******RETRO-SPACE AGE SPOILERS!******

As they say, fourth time’s the charm, and that couldn’t be more apt when describing the movies spun off from “The Fantastic Four,” a comic book created in 1961 by the legendary Stan Lee and Jack Kirby that more or less launched the Marvel Comics brand. The comic book property was first adapted in 1994 as a micro-budget, Roger Corman-produced tax write-off that was never released. For full disclosure, I did see that movie on a pirated VHS tape in the early 2000s, and while its production value was predictably lousy, it’s Dr. Doom-centered story was not half-bad. In 2005, 20th Century Fox released the first of two so-so “Fantastic Four” films with a game cast (Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chikliss) and decent FX, though they lacked the heart and family-centric dynamics of the comics I read as a kid in the 1970s.

A 2015 “Fantastic Four” reboot was made by director Josh Trank, who broke out with his low-budget, found footage-style telekinesis movie called “Chronicle” (2012), which also helped launch the career of current A-list actor Michael B. Jordan (“Sinners”). For full disclosure (again), I’ve not yet seen this version (not even on a bet from a friend), though it piss-poor critical and box office reception helped to stifle the once-promising directorial career of Trank. Ten years later, with the full blessings of and $200 million budget from Disney, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” has hit theaters, and the reception has generally been a lot more positive. The movie dominated the recent San Diego Comic Con with a monstrous marketing blitz, and a walk-thru display at the convention’s Dealer Hall.

More intrigued by the look than the blitz, my wife and I saw the movie this past weekend in IMAX. The retro-futuristic, mid-1960s look and feel seen at the con was well-represented in the film itself. Despite my overall fatigue with superhero movies these days, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” proved the fourth time truly was the charm for this super-powered quartet (plus one)…

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (2025)

Directed by Matt Shakman, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” was written by Jeff Kaplan, Eric Pearson, Josh Friedman, Ian Springer and Kat Wood.

Note: “Ted Gilbert” (Mark Gatiss) is a nod to the early 1960s host of The Tonight Show, Jack Paar (later replaced by Johnny Carson, et al). The scene of the crew suiting up in the NASA clean room is styled after footage and magazine photos of real-life astronauts suiting up for Mercury, Gemini and Apollo-era spaceflights. Nice flourishes, such as the reel-to-reel tape computers and analog gauges help enhance the period feel, which is not quite our world’s 1961, yet familiar enough.

Note: As in the original comics, the F4’s cosmic ray mutations reflect each character’s personality. Reed’s newfound elasticity augmented this Renaissance man’s tendency to ‘stretch himself too thin’ at times. His wife Sue Storm sometimes felt ‘invisible’ around her male colleagues, thus her cloaking power, and her ability to project protective forcefields (hers is easily the most useful power, as repeatedly demonstrated throughout the movie). Sue’s hotheaded brother Johnny could fly, and literally (safely) burst into flames. Handsome pilot Ben Grimm was now sadly transformed into a rocky-textured brute, adding a tragic, “Hunchback of Notre Dame” quality to the character. In addition to compressing their origins backstory, the movie smartly begins with the F4 as established celebrities; with their own F4 “Future Foundation;” headed by chief of staff, Lynn Nichols (Sarah Niles), who also acts as the F4’s media liaison.

Note: When I saw the needle-nosed spaceship Excelsior, I was struck by its almost one-for-one resemblance to the ‘Kosmokrater’ rocket ship from the 1960 East German sci-fi film “Der schweigende Stern” aka “The Silent Star,” which was later dubbed into English for its 1962 American release as “First Spaceship on Venus” (a movie I watched several times on TV as a kid, and currently own on DVD). The newer Marvel movie shares a few other elements in common with its era-appropriate 1960 counterpart, such as both spaceships being manned by elite groups of scientists attempting to assess a possible threat from outer space; in the 1960 movie’s case, a recorded warning from Venus. The Kosmokrater also had a diverse international crew; including an Indian, an African, a Chinese, and a Japanese woman doctor, besting the original Star Trek‘s revered diversity by six years.

