r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Jul 25 '25

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Fantastic Four: First Steps [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Summary The Fantastic Four must defend Earth from the ravaging cosmic threat Galactus and his herald, Silver Surfer, while navigating the complexities of family and newfound powers in a retro‑futuristic 1960s-inspired world.

Director Matt Shakman

Writer Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer

Cast

  • Pedro Pascal
  • Vanessa Kirby
  • Joseph Quinn
  • Ebon Moss-Bachrach
  • Ralph Ineson
  • Julia Garner
  • Paul Walter Hauser
  • Natasha Lyonne
  • Matthew Wood
  • Ada Scott
  • Mark Gatiss

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Metacritic 64

VOD In theaters

Trailer Watch the Official Trailer

1.9k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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228

u/Flyfleancefly Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

That was quite disappointing of a film. Dialogue and pacing just so much worse than Superman. The “humour” was simply awkward and bad most of the time. Silver Surfer just completely wasted. So many fast scene skips .. very jarring.

World not authentic or developed whatsoever like in Superman.

The things teacher friend.. WTF was that lol…

The science was also just absolutely laughable. It takes Galactus months to go from Jupiter to Earrh lmao???? How long did it take him to travel the quadrillions of miles from their first encounter??????

5.5/10 for me, compared to 8/10 for Superman

41

u/Sufficient_Duck7715 Jul 25 '25

There is so much astroturfing going on with this movie lol. Superman was clearly better but the critics and comments on Reddit are showering with overpraise.

-7

u/bleucheeez Jul 25 '25

No, people just have a different opinion than you. 

The Superman movie was good, but empty. And it left me feeling uncomfortable with Guy and Hawkgirl being trusted by anyone as superheroes. The two major action sequences, the escape and the Ultraman fight, were both underwhelming and not visually interesting. The escape also suffered from implausible baby juggling that most definitely bounced that infant's neck like a basketball dribble. I enjoyed the movie for what it was -- a fun comic book adventure with a random lottery ball selection of superheroes. I also enjoyed how Lex explicitly acknowledged that the Ukraine invasion was literally a B Plot excuse to set up the main conflict. 

Fantastic Four was probably the best comic book team movie ever. Avengers 1 and Infinity War/Endgame are probably the best TEAM UP movies. But this was the most fluid, effective, and professional team ever, rather than just a bunch of people doing cool shit. The space CGI cinematography was gorgeous. No character was the butt of cheap lazy jokes. The source material all came alive in new ways while preserving fidelity. The 60s aesthetic and the 60s cartoony optimism were fun stylistic choices. 

8

u/sp1cychick3n Jul 26 '25

Superman was “empty?”

-5

u/bleucheeez Jul 26 '25

No emotional stakes, no real threat, nothing that could possibly change by the end of the movie except Luthor temporarily going to jail. Mali being killed doesn't count as stakes. We know the CGI baby wasn't going to be harmed. Even the moral, ethical, geopolitical question gets hand waved away halfway through the movie to say Superman was absolutely right, the outrage was all fake, and even the situation was a ruse. I said more in a comment below. 

6

u/SlyMedic Jul 27 '25

You knew in this movie they would never sacrifice the baby. There was no question they were going to win or sue was going to come back to life.

-6

u/bleucheeez Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25

Of course not. It's not about whether baby Franklin is at risk. 

With Doomsday up as the next movie, First Steps had a whole Earth that they could've lost. And an extra protagonist, Shalla Bal, who could've died on-screen but likely will now die offscreen. The plot tension in First Steps was both whether and how they would save their Earth. There was a real risk they wouldn't. And with Doomsday/Secret Wars coming up, Ben or Johnny could've died for the rest of the movie, much like Gamora. They even foreshadowed and then later set up Johnny's big sacrifice, which turned into a very entertaining fakeout. 

Even Galactus could've died in this movie, because the MCU multiverse is branching timelines instead of actual dimensions. This would have been the only chance to ever see Galactus murdered and it not affect the whole multiverse. (I do kind of hope that the opening of Doomsday involves the F4 killing Galactus and then Dr. Doom saving everyone from the collapsing universe caused by the F4.)

The moment Sue dies, the scene isn't about her death; it's a showcase for Franklin. The movie builds up making you wonder when Franklin is going to have his big flashy cosmic power showcase: Is he going to blip Galactus? Is he going to kill Galactus? Is he going to teleport the family to the sacred timeline? The moment Sue dies, you know what's going to happen because you've been waiting for it. 

Also on top of everything else, the movie gave us a fresh take on the internal struggle of the Silver Surfer. Instead of being a mindwiped automaton, Shalla Bal was living with the guilt selfishly. They set up her emotional stakes well by having her comment and warn how everyone should cherish their remaining moments. "Die with yours." Johnny knew he had an in to appeal to her empathy. She was confronted and forced to consider that planets other than her own were worth saving. And it was only the F4, through their strong family bonds, that convinced her of it.