From August 2017 – January 2020, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at every live-action movie based on a superhero comic that had been made to date in the Superhero Movie Rewatch. He’s periodically revisited the feature to look back at new releases, as well as a few he missed the first time through.
The absorption of 20th Century Fox into the Disney Collective in 2019 meant that it was inevitable that both the X-Men and Fantastic Four—whose film rights were with Fox—would become part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That process started in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness by giving us an alternate Earth with Sir Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier and John Krasnicki as Reed Richards, then continued with the appearance of Kelsey Grammer as the Beast in an alternate dimension that Monica Rambeau travelled to at the end of The Marvels and in the multiversal wackiness in Deadpool & Wolverine.
However, the X-Men films were much better received than the FF films. While those three movies used established Fox actors Stewart, Grammer, and Hugh Jackman—and the teases for Avengers: Doomsday indicate that Stewart, Ian McKellen, and James Marsden, at the very least, will be reprising their X-roles in that film—the FF was always going to be restarted from scratch.
Jon Watts, who directed the first three Tom Holland Spider-Man films, was originally attached to direct, but he cited burnout following the exhausting COVID-19 protocols that had to be followed for the filming of No Way Home, and bowed out. He was replaced by Matt Shakman, who directed every episode of WandaVision, and who has generally carved out an impressive career as a television director (including, notably, episodes of superhero series Heroes Reborn and The Boys). The original script was by Jeff Kaplan & Ian Springer, partly off a story by Kat Wood, with first Josh Friedman and then Eric Pearson (who also worked on several of Marvel Studios’ early short films, as well as Thor: Ragnarok, Black Widow, Thunderbolts*, and the TV series Agent Carter, along with uncredited rewrites on other MCU films) brought in to do rewrites. The film adapted the same comics story that was the basis of 2007’s Rise of the Silver Surfer, to wit, the first Galactus story in Fantastic Four #48-50 (1966) by the FF’s creators Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.
The cast includes Pedro Pascal (last seen in this rewatch in Wonder Woman 1984) as Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Eben Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, Julia Garner as the Silver Surfer (taking a cue from the alternate timeline of the Earth X series by Jim Krueger, Alex Ross, & John Paul Leon, and having Shalla-Bal be the Zenn-Lavian who makes the sacrifice of becoming Galactus’ herald, rather than Norrin Radd), Ralph Ineson as Galactus, Paul Walter Hauser as the Mole Man, Sarah Niles as Lynne Nichols, who runs the FF’s Future Foundation, Mark Gatiss as the Ed Sullivan-esque TV host Ted Gilbert, Natasha Lyonne as a grammar-school teacher who serves as Grimm’s sorta-kinda-maybe love interest, and Matthew Wood as the voice of H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot. Also, the four stars of the never-officially-released 1994 FF film—Alex Hyde-White, Rebecca Staab, Jay Underwood, and Michael Bailey Smith—all make cameos, which is just sweet, and Robert Downey Jr. makes a brief appearance (with his face hidden) in a mid-credits scene as Victor von Doom. John Malkovich was cast as the Red Ghost, but his role wound up being rewritten and then cut from the film (though we do see brief footage of the FF fighting his Super Apes).
Pascal, Kirby, Moss-Bachrach, Quinn, and Downey are all set to return in Doomsday.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Written by Eric Pearson and Jeff Kaplan & Ian Springer and Kat Wood and Josh Friedman
Produced by Kevin Feige
Directed by Matt Shakman
Original release date: July 25, 2025
“The unknown will become known, and we will protect you”
It’s the 1960s on Earth-828, and The Ted Gilbert Show is doing a fourth-anniversary celebration of the fateful spaceflight taken by Dr. Reed Richards, his wife Sue Storm (who kept her maiden name, which would’ve been very provocative in our Earth’s 1960s…), her brother Johnny Storm, and their good friend Ben Grimm, which resulted in their DNA being altered by cosmic rays, turning them into the Fantastic Four. We see footage of them fighting various foes, including the Mole Man (as well as a monster that looks just like the one on the cover of Fantastic Four #1) and Red Ghost’s Super Apes, along with clips from the animated Fantastic Four TV series (with the animated version of Grimm uttering the catch phrase “It’s clobberin’ time!”) and from Richards’ educational program Fantastic Science with Mister Fantastic. We also learn of the Future Foundation, run by Sue, which has worked with the UN to apparently bring about world peace, er, somehow.
