The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Marvel’s Fantastic Four Takes Their Memorable First Steps Inside the MCU

The two best comic book films of 2025 —Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps — are stripped-down tales that focus on relationships, the power of diversity, family (both genetic and found), and, most important of all, hope. They are built around an idea that, while great power does require great responsibility, it also demands selflessness, compassion, and empathy. All life matters, and no one is dispensable. I find this interesting.

While I prefer the former to the latter, it goes without saying that Marvel’s fourth attempt (coincidence?) to bring their “First Family” to life on the big screen is by far their most successful. Director Matt Shakman, the man behind the Disney+ television series WandaVision, has done a lovely job breathing life into the retro-futuristic 1960s world of Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), his wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), her brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn), and their best friend Ben “The Thing” Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). It’s hard not to walk out of the theater without a happy smile firmly planted on your face.

It helps that all four actors work splendidly together. There is clear affection between them, and their overall chemistry is intoxicating. The quartet’s interpersonal dynamics are all authentically lived-in right from the start. This allows the building emotional maelstrom they’ll be forced to face to become all the more affecting in large part because of this.

Kirby is especially strong. Her work during a stirring interstellar escape sequence and in latter scenes where Sue internally wrestles with the truth that her brainiac husband has been logically pondering the horrifyingly unthinkable is spellbinding. It’s a superlative performance, arguably one of the best the MCU has ever had the good fortune to showcase.

However, events do become jumbled as they progress toward their action-heavy conclusion. Five different writers are credited with the screenplay and the original story, and maybe this is why things do come off as somewhat thematically discombobulated. Or, it could be that the producers applied their own heavy hand behind the scenes, cutting certain moments between characters that might have allowed the material to sing with additional authority. I don’t pretend to know the answer, but that doesn’t mean I still couldn’t shake the feeling that there were way too many cooks working in this particular kitchen, and that meant I didn’t find this comic book meal entirely filling.

But enough so I can still say I had a wonderful time watching this iteration of The Fantastic Four work together to fight for humanity’s survival. They’re up against Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a massive celestial being who literally consumes planets to sate a never-ending hunger. His arrival on Earth (an Earth from an alternate dimension to the one all of the main characters of the current MCU inhabit) is heralded by an elegantly ethereal Silver Surfer known as Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner). It is through their interactions with her that Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben will be able to initially stand face-to-face with Galactus to make the case for their planet’s continued survival.

And what does he want to leave the Earth alone? Galactus is after Reed and Sue’s newborn son, Franklin. If they give him their child, he will spare their plane. But this is not a bargain they can make. After a near-death escape from the Silver Surfer, the Fantastic Four return to Earth and let the rest of humanity know about their initial failure to stop the apocalypse-level threat coming their way.

Shakman utilizes the late 1960s setting perfectly. He has crafted a Gene Roddenberry-like playground where humanity has (mostly) come together as one, dismantled their militaries, and where nations work together for the greater good of all peoples around the globe. He and his talented technical team have taken concepts and ideas from the source material created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and breathed instantaneous cinematic life into them. The ideas pop off the screen every bit as much as the visuals do, and that makes this alternate universe Earth a wonderful place to spend almost two hours learning about.

Special attention must be paid to the production design crafted by Kasra Farahani (Loki), the costumes conceived by the great Alexandra Byrne (Emma., Elizabeth), and the crackerjack score composed by veteran Michael Giacchino (Up, The Batman). It’s astonishing work. Everything they’ve accomplished adds to the overall aesthetic with masterful aplomb, and I can’t imagine I’d have enjoyed this adventure nearly as much as I did without their stellar contributions.

I could have done without the first post-credit scene (which is becoming par for the course for most of these MCU entries at this point; they tend to annoy me), and while I know every one of these is developed to set up what happens next, this is an where the film would be better off had Marvel left it entirely self-contained. There are also weird story beats that did not connect with me, especially that all-important one of the Earth’s reaction to Reed’s honesty that he would not sacrifice Franklin to save the planet. It’s discarded almost as soon as it’s brought up, and the way it’s resolved is so tidy and so clean that only Kirby’s stupendously raw performance kept it from feeling unintentionally laughable as far as I was concerned.

Even so, much like Superman, it is that cathartic sensation of all-encompassing hope in the face of unimaginable evil that allowed The Fantastic Four: First Steps to resonate with me. This means Marvel’s First Family starts their sojourn inside the MCU with magnetic grandeur, and I’m excited to see where the quartet travels next.

Film Rating: 3 (out of 4)