Slick but Hollow: Fantastic Four’s Retro Gamble

Marvel’s new Fantastic Four movie is a good-looking, delightfully nostalgic reboot of one of its earliest superhero teams. With several strong performances (led by Pedro Pascal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach), the picture fully embraces its throwback look and feel, dressing and acting like the comics of the 1960s. Yet for all its style and affection, The Fantastic Four: First Steps never really ramps up the tension or stakes to become a truly memorable blockbuster.

Marvel producer Kevin Feige gave an apt early description of this first Fantastic Four adventure when he said it was “a no-homework-required” experience. In a cinematic universe that has become increasingly dependent on viewers’ knowledge of prior movies and continuity, this new Marvel film feels like a deep breath of fresh air. No homework necessary. It’s neither a direct sequel to another Marvel title, nor does it require any preexisting familiarity with multiverses, mid-credits cameos, or upcoming spin-offs. This new story largely sidesteps the multiple continuities and complicated retcons of previous adaptations. The picture reintroduces Reed Richards (Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (Moss-Bachrach), none of them with any overt connection to prior reboots of the franchise. First Steps seems content to keep things simple—and sometimes, too simple.

We begin with a talk show hosted by Mark Gatiss, whose avuncular host character conveniently summarizes how the four main characters got to be the Fantastic Four. As the film’s expository voiceover explains, the characters were involved in a cosmic space mission four years earlier, which exposed them to a form of radiation that mutated their DNA. Reed (Pascal) became elastic and stretchable, able to mold his body to varying lengths. Sue (Kirby) can turn herself invisible and manipulate force fields around herself. Johnny (Quinn) gains the ability to set himself aflame and fly like the Human Torch. And Ben (Moss-Bachrach) has been transformed into The Thing, a large green-skinned giant with superhuman strength.

The four live together in an apparent mid-century-modern compound (complete with flying cars, chalkboard equations, and even a toddler-size robot named H.E.R.B.I.E. who flies around the kitchen). The world of First Steps is retro-futurism distilled: square television screens, no cell phones, people decked out in clothing with designs that look like they came straight out of an American Apparel catalog circa 1974. The picture’s visual palette evokes a cheerful golden-age naïveté of American culture, as if you threw The Jetsons, Lost in Space, and an especially bright Marvel comic into a blender.

The family-friendly action is good-natured but not exactly tense or full of high stakes. First Steps continually returns to a central theme of family (the strong family unit of the title). Sue reveals early in the film that she is pregnant, and Reed is both anxious and adorably doting as he makes the requisite adjustments to prepare for their child. In one scene, he has H.E.R.B.I.E. project life vests and cover electrical sockets in both their home and their science laboratory. The younger Johnny and Ben bicker with each other like siblings. They act as mostly comedic foils to Reed and Sue, but both embrace their roles as potential uncles.

Soon, the family atmosphere is punctuated by the arrival of another cosmic menace. An enormous armored figure with glowing red eyes, Galactus has set his sights on Earth, which he wants to eat. Before he can arrive, the planet has a chance to send out a distress call in the form of his herald. A silver-skinned being (played in motion-capture by Julia Garner), the Silver Surfer glides into the picture with a sleek menace. She is a visual treat to behold (especially to Johnny), but the film largely undercuts her threat level.

Galactus never really gets big or scary, either, as his protoplasmic form of energy resembles a rubber-suited Hulk with a giant helmet on. His silver-meat avatar, who passes as his herald and surrogate emissary, shows up after the heroes have stopped her from landing. The pre-title battle as Reed tries to escape with Sue features comic touches, like Ben strapping a jet pack on his green-skinned giant self and flying off. The special effects, when the fight and flight moves to space, follow the established retro motif: nice big bubbles of light, fiery after-images from projectiles and flashes, and explosions that look like molten globes of lava in the distance. The action is largely mild and short. Sue goes into labor at the end of the film as the four of them are fighting off Galactus and the Silver Surfer, but the birth scene itself (placed in the context of a planetary battle) has a dreamlike quality. The combined mood is slightly woozy: First Steps may very well be the first Earth-saving superhero film to intercut birth scenes with the threat of global, or universal, apocalypse.

Birth and apocalypse, indistinguishable in First Steps’ technicolor space imagery. The picture has a refreshing mix of sincerity and silliness that fans of the comics will certainly enjoy. The film balances tender family moments against retro-stylized superhero action in a visually candy-coated way. But the larger point is that the movie is more reminiscent of mid-century comics in style than in its effective use of tension or rising stakes. The picture is entertaining, but it’s more light adventure than page-turning threat.

In many ways, The Fantastic Four: First Steps succeeds as an earnest, low-key Marvel film. The performances, especially the comic-book-loving cast members, are generally solid. The visual aesthetic is clean, colorful, and lush. But the net effect is a little one-note. The sense of family is strong, but often lost in the pastel hues. Marvel fans will have no trouble accessing this new series and should find it a breath of fresh air from the more high-stakes and oftentimes cynical events of the prior MCU films. First Steps is pleasant but bland, pleasant but barely moving. Like this new family of superpowered adventurers, the film plays more along the borders of sincerity and silliness. If you like your Marvel superhero movies more light and fluffy than apocalyptically dire, this may be your cup of tea. If not, then this look back to the Marvel past is a nice wrapping, but a little light on the exciting stuff on the inside.