After recording the episode, the foursome return home to the Baxter Building. H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot prepares Sunday dinner, with Grimm kibbitzing (and adding garlic). Richards and Sue are late for dinner, as the latter took a pregnancy test and it came up positive. They had been hoping for a baby for years, and indeed had given up actively trying, and now she’s expecting. Grimm figures it out before they can actually reveal the big news, and everyone is thrilled, with Johnny declaring that Sue will make a great mother and that Richards will be totally out of his depth, but also that Grimm and he himself will make fabulous uncles.
There’s lots of speculation in the press about the upcoming baby, including whether or not it will have superpowers, though all of Richards’ scans indicate that the baby is normal. (Sue also turns her tummy invisible so they can see the gestating fetus at one point.) Richards tasks H.E.R.B.I.E. with aggressively baby-proofing the Baxter Building. He also works out the locations of several criminals at large, including the Wizard, the Puppet Master, and Diablo, enabling the police to capture them. Grimm jokes that he’s also baby-proofing the city.
At one point, Grimm is wandering the neighborhood where he grew up. A civilian wants him to say the catchphrase “It’s clobberin’ time!” but Grimm insists he never says that, that’s just from the cartoon. He lifts a car at the request of some schoolkids, then flirts with their teacher for a bit.
A woman covered in silver and riding what looks like a silver surfboard arrives from space, declaring herself the herald of Galactus, who is coming to devour the planet. She tells everyone to prepare for their destruction. She then flies off, with Johnny flying after her into the stratosphere, grabbing onto the surfboard just as his flame goes out from lack of oxygen. The Silver Surfer says something in her native language, and then flies off, leaving Johnny to fall into the atmosphere, reignite, and fly back.
Richards is able to track the Surfer’s energy signature, and realizes that there are planets missing from where she’s been, lending credence to her warning. They decide that they have to confront her, so they prep their original rocket, the Excelsior, for spaceflight. All four of them (including the very pregnant Sue), as well as H.E.R.B.I.E., take off, with Richards assuring the public that they will do everything in their power to save the Earth.
Using the FTL drive in orbit, they track the Surfer’s energy to a world in another star system, arriving just in time to witness Galactus consuming it. Galactus then grants them an audience, though the Surfer tells them sadly that they shouldn’t have come. Johnny also asks her what it was she said to him, and she translates it: “Die with yours.” It’s a blessing, she says.
Galactus explains that his hunger is all-consuming and must be sated. However, he will spare Earth if they give him the child that Sue is carrying. The FF refuse, and manage to escape by the skin of their teeth, though the Surfer chases after them even when going faster than light. They lose her in a neutron star, with the Surfer caught in the time-dilation, and the FF only able to escape by sacrificing the FTL drive. Sue has gone into premature labor thanks to Galactus, and gives birth to the baby on the Excelsior. They finally get home months later, and the people of Earth are rather devastated to learn that they didn’t defeat Galactus, and that Earth would’ve been spared if they had given up their son (whom they’ve named Franklin).
Existential despair grips the world as people try to come to terms with what’s happening. Richards is beside himself because he can’t figure out how to save the Earth without sacrificing his child.
The Baxter Building computers have picked up other transmissions in the same language that the Surfer was speaking, and now that they know what one phrase means, Johnny is able to create a translation matrix to try to decipher the other signals they’ve been getting.
Sue decides to confront an angry crowd outside the Baxter Building, Franklin in her arms, to explain that she won’t sacrifice her child—but they will move heaven and Earth to save the planet any way they can. That not only mitigates some of the negative public opinion, but also gives Richards an idea. He’s been working on a teleporter, which thus far has succeeded in transporting an egg across a room, though it takes out New York’s power grid in the process. The FF uses the Future Foundation and the Fantastic Science with Mister Fantastic show to rally public support behind a worldwide effort to recreate the teleporter on a massive scale, so they can move the planet to another solar system. They also need to conserve power, implementing an energy curfew every night in order to hoard the power necessary to make this work.