Note: While this version of Ben Grimm/Thing has less pathos than his comic book counterpart, I did appreciate his weariness regarding his cartoon counterpart’s catchphrase, “It’s clobberin’ time!” Ben’s budding attraction to a local schoolteacher Rachel Rozman (Natasha Lyonne) carries echoes of lonely, homely New York butcher Marty (Ernest Borgnine) and his attraction to shy schoolteacher Clara (Betsy Blair) in 1955 Best Picture winner “Marty,” which predated The Fantastic Four by six years and one of the inspirations for Ben’s comic book romance with Rachel–including creator Jack Kirby’s courtship of his real-life wife, Roz, for whom the character was partly named.

Note: Thing/Ben’s makeup was achieved digitally with motion capture, as opposed to past practical suits in previous F4 movies. The heavy rocky brow of Thing was raised a bit, allowing us to better see actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach‘s own eyes, which makes the character less sinister-looking. And Ben (I prefer calling the character Ben) also wears an outsized uniform stretched over his stony torso, as opposed to the shirtless version seen in most other incarnations, which makes him feel more like one of the team (or rather family), instead of an alienated outsider. We also see Ben in custom-made civilian clothes as well.

Note: Actor Pedro Pascal has already had some onscreen preparation for a fatherly role as Mandalorian Din Djarin, who is raising an adopted, 50-odd year old green baby Yoda-creature named “Grogu” in Disney’s Star Wars-based series, “The Mandalorian.”

Note: The Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) is gender-swapped for this movie, as the character was previously played onscreen by gifted mimetic-character actor Doug Jones in 2007’s “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.” However, the gender swap here allows for greater depth to the Silver Surfer character, who is seen as less supervillain and more as a victim, as we learn later on.

Note: Other than the later plot convenience of Johnny obsessing over the Silver Surfer’s mysteriously sympathetic-sounding alien words, it’s very odd for him to be physically attracted to a character who just threatened his home planet and everyone he loves with utter annihilation. Yes, Johnny is an impulsive skirt chaser, but this is an awkward choice for an otherwise enjoyable character.

Note: Another conceit of the movie is that this alternate-1965 has also mastered interstellar travel via an orbiting platform that creates convenient wormhole shortcuts through hyperspace; not too unlike the hyperspace docking collar seen in 2002’s otherwise dreadful Star Wars prequel, “Attack of the Clones.”

Note: Another minor nit I have with the movie is that having Silver Surfer in servitude to Galactus to spare her home planet from extinction becomes a bit too convenient for the story. Frankly, I saw her turning from enemy to ally too early on, which siphoned some of the suspense from the slightly protracted finale (another nit). This isn’t a dealbreaker for me, since many enjoyable classic movies have often been somewhat predictable (see: the entire “Rocky” canon, for example). Enjoy your popcorn…

Note: Sue Storm’s delivery of baby Franklin in zero gravity en route to Earth–while the F4 is evading Silver Surfer and preparing for a hyperspace jump–might be one of the wildest examples of editorial multitasking I’ve yet seen. Granted, the delivery of Franklin is pretty sanitized (hey–it’s PG-13; whattyagonnado, right?), but British actress Vanessa Kirby (who is currently pregnant in real life) truly gives it her all–and nails her American accent, too. Sue Storm has sometimes been dismissed in previous incarnations as sex symbol (Jessica Alba) or generic team member, but in this film she is front and center as its most important character.

Note: The scene of Sue stepping out with her baby into the angry mob outside their apartment building helps put a human face to the child they’d gladly sacrifice for their lives. It’s an effective scene, and it’s bolstered when Sue’s overly intellectualizing husband Reed summons the courage to add his voice to hers. Granted, the film’s ‘angry mob’ is a lot more civil than most (especially for New York), but hey–it’s a movie, not a documentary.

