‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ movie review: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby’s star power propels first family’s stratospheric ride

WandaVision’s Matt Shakman does retro so elegantly; not as a museum piece but a living, breathing world, no matter how unreal. And so it is with The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the second reboot of MCU’s Fantastic Four movies based on Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s comic books.

Set in 1960, the film revels in its 2001: A Space Odyssey aesthetic. It was a conscious choice by Shakman, who wanted the film to look like Stanley Kubrick had made it in 1965. So there are practical sets and props, fashions, colours and sequences shot using a 16mm film camera.

The ensemble cast sends the film’s likeability index soaring. Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards and Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm light up the screen with their crackling chemistry, with Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm, Reed’s best friend; and Joseph Quinn as Johnny, Sue’s younger brother, completing the quartet.

Like Superman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps also eschews the origin story. On Earth-828, talk show host Ted Gilbert (Mark Gatiss) gives a recap of the four astronauts, Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny, getting their superpowers from cosmic rays on mission to outer space in 1960. Four years on, the Fantastic Four are perceived as guardians of the earth. When Reed and Sue’s long-cherished dream of becoming parents comes true, it seems like everything is going to be super fine.

Disaster strikes right then with the appearance of the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), who informs the fab four of the planet-devouring Galactus’ (Ralph Ineson) plans for earth. The ravenous being offers to spare Earth in return for Reed and Sue’s son, Franklin, putting further pressure on the super-beings and turning the frightened humans against them.

‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’
| Photo Credit:
Marvel Studios

Reed puts his super brain to work to figure out a way to defeat Galactus while keeping his family and the world at large, safe. Sue uses her high emotional intelligence to calm the earthlings. Johnny, who is deeply enamoured with the Silver Surfer, deciphers her language and tries to communicate with her. He has clearly eschewed his womanising ways, which was anyway very ‘80s. Ben is the proverbial Rock of Gibraltar everyone leans on when they need a moment.

Family is the new superpower with everyone stepping up for each other. There are jokes and eye-wateringly spectacular action sequences (Johnny’s first contact with the Silver Surfer is heartbreakingly beautiful), for sure, but that baby Franklin is beyond sweet, even if his idea of light reading is Charles Darwin’s, On the Origin of Species!

Natasha Lyonne further ups the charisma quotient as Ben’s love interest, the school teacher, Rachel Rozman, while the sociological underpinnings are provided by Paul Walter Hauser’s Mole Man. This first film in Phase Six of the MCU, with a sequel in development and a mid-credit sequence pointing to Avengers: Doomsday, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, has all the ingredients for blistering fun at the movies. May the Four be with you.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is currently running in theatres