The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Director: Matt Shakman

It’s four years since Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal ), Jonny and Susan Storm (Joseph Quinn & Vanessa Kirby ) and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) returned from space, forever changed. Now as The Fantastic Four, they are the protectors of the earth and heroes. But two things change that, a pregnancy, and a visitor to Earth, in the shape of The Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). She is a messenger for Galactus (Ralph Ineson) who informs the four and the rest of the world, that Earth has been selected for death. The Four must protect the earth from Galactus, as well as the new life about to join the world.

This is a film with two jobs, one to be the latest installment in the new wave of Marvel films and the latest attempt to bring the Fantastic Four to the big screen. Overall, it delivered pretty well on both. While it wasn’t perfect and at times felt a little baggy, it did much more right than wrong and delivered a fun and entertaining superhero romp.

What was crucial for the film was to get its four main characters right and that they did. In Pascal, Quinn, Moss-Bachrach and Vanessa Kirby they found a group that gelled and bounced off each other well. The film crucially did enough in its opening 10 minutes to establish this new Fantastic Four and give us enough back story to care about. The script, in the main, zipped along nicely although it slowed a touch too much on occasion and it got its balance between peril and Marvel style humour pretty much spot on. Its use of its TV cartoon incarnation, especially to tease The Thing about his catch phrase, was particularly fun.

It also looked great, its commitment to a 1960’s style view of the future was a visual treat.

While not perfect this new Fantastic Four was a lot of fun. It zipped along pretty well, looked great and had a script that balanced humour and peril. Importantly the casting worked a treat with a group who were engaging and played off each other well. It had two jobs, reboot the Fantastic Four and help build a new Marvel story and did a pretty good job of both.