Note: The most unbelievable part of Reed’s crazy plan is evacuating all of New York’s population underground into the conveniently-accommodating subterranean domain of crime lord Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser), who seems more like a disheveled, nerdy schlump than a top-tier crime lord. Another factor Reed doesn’t account for in teleporting Earth to a new solar system is our moon–the absence of which would wreak major havoc with our tides, living biological cycles, and who knows what else. All of this would only matter if Reed’s actually plan actually worked. Fortunately, the plan proves unnecessary…

Note: Even though audiences could easily assume that Galactus’s indentured servant Silver Surfer would ultimately betray him, I did appreciate that the suspense was drawn out with the Silver Surfer flying around the globe and disabling Reed’s teleportation stations (which are built in a surprisingly short time, given Galactus had already entered our solar system…). While the pacing is generally pretty strong for this solid, 115 minute movie (a rarity these days, given most action movies run well over two hours), the final showdown in New York goes on a bit too long, given its more or less predictable outcome.

Note: Like Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in “ALIENS” (1986), Kirby’s Sue Storm proves that there are few things stronger than the bond between a mother and child (biological or adoptive, in Ripley’s case). Making Sue Storm a working, fighting mother who gives her all for motherhood greatly reinforces the movie’s strong emotional core, putting it head and shoulders above its more superficial predecessors.

Note: Most modern movie fans know to stay seated when the credits begin to roll, and a mid-credits sequence cuts to 1969, with Sue tending to now four-year old Franklin, who is consuming books such as Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species.” As Sue grabs another book, she returns to find Franklin being visited by supervillain Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr, returning to the Marvel multiverse as a very different sort of “Iron Man”). There’s also a post-credits sequence showing more of this universe’s “Fantastic Four” cartoon show.

The End.

Summing It Up

A pleasant surprise, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” benefits from robust performances by Pedro Pascal (“The Mandalorian”), Vanessa Kirby (“Mission Impossible: Fallout”), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (“No Hard Feelings”), Joseph Quinn (“A Quiet Place: Day One”), Ralph Ineson (“The Creator”) and Julia Garner (“Apartment 7A”). Another major highlight of the film is its alternate mid-century look, created by Kasra Farahani; whose meticulous, surprisingly nostalgic recreation of a Space Age that never was is almost guaranteed an Oscar nomination. Farahani’s ingenius production design is almost another character.

There’s a lot of magazines, architecture and cathode-ray tech from my own childhood visible throughout, as well as an alternate 1960s New York skyline with Space Needle-style buildings dotting the otherwise familiar Manhattan landscape. Earth-828 (numbered for creator Jack Kirby’s August 28th birthday) is clearly not our Earth, though it’s founded in that aspirational, optimistic retro-future my generation imagined when we were young. This movie embraces its early comic book roots full-on, including the return of robot servant HERBIE (Matthew Wood); whose computer-tape reel eyes are in perfect keeping with the alternate 1960s vibe. In fact, I remember owning a blue-white plastic toy robot called “Mister Brain” as a kid in the early 1970s who looked like a close relative of HERBIE (minus the tape-reel eyes, of course).

While the movie’s style is poised to overpower its substance, I’m pleased to say it does not. The quartet plus-one of heroes retains the somewhat dysfunctional family feel from the comics I remember as a kid, and it’s one of the core attractions of these characters. Marvel heroes are messed up. They have issues. Yet they always rose to the occasion. Earlier this summer, I was hearing a lot about the optimism and ‘return to kindness’ in James Gunn’s reboot of “Superman,” but I found a lot more of that optimism and kindness in Matt Shakman‘s “Fantastic Four.” Granted, setting this movie in a more hopeful, alternate 1965 certainly helped, as it allows it to better reflect an innocent nostalgia while retaining some practical modernity.

While perhaps not quite a perfect movie (there’s Johnny’s weird attraction to a villain who threatens his nephew, and the climax goes on a bit too long), but on the whole, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” has enough heart, charm and nerdy fidelity to its original source material (and era) to succeed where its contemporary-leaning predecessors failed. That family feel, found and biological, is deftly conveyed by the cast, who fit right into their Pan-Am lounge-style apartment building.

As an ex-kid-turned-oldster born in the mid-1960s who’s read a few F4 comic books, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” welcomed me right back into that retro-future from my childhood, and I look forward to a return trip someday soon.

Where to Watch

At the time of this writing, “Fantastic Four: First Steps” is still in exclusive theatrical release, but this being a Disney/Marvel film, it will most likely appear on Disney+ for its streaming debut in a few months (or less).