They’re all set to teleport the planet as Galactus is approaching, but then the Surfer shows up and destroys all the teleportation bridges—except the one in Times Square, and she’s only stopped from destroying that one by Johnny playing the recordings of the transmissions they’ve received, which include her giving the “Die with yours” blessing to worlds Galactus has destroyed, and also the people of Zenn-La thanking Shalla-Bal for her sacrifice. The Surfer reveals that she is indeed Shalla-Bal, and she convinced Galactus to spare her home planet of Zenn-La in exchange for becoming his herald. The Surfer departs the planet in anguish, leaving the Times Square teleportation bridge intact.
Richards comes up with a new plan, and it’s one that everyone hates, but eventually agrees is necessary: use Franklin as bait to lure Galactus to the teleportation bridge in Times Square and send him to the far side of the galaxy. Grimm points out that Galactus is huge and will probably do a lot of damage to the city getting to Times Square, so they evacuate the residents of New York to the Mole Man’s subterranean city, which takes a certain amount of cajoling on Sue’s part.
Galactus lands in New York Harbor and stomps his way north to Times Square (inexplicably passing by Lincoln Center, which is actually north of Times Square, but whatever). However, the switcheroo the FF attempts, replacing Franklin with an empty crib in the teleporter, doesn’t work, as Galactus senses that Franklin is in the Baxter Building. Calling them clever insects, Galactus goes to the Baxter Building and grabs Franklin. Sue manages to use her force fields to push Galactus back to Times Square, aided by Grimm taking out the buildings that Galactus is attempting to use for support. Richards is able to grab Franklin from Galactus’ grasp while Johnny activates the teleportation bridge. However, Sue has pushed herself beyond her limits getting him there and collapses to the pavement, dead, and Galactus starts to climb his way out of the teleportation matrix. Johnny is about to sacrifice himself to force Galactus back in, but then the Surfer appears out of nowhere and knocks him aside, and she pushes Galactus into the matrix, sending them both across the galaxy.
The Earth is saved, as is Franklin, but Sue is not alive, despite Richards administering CPR and mouth-to-mouth. He sadly lays their infant son on her chest, and Franklin uses his nascent superpowers to revive her.
The people of New York come back above-ground, and the world is saved. We cut ahead to the fifth anniversary of the FF, where their appearance on Ted Gilbert is interrupted by an alert, though they struggle with the baby’s car seat in the Fantasticar on their way to their next mission.
Four years later, Sue is reading to Franklin. She finishes The Very Hungry Caterpillar and goes to get A Fly Went By—when she comes back, Victor von Doom is kneeling before Franklin…
“I will not sacrifice my child for this world—but I will not sacrifice this world for my child”
For years, I’ve been saying that any new Fantastic Four film really needed to just blow past the origin and just show the FF as an established bunch of superheroes, and I’m very grateful that Kevin Feige, Matt Shakman, and the team of writers agree with me. The movie is much stronger for it. The FF’s origin is, in a word, awful, and one that’s (like many of early Marvel’s origin stories) aggressively tied to the early 1960s (in this case, trying to beat the Commies to space).
Having the movie take place in the 1960s makes that work a little bit better, but that’s only part of why the origin is dumb, and I’m just as happy to get it over with quickly and just have the FF be established from the start of the story.
Putting it on an alternate Earth—specifically the one numbered 828, in honor of Jack Kirby’s birthday of August 28th—solves the “where have they been?” problem that would arise from trying to retcon them into the mainline MCU.
The movie also has the perfect visual aesthetic. It’s right out of The Venture Bros., and I mean that as a very high compliment. The retro-futuristic vibe of the set design is absolutely magnificent, plus they impressively nailed the fashions and hairstyles of the 1960s.
Would that the writers had been operating on the same level. There are a number of problems with the script, starting with a fundamental misunderstanding of what this country was like six decades ago. For starters, Sue Storm kept her maiden name when she married Richards, and that would have been massively controversial at the time. Indeed, it’d be controversial now to an extent.
