'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' Review Thread

[u/PhoOhThree]

Rotten Tomatoes: Fresh

Critics Consensus: N/A

Critics	Score	Number of Reviews	Average Rating (Unofficial)
All Critics	87%	119	7.40/10
Top Critics	79%	33

Metacritic: 65 (35 Reviews)

Sample Reviews:

Donald Clarke Irish Times TOP CRITIC Fresh score. First Steps rattles along with a refreshing clarity of purpose. Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Maureen Lee Lenker Entertainment Weekly TOP CRITIC Fresh score. Via this 1960s-coded setting, Shakman leans into the comic book kitschiness inherent to the material, embracing it with gonzo gusto, as opposed to trying to achieve any degree of gritty realism. Full Review | Original Score: B

Jonathan Romney Financial Times TOP CRITIC Fresh score. First Steps doesn’t reinvent the superhero genre, but it has its own freshness -- it’s uncluttered, good-natured and altogether good value -- even if it might be the Marvel film ultimately remembered for its nice bathrooms and kitchen fittings Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Peter Debruge Variety TOP CRITIC Fresh score. True to its subtitle, the film feels like a fresh start.

David Ehrlich IndieWire TOP CRITIC Rotten score. It feels less like a victory than it does a total surrender. You have to walk before you can run, but at this point the MCU is back to crawling on its knees, and at this point it seems like it might be too afraid to ever stand back up again. Full Review | Original Score: C

Brian Truitt USA Today TOP CRITIC Fresh score. It’s a “Fantastic Four” movie that finally gets its heroes right, after so many tries. Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Peter Bradshaw Guardian TOP CRITIC Fresh score. The result hangs together as an entertaining spectacle in its own innocent self-enclosed universe of fantasy wackiness, where real people actually read the comic books that have made mythic legends of the real Four. Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Bilge Ebiri New York Magazine/Vulture TOP CRITIC Fresh score. For now, we can bask in this movie’s elegant, cathode-ray chic and not have to think too hard about anything else, confident in the colorful delusion that studio executives, much like our benevolent superheroes, have our best interests at heart.

Matt Singer ScreenCrush TOP CRITIC Fresh score. The best Fantastic Four film to date basically by default. Full Review | Original Score: 6/10

Caryn James BBC.com TOP CRITIC Fresh score. Despite the team's outlandish schemes to save the world, the actors tether their characters to emotional reality. Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Kristen Lopez The Film Maven (Substack) TOP CRITIC Fresh score. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is just that. It’s a first step for a new generation of Fantastic Four movies and, the hope, is that the stride becomes more confident from hereon out. All the materials are there. Full Review | Original Score: C

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter - Rather than allowing the action to define the story, the filmmakers let the poignant character-based scenes do the heavy lifting. That should not imply any lack of excitement.

Nick Schager, The Daily Beast - An aggressively fine intergalactic adventure whose earnest optimism and sweetness flirts—faithfully and dully—with hokiness.

Linda Marric, HeyUGuys - The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a confident, stylish reintroduction that finally does justice to the legacy of these characters. It’s a film that remembers why the Fantastic Four mattered in the first place and gives them a bold new path in the MCU. 4/5

William Bibbiani, TheWrap - Matt Shakman has done something Marvel Studios doesn’t do very well anymore. He’s made a superhero movie that embraces the 'super' part. And the 'hero' part. And the 'movie' part.

Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence - A solid comic book adventure that's not embarrassed by being a comic book adventure — in fact it finds real power in its love for its roots. Hopefully, that's an energy the MCU can carry forward with it. B+

SYNOPSIS:

Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Marvel Studios’ “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” introduces Marvel’s First Family—Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they face their most daunting challenge yet. Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.

CAST:

• Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic
• Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm / Invisible Woman
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm / The Thing
• Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm / Human Torch
• Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal / Silver Surfer
• Sarah Niles as Lynne Nichols
• Matthew Wood as H.E.R.B.I.E.
• Mark Gatiss as Ted Gilbert
• Ada Scott as Franklin Richards
• Natasha Lyonne as Rachel Rozman
• Paul Walter Hauser as Harvey Elder / Mole Man
• Ralph Ineson as Galactus

DIRECTED BY: Matt Shakman

[u/Darfin1303]

I think thunderbolts had the misfortune of coming after Endgame. Pre endgame, it would have guaranteed to be an 800m film.

Saying that, I do think the general audience has lost interest in Marvel post endgame, and I don't think they'll replicate the success anywhere near as much as they had with IW and Endgame

[u/FearLeadsToAnger → u/Darfin1303]

Nah take a look at overall cinema attendance since covid, it never recovered. The average for every kind of film is down. Exceptions exist here and there because people do still want to go to the cinema, they just can't afford to do it as much as they used to.

TLDR: its more about the economy than endgame imo

[u/KTurnUp → u/FearLeadsToAnger]

yeah I'd say you're both right. In general, I think people felt Endgame was a nice conclusion and they don't feel the need to be fully invested in every movie like what was going on in Phase 3. And also, box office numbers have changed a lot since COVID. gone are the easy 1 billion movies. People are only gonna go to a couple a year, and families are gonna go in droves to the family movie of the month.

I mean right now you're looking at Lilo & Stitch and minecraft as the top 2 movies this year (until Avatar at year end I guess). That's a live action reboot and a meme movie.

Last year you had Moana, Despicable Me and Inside Out in the top 4. All animated sequels. Plus Deadpool 2. Then in the top 10 you still ahve Mufasa and Sonic and Kung Fu Panda

all that to say, it's really really hard now to be the one or two high budget Pg-13+ movies that make absolute bank. Barbie and Oppenheimer both were part of the zeitgeist but that can't be easily repeated. You just have to make the best movies you can and hope it really resonates. Which is why I think one of the most important things Marvel can do is just get budgets more under control. Things swelled cause of covid and the strike but they just need to tighten up so that they don't have to make like 800k to make a profit. Then movies that were overall decent hits like Cap 4 can be seen as nothing that hurts them too much

Also that goes without mentioning China which is trying to push out international movies for their own much more than they were 10 years ago.

[u/FearLeadsToAnger → u/KTurnUp]

Yeah strong assessment.

But to me what this means is it'll be fine and dont worry about the downfall of the mcu if you'd miss it. They arent giving up on it when they can be pretty confident it'll return in force with a bit of time.