It’s been ages since a Marvel movie has succeeded like The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a delightful throwback adventure nestling a family soap opera. In many ways, no entry in the MCU has felt as detailed or inspired, let alone shown as much adoration for Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s comic book source material. You know what they say: the thirty-seventh time’s the charm.
Set in a separate universe from its more grounded peers — the original Iron Man all the way through the recent Thunderbolts* — First Steps drops us smack-dab in the middle of ongoing adventures starring Marvel’s “First Family.” The film swiftly establishes their personal dynamics and keeps these relationships central throughout hurried moments and sudden tonal shifts, ensuring that Marvel Studios’ now-signature slapdash CGI is no match for a heart of gold.
All the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, ranked worst to best
First Steps functions both as an adaptation of a thus-far hard to translate roster (it’s the fourth go-around for these characters since 1994), while also working on its own terms. While the plot is straightforward and unfolds with sincerity, the film has no dearth of raucous humor or whizbang action moments reminiscent of classic sci-fi serials. Its sense of scale is born not only out of danger and destruction, but palpable emotional stakes, yielding one of the most inspired four-quadrant Hollywood blockbusters since — quite fittingly for a Disney-owned film — Pixar’s own take on the concept, The Incredibles.
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