In 1960, on Earth, four astronauts named Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), his wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), her younger brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn), and their friend Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), travelled in space and were given superpowers by cosmic rays. They became Mr. Fantastic, who can stretch his body, Invisible Woman, who can create and use force-fields, The Human Torch, who can burst into flame and fly, and The Thing, who is some sort of orange rock-creature with tremendous strength. All this was documented in the Fantastic Four comics by Marvel starting in 1961and in three movies of wildly varying quality starting in 2007.
But Fantastic Four: First Steps begins when they are already well-known and established superheroes with a headquarters in New York City, not far from the Avengers Tower. Earth is marked for destruction by a huge cosmic being named Galactus (Ralph Ineson), accompanied by his metallic herald Shalla-Bal , or The Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), who arrives to give Earth fair warning. The Fantastic Four return to space to confront and negotiate with Galactus for Earth’s survival. He drives a harder bargain than Donald Trump.
Galactus sees that Sue is pregnant and suspects that the child will be a powerful entity, and he offers to spare Earth and its billions in exchange for the child when it is born. The Fantastic Four refuse his offer and make their escape. On the way back to Earth, Sue gives birth to her son Franklyn. After their failed mission, the people of Earth, who in comic books seem to be as reliable as the citizens of the Simpson’s Springfield, turn against them. We just saw the same people turn against Superman, for God’s sake.
Reed creates a teleportation net that should transport Earth and hide it from Galactus in a distant galaxy, but the Silver Surfer begins to destroy it. Johnny Storm learns that Shalla-Bal had agreed to serve Galactus to save her own world and she is inclined to save Earth. They use Franklin as bait to trap Galactus, with the help of the Mole Man, leader of the Moloids of Subterranea (Paul Walter Hauser), who was the first threat the Fantastic Four had to face in the comic books. Galactus is about to destroy the Fantastic Four but the Silver Surfer turns against him and sacrifices herself to save Earth. Sue Storm dies but the baby’s powers bring her back to life.
The film was directed by Matt Shakman from a screenplay by Josh Friedman and Eric Pearson. A secondary character is H.E.R.B.I.E, or Humanoid Experimental Robot B-Type Integrated Electronics (Matthew Wood). In the end credits, Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) appears to hint at the contents of the next Fantastic Four movie. The story was based on that of the comic-book series Ultimate Fantastic Four 2004-2009. Michael Giacchino composed the score.
The Fantastic Four, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961, were the first superhero team produced by Marvel Comics, largely in response to D.C.’s Justice League, and ushered in what is called the Golden Age of Comics. There were the usual changeups over the years. For a time, Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman were replaced by Black Panther and Storm. The comic series was cancelled in 2015 and then brought back in 2018 for the 56th Anniversary (depending on how you count) of Marvel Comics.
They starred in five movies. One low budget offering produced by Roger Corman in 1962 and never released is not talked about. 20th Century Fox produced one in 2007, plus a sequel called Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer They were not that well received by critics but earned $635 million dollars. I thought they were great fun, but proposed spin-offs were cancelled. Rise of the Silver Surfer was based on the popular Galactus Trilogy of comics. It featured the marriage of Reed and Susan, and they were aided against Galactus by Doctor Doom. Results were disappointing to the studio and two sequels were cancelled.
Jessica Alba as Invisible Girl was not used that well in the script, with much of the humor hanging on her nudity when invisible (!). I thought Ioan Gruffud, Chris Evans, and Michael Chiklis did okay as Mr. Fantastic, Torch, and Thing, but the Thing was not terribly believable in his rock-hard fat-suit. But special effects chameleon Doug Jones was impressive as the Silver Surfer, with Laurence Fishburne’s voice. .An unnecessary reboot in 2015 was disliked by everyone.
After the failure of Fantastic Four 2015, the origin story was ignored, but First Steps takes place in the Sixties. The Thing was created through motion capture instead of using the less than perfect bodysuits and prosthetic makeup used in earlier Fantastic Four films. Moss-Bachrach consulted Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk) about the role. Ben Grimm is Jewish and Moss-Bachrach was the first Jewish actor to portray him. Galactus is 14 billion years old and consumes the life-force of planets to survive. In one of the earlier FF films, he was portrayed by a cloud in space and the fans hated it, so for this movie he was brought back as a human-looking giant stomping like Godzilla through the streets. The fans love it.
In general, superhero flicks are now ignoring the origin stories that everyone knows anyway and picking up when the action starts. Even Superman 2025 did this. The decision seems to be bringing superheroes back into favor with general audiences. And, as always, special effects march on.
How do much do I love this movie? Let me count the ways. It is set in New York in the Sixties, where I first discovered Marvel comics through the Galactus Trilogy, for which, like many fans, I have always had a soft spot. Galactus is wonderful, stomping through New York like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. The humor is not dumb, and it has not only a particular science-fiction spectacle, it has the beating Marvel heart that has been sadly missing lately. I can see why it is a big success.