Reed and Sue are married, Johnny and Sue are siblings and Reed and Ben are best friends, which in turn makes this team feel like a tight-knit group who always have each other's backs. It's nice to see them being depicted this way unlike in previous FF movies where they'd apparently act more like a dysfunctional group than a familial one.

Johnny and Ben are pretty surface level and have the least amount of character development of the group, which is a shame because Ben had a lovely scene where he was entertaining some kids and he's clearly into this woman he sees a few times in the movie, but the film's running time means it barely gets developed and it goes nowhere. Johnny's just a guy who wants to bang Silver Surfer and while he does prove useful a few times, him learning Silver Surfer's language and trying to get her to change her ways just didn't make sense whatsoever and really stretches credibility.

Reed and Sue on the other hand are more interesting. As the parents-to-be, they get the lion's share of focus and their situation is the most sympathetic and engaging of the group since they're going to have a son and the villain wants their son, so they have to do what they can in order to keep him out of Galactus's hands. I love seeing them be all Papa Bear and Mama Wolf respectively and pushing themselves to the limit for their sake of their child. Sue is also a very refreshing change of pace since most female characters in the MCU tend to be stone-faced, emotionless sticks-in-the-mud who act that way in a pathetic attempt to seem like a "strong female character" or tend to be complete assholes who's asshole behaviour is supposed to be seen as "empowering". Sue is none of that. She acts like a real human being and shows a lot of emotions and above all, a lot of love. She genuinely loves her husband and son and it's nice to show that as a strength to her character. See writers, you CAN have strong female characters without making them horrible or emotionless. =P

And then we have the villain of the movie, Galactus (played by Ralph Ineson). Galactus is depicted in all his giant, purple coloured and horned-helmet glory and he looks incredible. He's given a very threatening presence and you get the feeling that just trying to fight this guy is a battle you can't hope to win. He's completely unstoppable and it takes teleporting him off-world in order to dispel his threat, thus showing Galactus is so powerful that he can only be slowed down, not stopped completely. I like how the movie keeps his more tragic elements by depicting him as someone who sees his existence as a curse and he just wants to end his hunger. While passing on his curse to an innocent baby doesn't win him any sympathy points, it does at least provide an understandable reason why he does what he does. But then if he's so desperate to get rid of his hunger, why can't he just give it to literally anybody else? Why does he need this one random baby that's seemingly really powerful? What makes Franklin so special that it has to be him? He's not the only super-powered being in the universe! If anyone can explain this to me, I'd appreciate it, because the film sure didn't explain it. Still, Galactus was the only time the movie ever got interesting for me and I loved it whenever he was onscreen.

His herald, the Silver Surfer, aka Shalla Bal (played by Julia Garner) had potential to be interesting, but the execution did her no favours. She basically acts as a doom prophet, warning people that Galactus is coming and it's clear she regrets the role she has to play in Galactus's destruction of worlds. But then she gets a redemption at the end where she helps to stop Galactus from coming back out of the portal he's pushed into. This I don't buy. Her backstory is that she made herself a herald of Galactus to spare her home world, and yet it never once occured to her to turn on Galactus and put a stop to his actions before he destroyed all those other worlds? Even when Johnny tries to convince her to join them, she just flees and abandons Earth to its fate! And need I point out how she ruined the team's plan to teleport Earth somewhere else? She literally waits until the very last minute before she finally gets her shiny silver arse in gear and turns on Galactus! So no, I don't buy her heel turn for a second. Either she should've been completely evil or she should've joined the Fantastic Four from the start and battled Galactus. Instead, she's basically like most female villains nowadays where they have forced, unearned redemption arcs because women can't just be unrepentantly evil anymore. For some reason, it's OK to keep making male villains like this though, but not female villains for whatever reason.

Other than that, there's not much else to talk about. H.E.R.B.I.E. (voiced by Matthew Wood) is just the team's helper bot and Mole Man (played by Paul Walter Hauser) is some old enemy of the Fantastic Four who helps to evacuate the city and that's about it.

The titular foursome are OK with Reed and Sue being the best of the bunch and Galactus is the MCU's best villain they've had since Thanos. The rest of the cast have little to talk about. Still, at least they got the Fantastic Four themselves right...

