The Fantastic Four: First Steps
As the world faces an existential threat, the Fantastic Four must resolve a moral quandary before it’s too late….
Parental pride: Vanessa Kirby
Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.
First steps? As if. Baby Steps maybe… This particular Fantastic Four is the fourth instalment in the franchise and the second reboot of the series – and it’s the best of the lot. While it contains all the warp-speed space travel, supersonic battles, extraterrestrial beasties and that old favourite – a right old battering of New York – it also tackles more serious issues such as global cooperation and the import of parental responsibility. The coup here is the casting of Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby as Mr and Mrs Richards, aka Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman. Pedro Pascal’s paternalistic roles in TV’s The Mandalorian and The Last of Us has led him to be dubbed ‘Daddy’ in Internet circles. Meanwhile, Vanessa Kirby, whose 24-minute childbirth scene in Pieces of a Woman earned her an Oscar nomination, has gone one better with a childbirth ordeal in space as the quartet’s craft navigates the zero-gravity, natal-negative properties of a black hole. Pity the woman.
After a terrific retro-futuristic prologue in which the Fab Four show off their mind-blowing, cosmically-enhanced derring-do, the film neatly clicks into gear, providing plenty of bang for our buck. Is there nothing that this courageous quartet cannot do to protect our planet? They are the very stuff of legend, adorning the pages of comic books and supermarket merchandise and embodied as figurines in breakfast cereals. They are applauded on the street and worshipped in the media, with children clamouring around TV shops to watch their heroes on a bank of bulky screens (the year is 1960). Yet, even before the initial montage of heroic high jinks, the movie kicks off with a scene of surprising low-key intimacy. Indeed, no other superhero movie has ever opened with one of its stars sitting on the loo. Neither we nor Mister Fantastic are aware of what the latter’s wife is up to, when it is revealed that she is taking a pregnancy test. It transpires that the test is positive and that Fantastic and Invisible are to be the proud parents of a new baby. The question is, will the child be born with the superpowers of its mom and dad?
What follows is both touching and amusing, as Fantastic baby-proofs their apartment and then large swathes of New York. Then, just as things get all cosy and domestic, a messenger from another planet arrives on a surfboard to herald the imminent destruction of our world. “Your planet is marked for death,” reveals Julia Garner’s floating Silver Surfer before disappearing into the ether…
FF IV would seem to have something for everyone. Besides all the flash-bang-walloping, there are incidental pleasures galore, while the Invisible Woman’s baby gives one of the best neonatal performances ever recorded on film (with more than a little digital help). It’s good, too, to see such accomplished players as Pascal and Kirby in a film of this ilk. It’s a shame, though, that the story’s antagonist is yet another Oz-like behemoth with a stentorian James Earl Jones voice, but then size always seems to matter in these sorts of films. The trick is to see how Fantastic can draw on his mathematical genius so as to outwit the enemy, while his brother-in-law, Johnny Storm - aka the Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) – and his best friend, Ben Grimm - aka The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) – can step up to the plate.
After the disappointment of so many of the summer’s blockbusters, it’s quite the revelation to encounter a Marvel entry that is not only so entertaining and grown-up but also surprisingly moving. Much of the latter sentiment is due to the nuanced performance of Vanessa Kirby, presumably cast because of her talent rather than her namesake Jake Kirby who, with Stan Lee, dreamed up the Fantastic Four concept in the first place. She really is a welcome addition to the cinematic universe.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, Ralph Ineson, Alex Hyde-White.
Dir Matt Shakman, Pro Kevin Feige, Ex Pro Louis D’Esposito, Grant Curtis, Tim Lewis and Robert Kulzer, Screenplay Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer, based on characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Ph Jess Hall, Pro Des Kasra Farahani, Ed Nona Khodai and Tim Roche, Music Michael Giacchino, Costumes Alexandra Byrne, Sound Josh Gold.
Marvel Studios-Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
114 mins. USA. 2025. UK Rel: 24 July 2025. US Rel: 25 July 2025. Cert. 12A.