But the biggie is this: the vast majority of mainstream America of the time would never have accepted the notion that parents should sacrifice their infant child for any reason. Sure, some people would call her selfish, and some people would respond with confusion as to why they wouldn’t consider the option. But the mainstream press that question them when they first return to Earth? They would’ve all nodded their heads and agreed with the FF’s refusal to give Franklin to the guy who eats planets.
The most glaring problem with this movie, though, is that the FF themselves are remarkably uninteresting. Their personalities are muted and toned down to the point of spectacular blandness.
Richards is a super-genius whose ruthless intellectualism is leavened by his love for his family, which is the only thing that keeps him from being a complete asshole. But we don’t get any of the negative aspects of Richards’ personality, except in tiny blink-and-you-miss-it doses. Mostly he’s just an eccentric goof. Pedro Pascal’s performance is aggressively toned down from what we know he’s capable of.
The hotheaded Johnny Storm is a bit snarky, but Joseph Quinn doesn’t have any of the verve or charm of his comics counterpart, or of the last two guys to play the role (Chris Evans and Michael B. Jordan, who were both brilliant despite being in movies that were mediocre-to-terrible). His womanizing is toned down, though there’s enough of it there to have him sorta-kinda flirt with the Shalla-Bal iteration of the Silver Surfer, but not enough of it to actually make him interesting. Also Johnny is apparently an accomplished linguist now, because the plot won’t work otherwise, and they needed to give him something to do, I guess?
Vanessa Kirby is the only one who works here, as her Sue is allowed to be both complex and powerful. She comes across as very much the heart and soul of the team, though the manufactured conflicts between her and Richards over using Franklin as bait feel very manufactured. But Kirby does right by the role.
So does Eben Moss-Bachrach, but alas here is where the script really fails. Benjamin J. Grimm is one of the greatest characters in the Marvel pantheon, a tragic figure who still maintains his compassion and friendliness. He’s the best friend of everyone in the Marvel Universe, but constantly struggles with the fact that he’s an ambulatory collection of rocks. But Moss-Bachrach has precisely none of the character’s tragedy or angst, which is a big part of what makes him so compelling. Instead, he’s just a nice guy who likes to cook and show off for kids. Not only that, but after going to the trouble of actually casting a Jewish actor as the Jewish Grimm, they don’t do a single thing with it. He does walk into a synagogue at one point, but it’s expressly not for any spiritual reason, but simply to boringly flirt with Natasha Lyonne’s spectacularly uninteresting teacher. Indeed, there’s nothing in this movie to support the notion that Grimm is Jewish, and at least one line of dialogue supporting the fact that he isn’t. (He uses “Jesus” as an epithet at one point.)
Oh, and the Galaxy Quest-esque running gag with him refusing to say “It’s clobberin’ time” fails utterly. The attempts to get him to say it and him refusing are cute, but the payoff at the film’s climax does not land at all. It worked with Alan Rickman’s refusal to say “By Grabthar’s hammer” in GQ because of the character’s anger at being typecast and forced to keep flogging a role he’d rather he never played, and his journey to finally embracing the part at the film’s climax. By contrast, the moment when Grimm says “It’s clobberin’ time” here is completely unearned, unnecessary, and uninteresting.
The blandification extends to the entirety of Earth-828, as the citizens of this Earth are an unconvincingly monolithic bunch of people who seem to just do whatever the FF tells them to do (except for the brief period where they’re just as unconvincingly mad at them for not committing infanticide).
The movie is well paced, looks amazing, and I’m so incredibly grateful that they didn’t do what the Ultimate Fantastic Four comic and Rise of the Silver Surfer did and make Galactus into a force-of-nature series of planet-consuming drones, but instead embraced the fact that he’s a fifty-foot-tall white guy with a big purple W on his head. Points to Ralph Ineson for giving the character appropriate gravitas and menace.
It is, still, the best Fantastic Four movie ever made, but given the competition, that’s hardly an accomplishment.