Section 3: The Cinematography

The Marvel Cinematic Universe may have bad writing and poor characterizations a lot of the time, especially the more recent stuff, and their visuals have been going downhill in the eyes of many. This movie however I feel has some of the better visuals we've seen in recent years. At the same time, they're also visuals that we've seen a million times in other Marvel movies so I won't have much to comment on. You see what I mean by how superheroes have become so boring because of how many we've had in recent years? They're even starting to look boring too!

Anyhow, the Fantastic Four themselves are brought to life really well here. The costumes are very classic Fantastic Four with the blue and white and also look more detailed to make them look more convincing and realistic compared to the comic costumes. They also capture the looks of the four themselves too from Sue and Johnny's blonde hair to Reed's hair that has grey lines around the sides (though they should've made it more noticeable) and the Thing's trademark orange rocky skin. Seriously, it's unreal how convincing they made the Thing look here. While it's still easy to tell he's CGI at times, he doesn't look that out of place and when the cast interact with him, it feels like he's really there and they're doing so. Funny how this movie can do that but that terrible Pinocchio remake on Disney+ couldn't make Tom Hanks convincingly interact with a CGI kitten. XD

I also have to give massive props (no pun intended) to the movie for the fact that unlike Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Galactus actually looks like Galactus this time. He's not just a big cloud like in that movie, he's the Galactus we all know and love from the giant size to his humanoid appearance and his iconic horned helmet. And guess what? They managed to make it look cool! Goes to show that just because something looks silly in a comic, it won't look silly in real life. I love how his iconic costume is given a more mechanical quality to him to make him look more powerful and otherworldly. It makes him look a bit like a giant mech, but he still has his humanoid features, which further enhances what a bizarre, cosmic being he is. And like Galactus, the Silver Surfer looks really cool too with her iconic silver coated body and surfboard and like the Thing, she looks pretty convincing most of the time even if she's clearly CGI in a few places. So yeah, this is a movie that accurately captures the designs of the Fantastic Four cast and stays true to the comics while also giving them that MCU touch to make them believable in a realistic environment.

Speaking of the environment, I found the world of Fantastic Four: First Steps to be the most interesting thing to look at. It gives me huge The Incredibles vibes with how it's a 60's setting with a sci-fi twist and it looks pretty cool to look at and explore. It also helps how they made some of the sets real and it's not all just CGI scenery or done in front of a green screen so it looks like we really are there in this 60's sci-fi city with the characters. I even like how they're able to make the team's tower look real too and like you could really go there and visit it, even if it doesn't exist.

And of course, it ain't a superhero movie without good action and while the action is as standard as it comes here, it was still pretty cool to watch at times. I think the best scenes were the chase scene with Silver Surfer and the final battle with Galactus. Those scenes managed to feel intense and gripping due to the execution and we even get to see some creative use of the Four's powers, one example being how Galactus grabs onto a building to keep Sue from pushing him back and the Thing breaks down the building's supports so Galactus can't hold onto it any longer. The only problem is that as cool as the action is here, it's also very standard action that you'd get in a superhero movie and because we've had so many, it just doesn't feel quite as exciting anymore. Hey, at least in this movie the Fantastic Four aren't constantly getting their asses kicked like Superman was in his movie, so that's a plus. XD

Overall, the visuals are like the writing of this movie: competently done but otherwise nothing really all that special. It says a lot when the highlights of the visuals for me are the fact Galactus actually looks like Galactus.

Overall

Fantastic Four: First Steps is a movie that exists. That's the most I can say about it. Thankfully it's not as terrible or as insufferably annoying as other MCU movies out there. But at the same time, it's a movie that gave me the most nothing experience of my life. The story is OK but nothing special, the characters are also OK but nothing special, the cinematography is just very standard MCU visuals and overall it's just a movie that made me feel nothing overall. I can happily say it's one of the better MCU movies out there, but I still hesitate to say it's anything worth watching. If you're a fan of the Fantastic Four, then you'll probably love this movie. For me, it was just a movie I watched...and that's it. It says a lot when Superman 2025's messy script and bloated cast ended up being the more enjoyable watch when it comes to the superhero movies of this year. Hey, at least I'll remember Superman! I won't remember this one though, and all that does is show why it's time to give superhero flicks a rest now. They're just so overdone and it's making them less enjoyable at this point...

And that's it for this review. I hope you enjoyed it, even if I may have sounded very contradictory at times, and I invite you all to share your thoughts down below. Did you like Fantastic Four: First Steps? Did you not like it? Do let me know.

Come back again on Friday as I countdown my Top 10 Favourite Mega Evolutions. See you then media fans!

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