Fantastic Four: First Steps is so good that it erases the bad taste from the previous Fantastic Four movies. It’s as good as those movies were bad. And that’s VERY good.
Clearly, director Matt Shakman and writers Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer actually read the comics the movie was based on. That seems like a pretty obvious thing to do, but we’ve all seen too many movies made by people who never picked up a comic in their lives.
Now we have the new FF movie coming out the same month as the new Superman film, two great comic movies in one month.
The experience has been, well…fantastic. And Super!
The crux of the story is that the Fantastic Four have been together for several years and already saved New York City from various catastrophes, but now they face something beyond their abilities. The planet ravager Galactus (Ralph Ineson) is on his way to treat Earth like a salad bar and Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) does not know how to stop him. Shakman did the impossible and gave us a titanic Galactus who looked frightening and real.
As in the comics, Reed tries to reason with Galactus but it does not go very well.
Susan Richards (Vanessa Kirby) is pregnant but insists on fighting alongside her family, which becomes a key focal point.
A female version of the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) plays a crucial role in the drama.
Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) at last give us characters we can root for and respect. I even tolerated the robot, H.E.R.B.I.E., in small doses.
The key to the new Fantastic Four movie is the characterization of the four and the skill of the actors who portrayed them. Unlike previous incarnations, they are fascinating and heroic, and not the incredibly annoying characters of previous FF films. I mean, The Thing as a murderous government hitman from the 2015 film is best left forgotten.
Of course comic fans will quibble over a hundred little things they didn’t like, but all criticisms can be quelled with one statement: this is the Fantastic Four from a different Earth, so of course some things are different.
We’ve seen in the post-credit scene in The Thunderbolts that eventually this team might cross over into the regular Marvel Cinematic Universe next year.
This is a movie that comic fans and newbies will love and cheer. There are two post credit scenes in the Fantastic Four film, and the first one can’t be missed.
Now we have to wait until December, 2026 for Avengers: Doomsday to see the follow up. It’s going to be a long year.
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