The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) Review – Marvel’s First Family Reborn

This article discusses major plot elements, including the ending of The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Proceed at your own risk.

Marvel’s “First Family” has weathered more cinematic false starts than any superhero team deserves. With The Fantastic Four: First Steps, director Matt Shakman attempts what earlier adaptations only hinted at: a film that treats Reed Richards and company less as punch‑line fodder and more as emotionally rich characters living in a gloriously stylized universe. The result is an energetic, sometimes uneven two‑hour sprint that marries high‑stakes cosmic peril with the small, anxious rhythms of impending parenthood—an approach that feels as old‑fashioned as it is disarmingly new.

A Retro‑Futuristic Canvas That Rivals the Kirby Pages

From its opening montage—a winking newsreel that blitzes through origin beats already etched into pop‑culture memory—the film stakes out its own corner of the multiverse: Earth‑828, a sun‑drenched alt‑1960s where rocket fins glint against art‑deco skyscrapers and robot butlers clatter through immaculate Manhattan apartments. Production designer Kasra Farahani and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw bathe every frame in mid‑century optimism; swooping monorails and CRT jumbotrons evoke Walt Disney’s Tomorrowland, while cosmic vistas channel the crackling energy of Jack Kirby splash pages. It is world‑building so lush you almost want the camera to linger—but Shakman keeps pushing forward, trusting audiences to soak up the details on rewatch.

Performances: A Family That Feels Lived‑In

The quartet benefits from pitch‑perfect casting. Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards wears genius like a well‑tailored suit, yet lets self‑doubt seep through the seams whenever fatherhood enters the conversation. Vanessa Kirby steals the film; her Sue Storm radiates maternal ferocity and scientific acuity, grounding the story whenever its cosmic stakes threaten to float away. Joseph Quinn gives Johnny Storm credible hot‑shot swagger tempered by flashes of vulnerability, and Ebon Moss‑Bachrach turns Ben Grimm’s rocky exterior into a surprising wellspring of tenderness—his tentative courtship of Natasha Lyonne’s schoolteacher earns the film’s biggest emotional payoff. Even the ethereal Julia Garner makes the Silver Surfer both ominous and oddly poignant, a chrome harbinger pre‑emptively mourning the worlds she dooms.

Parenting Metaphors at Planet‑Eating Scale

Plotwise, First Steps pivots on a chilling bargain: the world‑devouring Galactus (a thunderous Ralph Ineson) promises to spare Earth if Reed and Sue surrender their unborn son. The conceit reframes interstellar annihilation as the raw terror every expectant parent knows—the fear of an unfathomable future outside one’s control. Shakman leans into that metaphor with surprising sincerity. When Reed whispers, “The more I look at you, the less I know,” over a sonogram‑lit cockpit, the line transcends comic‑book melodrama; it is the confession of a man who can stretch across galaxies yet still can’t shield his family from every cosmic gust.

Momentum Over Muscle: The Film’s Double‑Edged Pace

Clocking in under two hours, the narrative rarely pauses to deepen secondary arcs. Ben and Johnny’s sibling‑like bickering sparks, but their interior lives get skimmed. Exposition occasionally arrives in breathless bursts—H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot pops in with tape‑reel eyes and zippy bleeps to fill gaps the script cannot—but the streamlined approach keeps tension taut. Where earlier Fantastic Four outings sagged under origin‑story weight, this one barrels ahead, trusting viewers to find context on Metacritic’s aggregate page or the detailed cast breakdown on IMDb. Some sequences feel carved to the bone—the climactic spacewalk, thrilling though it is, begs for thirty more seconds of silence to let Galactus’s cosmic enormity truly sink in—but the film’s relentless energy covers many seams.

Visual and Sonic Identity

Michael Giacchino’s brassy score does the heroic lifting that the sometimes‑flat camera setups do not. When the Fantasticar rockets toward the Devourer of Worlds, the composer’s soaring leitmotif injects a sense of majesty the visuals flirt with but never fully embrace. Still, there is no denying the tactile pleasure of practical costumes—cerulean roll‑neck sweaters that look oddly cozy for zero‑G firefights—and the practical‑meets‑digital blend that renders Galactus less as a nebulous cloud (looking at you, 2007) and more as a towering, tunic‑forked monarch stomping buses like toy cars.

Where It Lands in the Marvel Landscape

Is First Steps the definitive take that fans have awaited since 1961? Not yet. But it finally gives the team an identity distinct from quip‑driven Avengers banter and multiversal chaos fatigue. Early audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes and critical consensus on Metacritic suggest cautious optimism. Box‑office tracking on Box Office Mojo shows solid opening‑day numbers, and chatter on Letterboxd is already dissecting easter eggs from Mole Man cameos to sly nods at Latveria.

Where to Dive Deeper

If you crave a scene‑by‑scene breakdown, the dedicated movie page on What’s After the Movie houses a full plot summary, interactive quizzes, and convenient gateways to providers catalogued on JustWatch. Curious about post‑credit stingers? Media Stinger has you covered. Vehicle aficionados can pore over Reed’s retro rockets on IMCDb, while ticket hunters can secure showtimes via Fandango. Wikipedia’s ever‑growing entry provides production trivia, and TMDB hosts an expanding gallery of stills.

Verdict: Imperfect, Inviting, and Promising

The Fantastic Four: First Steps doesn’t rewrite the superhero playbook, yet its commitment to earnest family drama wrapped in neon‑lit, mid‑century spectacle feels like a refreshing palate cleanser in an era of sprawling crossover fatigue. The film’s greatest triumph lies in reminding us that cosmic adventure and deeply human fears can—and should—coexist. These may be tentative first steps, but they plant Marvel’s First Family on firmer ground than ever before.

For more reviews, industry news, and deep‑dive discussions, bookmark the What’s After the Movie blog—your one‑stop destination for film analysis that goes beyond the credits.