This ends the current iteration of the Superhero Movie Rewatch. The original intent was to cover two more 2025 releases, but your humble rewatcher had an unnecessarily eventful holiday season, including a foot injury, the unexpected demise of a beloved Toyota Corolla, and two killer deadlines. With all that, and the upcoming release of the first season of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy this week, we’re going to punt The Old Guard 2 and Red Sonja to later in the year, along with some of the 2026 releases.
I had the opportunity to purchase Fantastic Four: First Steps at Walmart, but I opted for Superman.
Anyway, there’s always the comics.
I’ve got to disagree with our esteemed reviewer on a couple of points.
Firstly,I think that the reaction to the idea of simply giving up Franklin is – if anything – understated. I think even people in the 1960s would resort to that kind of thinking when faced with the consequences being total annihilation of everybody. People in the 1960s made all sorts of moral compromises in favor of what they viewed as “safety.” Soldiers burned entire villages to stop them from potentially being safe havens for enemy troops. Governors set the national guard, fire hoses and dogs against people for expressing a right to be treated equally. “Peace protesters” resorted to trying to bomb government buildings. Additionally, Galactus isn’t going to KILL Franklin unless they DON’T give him up. His plan was essentially to convert him into Galactus so he could be free of his curse.
Secondly, I disagree with the point Keith argued about Ebon Moss-Bacharach’s performance not indicating the tragedy in Ben Grimm’s life. That moment where Ben sees himself pre-cosmic rays on TV talking about how he’s the “best looking pilot” before pulling back to his sad-faced reflection in the store window in the current day sold it for me, as did his general sense of melancholy during the “lift the car” scene. Ben Grimm isn’t Bruce Banner – his life is NOT one of constant tragedy, partly because he has his family around to support him.
Thirdly, I do think that the duality of Reed Richards is on display, in that he was the only one – even for a moment – that considered the simplest means of solving the Galactus problem. I viewed his argument with Sue as her shocking him back to his senses, which happens a LOT in the comics.
I also thought the pacing was actually a little too fast. I’ll bet that the initial longer cut of the movie was likely better in terms of characterization and world building.
No, it wasn’t as good as Superman, but I’d say it’s probably the best Marvel movie since Spider-man: No Way Home.
I thought this was a good movie overall, effectively using the concepts and characters and worldbuilding of the FF to tell a reasonably effective story. I agree it could’ve developed Reed and Ben more fully, and I feel the CGI on Ben looked fake, because he moved like someone with the mass, build, and inertia of Eben Moss-Bachrach rather than someone with the mass, build, and inertia of an ever-lovin’ blue-eyed rock giant.
But I’ve always wanted to see an FF movie that skipped over their uninteresting origin and focused on the thing that actually makes them distinctive, their role as the established, admired first family of the Marvel superhero community and as global celebrities who are world leaders in science and diplomacy. And this movie gave me that. It was also the first live-action movie that really got Sue right, and Vanessa Kirby was terrific at conveying Sue’s strength and leadership.
Unlike Keith, I think portraying a cosmic force of nature as a giant humanoid in a purple hat is ridiculous, but the design of Galactus here made it somewhat more palatable, as does the retcon that he was originally a humanoid who was transformed into this form — although I’m ambivalent about that, because it takes away from the idea of Galactus as a fundamental, eternal force of the universe that is neither good nor evil yet simply exists according to its nature. (My approach to reimagining Galactus would’ve been as some kind of living black hole framed in a Kirbyesque technological structure with protrusions evocative of Galactus’s big weird hat. If you want an endlessly hungering force of nature that can consume planets, what’s better than a black hole?)
My knowledge of the Fantastic Four doesn’t extend very far beyond what I saw in those first two movies (I skipped “FANT4STIC” after it was panned) so maybe this movie just wasn’t for me, though that does raise the question of who the MCU’s target audience even is anymore, assuming there is one.
Anyway, if I’m being totally honest, I think I liked the film that came out 20 years earlier more than First Steps. I’m not saying it was great cinema, but it had a goofy charm, whereas this film failed to hold my attention (I rented it, so at least I could go back and see what I missed). Maybe it was just the setting, which felt, as the review says, incredibly bland, despite the impressive visuals and cool retrofuturistic aesthetic. Nobody apart from the team ever felt like a real person.
