Fantastic Four: First Steps is all heart. It’s fantastical. It’s mystical. It’s grandiose at a scale the character and story demand it to be. It’s everything that a comicbook movie should be…
Somewhere down the line, in the midst of busy worldbuilding across slates of movies and limited series that reinforce the second-screen streaming culture, we all seem to have forgotten what it meant to pick a comicbook from the newsstand, get home, turn the page, and escape into an alternate reality, an alternate Earth.
Fantastic Four: First Steps takes you to an alternate to the MCU, to Earth-828—a futuristic neomodern world inspired by the aesthetic of the silver age of Marvel Comics, which incidentally began with Fantastic Four #1 back in 1961, written by none other than Stan Lee and brought to life by the pencils of Jack Kirby.
This Fantastic Four comic run would later shape the heroes we now love and cherish in Marvel movies, series, et al. But it all began with the four. As collectors and as children in India who witnessed the reruns of these comics in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Fantastic Four: First Steps is a treat. It is a throwback to that time, that feeling you got when you finished the last page of an issue.
Matt Shakman’s direction does not leave a single frame to waste. The screenplay-story combo from the likes of Josh Friedman (Apple TV hit Foundation, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Avatar: The Way of Water), Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok), and the duo of Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer (Bert and Arnie’s Guide to Friendship) working on the magic woven by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby is nothing short of monumental.
We finally get a Pedro Pascal who is NOT in his self-destructive ‘zaddy’ mode as Reed Richards aka Mister Fantastic, along with the excellent Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm (Invisible Woman). Ebon Moss-Bachrach brings his brooding best from Andor and The Bear to his version of Ben Grimm (The Thing), and Joseph Quinn is a de-‘light’ as Johnny Storm aka the Human Torch.
Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal (this version of the Silver Surfer) was a revelation to many. But if you have ever watched Wolf Man or Ozark, you know what a power-packed performer she truly is.
Yet all of them pale in comparison to the hoots and the encore Ralph Ineson’s Galactus received in the movie theatre, well into the first half of the movie. That is at that precise moment that I knew Marvel had found its big cosmic baddie, this galactic villain on the hunt.
The supporting cast was not mere faces, either. Look out for Natasha Lyonne (Orange Is the New Black, Russian Doll), Sarah Niles (Ted Lasso), and, of course, Paul Walter Hauser as Mole Man—a true successor to Paul Giamatti (who I always had in mind for the role).
Unlike recent MCU outings, Fantastic Four: First Steps is an independent movie in itself. It is not a mere context setter for grand sequel plans or a prequel to fill in the blanks. A complete comicbook superhero movie set in a futuristic alternate world, focusing solely on the superheroes and their story.
Unlike recent superhero movies—and I mean, from all studios—the characters in this film adaptation are wholesome, fleshed out. They are so well developed by the time the story moves to the ‘rising action’ stage that we, as the audience, feel we have known them for quite a while.
There is a school of film that thinks movies need to hold a mirror to our reality. But we often forget the magic of cinema, which has the power to make us reflect, wonder, and hope.
Yes, and unlike a certain red-blue symbol of hope which had the concept choked down some of our throats in cinemas recently, Fantastic Four: First Steps does ‘hope’ with panache and subtlety. For instance, the people in Earth-828 come together to help one another and celebrate their heroes. In this ‘fantastical’ world, baddies are not all bad, for everyone deserves a second chance.
It is this level of whimsical hope that is the lifeblood of this movie. The world, the characters, the people, the heroes, they are aspirational. They inspire hope by just being—even the baby, Franklin Richards, one of the most powerful beings in Marvel lore.
And that is what a major chunk of the superhero genre, and comicbooks in general, have been all about. The pursuit of greatness, of goodness, working through flaws, through adversaries, in a tightly woven story of good triumphing over evil.
Maybe this was always what the spirit of going to the cinema was about. And I am so thankful for Fantastic Four: First Steps for bringing it back, finally, to the movie screens. As the credits rolled in, there was a smile on my face and this urge to watch it once more, but this time as a familiar face in the audience, right rather than somebody who just saw a feat of comicbook stories come to life—something I haven’t felt for the MCU since Captain America: Civil War, apart from the Avengers movies.
Note: Fantastic Four: First Steps has one mid-credit scene and one post-credit scene each. Do stay for the credits, it is worth it.
Film: Fantastic Four: First Steps
Director: Matt Shakman
Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Ralph Ineson, Natasha Lyonne, Sarah Niles, Paul Walter Hauser
Rating: 4/5 | ★★★★☆
