Against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Marvel's First Family is forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, while defending Ea...
So there have been FOUR, count ‘em, FOUR live action iterations of the Fantastic Four in the past thirty years and none of them have been good. One wasn’t actually released, the next two had decent moments hampered by tonal confusion and being products of their time and we do not speak of Fant4stic in this house. So with the icy brine of lowered expectations and disappointment at an all-time high for Fantastic Four: First Steps, now Marvel is fully at the helm after buying the rights back from 20th Century Fox so this is possibly Marvel’s last chance to give their first family the movie they deserve.
Now, I can’t say it’s fantastic….but it’s comfortably the most enjoyable one.
Either Matt Shakman got a sneak peak at James Gunn’s Superman early and wanted to take inspiration or he’s just as big a comic book fan as he is, because his determination to conjure a vibrant identity through this team is admirable….but fleeting in this case. The director of WandaVision appears to be well-versed in old-school adventure; while not fully aligning with the Spielbergian style, he demonstrates a penchant for maximalist vibrancy, not just for style but for manipulating the mood and atmosphere. It’s like a decorator's hand reshaping reality itself while struggling to fully materialize the full vision.
I love love love the production design for this movie; this is basically a retro-futuristic 1960’s aesthetic modeled after the Jetsons come to life. Taking place on Earth 828, away from the MCU’s main continuity, gave free rein for the team to fully luxuriate and indulge in its own hallucinatory 60’s vision, one where the future was built in the clamoring hope of its time period and never once paused to second-guess itself. It knows EXACTLY what it wants to look like; set pieces are constructed like a childhood fantasy headquarters with this hyper-designed intentionality of aesthetic wonder and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kitsch digs marked by Space Age décor, designs, and gadgets that recharges the F4’s story and origin from sheer presentation alone. Exuding this sense of nostalgic futurism, blending the past’s optimism and spirit with a whimsical vision of what the future could’ve been damn near had me smiling ear to ear.
That being said, for all the atmosphere’s domestic weightlessness, the worldbuilding isn’t the most substantial; I do appreciate the gradual increase of escalation from what the scope and scale are supposed to represent but….I dunno; it just feels like surface-level aesthetics right now, teasing us with glimpses of a rich history and lore that is likely to never fully be explored.
Despite being nowhere near hyperactive or creative with its movements, Jess Hall is pretty proficient with his camerawork, opting to center everything as up close and personal as he can manage. This approach isn’t flashy but it serves the story well enough while the editing more or less follows the same trend, visual effects are still hit or miss with a few ungainly rear-projection effects and unpolished blemishes rearing in every few minutes even with their integration with actual practical sets and its action sequences, despite being very sparse and spread apart, understand the importance of quality over quantity at least; they’re purely competent in both execution, construction and placements but are otherwise…..just simple.
Tension is mostly earned but eventually handicapped, due to the predictable nature of how these superhero films normally go, the tone plays heavily into that as well, nailing the breezy, lightweight wackiness of Silver Age comic shenanigans before switching towards more somber, melodramatic, heartfelt formalities without feeling too jarring or abrupt, thanks to a well-balanced pacing that fits the unexpectedly concise runtime. Costume design, with their bold patterns and distinct styles, perfectly complement the visual aesthetic, and with a bouncy, brassy, bubbly and operatic score that makes certain not to steal from his own work on The Incredibles, Michael Giacchino’s score BARELY escapes the boundaries of ‘fine’.
Let me take this moment to say Thank god the characters in this have actual fidelity and are backed up with charming, dedicated performances to boot. Between Pedro Pascal’s pediatric cautiousness, Vanessa Kirby’s fierce vigilance, Joseph Quinn’s uneven but obvious hotshot eagerness and Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s sobering semi-moroseness, it’s the closest we’ve gotten to seeing all four members look, present and behave the way an actual family would, exuding a comfortable chemistry with each other that accurately approximates their closeness and they each have just enough emotional baggage to feel real. Julia Garner brings a nervy, wounded edge to her Silver Surfer, supplying her with this spectral intensity and razor-edged empathy and aura that Doug Jones’ performance couldn’t fully unearth and as for Galactus…..
Bravo.
The late Stephen Sondheim once counseled and reminded us of how content dictates form, not just for lyrics and musical theatre but also writing and producing broadly; when you look at how this story is being presented here and how badly its structure is in constant conversation with its own acts of curation, you admittedly can’t escape that familiar and samey feeling that permeates most superhero flicks the MCU has put out. Plotwise, it’s a very straightforward skeletal backbone designed to emulate this throwback analog good time before barrel-rolling towards a predictable climax and it’s all played out with a sense of predestination that’s both comforting and, at times, numbing. A more comforting better version of “Rise of the Silver Surfer”, it’s self-contained enough to a fault, requiring little to any homework on the who’s, what’s and why’s in this tribute to Jack Kirby and marrying his interests in cosmic space opera and sci-fi mechanical art that openly flaunts its own simplicity.
Bursting at the seams with personality, the basic confluence at the core of the Fantastic Four: a family defending their home and the Earth against ungodly adversaries while maneuvering around personal issues is blissfully achieved with such a low aim, moderate success rate that it can be easy to overlook the many times the plot veers dangerously close to trope-territory. Similar to Thunderbolts, the action doesn’t define the story; it’s the poignant character work that does most of the heavy lifting and takes center stage, paying unusually close attention to the nuances of characterization and performance. Now not everyone gets a complete character arc here so to speak but they brush by on sheer charisma alone to make them achingly human and the ones that do get an arc, like Johnny and Shalla-Bal, experience enough meaningful growth to naturally align with the movie's central themes on family, sacrifice, and the strength found in unity.
But just like Thunderbolts, signs of a spikier, more complicated movie just under the surface is evident, one that got sanded down by the Marvel factory to make it digestible. On rewatch, the entire assemblage feels too contained for its own good with with some inklings of the story admittedly feeling rushed for the sake of getting it out the way. Of all the other themes that get addressed regarding techno-optimism, the promise and peril of a post-conflict society and how far is too far to go in the name of science and protecting those you care about……only the last one seems to get any consistent thoroughline and even then, it gets the bare minimum of development before seemingly fizzling out. With Reed and the team being forced to reckon with making a nigh-impossible decision for sake of the home they love, it would’ve been the ideal scenario for Reed to truly come face-to-face with his inklings of ego-driven megalomania and reconsider how much he truly knows.
His decisions gave himself and his family the power to change the world for the better but also for the worst and while it’s nice that the film has him, Sue, Johnny and Ben shoulder the weight of each other’s responsibilities as well as the worlds’s, nobody truly grew from this conflict beyond a few empty platitudes. Its ethical dilemma of the trolley problem is resolved with such hastiness, I almost forgot such a decision was even made and the climax was sort of just there. The intentions behind why they had it play out in the manner that they did makes enough sense to justify it but for all the hype around getting a comic-book accurate Galactus, I probably should’ve known it was never going to be clever or grand enough to match the scale of the threat he established.
While the bar for good Fantastic Four movies have been drastically low for decades, “First Steps” comfortably clears it breezily but not without the typical MCU sheen to make the experience safe and palatable. Surface-level splendor, predictable plot and underdeveloped themes aside though, well-crafted character dynamics, a unique visual palate, and an evident passion for the source material helps do enough justice to these iconic characters and their Silver Age roots.