However, I also agree that the team themselves could have been better written. I do feel like Reed bordered on being really interesting as a character, but he never quite got there for me, whereas I couldn’t have cared less about Johnny or Ben. Sue was great, though I’m not sure how much of that was down to the writing and how much was Vanessa Kirby’s performance, which was easily the best part of the film.
At any rate, I’m not saying I regret spending $5 to watch this, but it’s not the thing that’s going to get me to re-up my Disney Plus subscription.
If I were to rank all the FF adaptations, this obviously ranks first, but recently I finally got around to watching all the pre-Blade Marvel adaptations, including the horrendous 1989 Punisher and the 1990 Cap film. And surprisingly, I think I’d rank the 1994 FF film in second place, ahead of the Evans films and way ahead of the atrocious 2015 adaptation. As flawed and as cheap as it is, I think it really nails one central aspect: the four of them coming together as a genuine family.
And this aspect is just as successful in the new entry. You get a clear sense of camaraderie. Bland isn’t the term I’d apply to them though. Since they skipped the origin story, we never got to see Ben having to deal with the trauma of becoming the Thing, amongst other mutation-based character conflicts.
I agree Ben gets short shrift in an already crowded film, and the rather fast-paced abbreviated runtime is no help either. I like to think there’s a director’s cut there somewhere, with enough extra material for everyone. The film, as good as it is, was too short.
Your issues with the population being so accepting of Sue’s last name or them not being okay with her giving up Franklin, one could argue that’s just the way they are in Earth-828. It is an alternate dimension after all. I don’t know if that was in the minds of Feige and that literal army of writers, but I think it’s safe to assume that societies would have these small cultural differences. Earth-828 is as close to a utopia as it can be. Very few grey areas and flaws. Villains like Mole Man stand out like nothing else.
But getting back to the point of the supposed blandness, yes we’re getting a watered-down, overly optimistic version of not only the team, but the world around them. And I feel it’s 100% intentional. We’re getting a positive world because presumably – and this is me making assumptions about Doomsday – we’re about to see all of that come crashing down in very painful ways for everyone involved, especially the First Family. We already saw what happens when one of them is backed to a corner the way Sue was. It brought out a visceral feeling of protectiveness and sacrifice from her – that scene of her literally pushing Galactus is simply brutal. If Doom obliterates Earth-828 in December, it’s guaranteed we’re going to see each member of that team react very badly and it’s going to make them way more interesting characters.
Lastly, this was the best MCU score since Silvestri’s Avengers theme. Just like that, Giacchino created a new classic. Needless to say, I’m very, very eager to see what in the world is going to happen to them to the point where they’re forced to crash into the Thunderbolts’ very doorstep.
Great “reed” (lol, sorry); very apt take on the film. I have to agree with your assessment of Ben Grimm’s characterization as one of the weaker points of the film. It’s not that he was bad or anything; I just expected more personality than what we saw in the trailers. I haven’t seen The Bear, but friends who have definitely added to the hype Eben Moss-Bachrach had coming into this for me. His other MCU character, Micro from The Punisher season 1, completely outshines everything he does in Fantastic Four. His work on that show is extremely compelling — definitely a highlight of the series. I still enjoyed his performance here; I just expected a little more in the tragic‑hero department.
I’d love to read your take on some of the more noteworthy seasons of Marvel superhero television. As always, thanks for the great work.
Let Us Be Devoured!
I saw it in the theater and was charmed by the visual design. I’m old enough that the movie’s futuristic vision wasn’t so very retro for me. Definitely not awful, especially compared to prior FF attempts.
When I first saw “…Natasha Lyonne’s spectacularly uninteresting teacher…” on screen, I was delighted that there might be a small subplot with her and Ben. Alas, just a wasted opportunity for a movie that wasted a few of them.
And I agree that the pace was rushed. There was too much stuff stuffed in. I assume a lot of that extra stuff was from the original story, so there’s the urge to keep it all. But lose the (silly, imho) Moleman stuff, for example, and you get a lot more narrative elbow room to work in.