"Fantastic Four - First Steps" was a disappointment

Fantastic Four – First Steps starts exactly like James Gunn’s Superman, in medias res. There’s no prologue, we already know the characters, and their creators – Gunn on one side, Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer on the other – immediately kick off the story so the audience feels immersed in the adventure right away. These choices make sense in 2025. After almost twenty years since the launch of the MCU, with a past that had already gotten audiences used to the idea of superheroes in cinema – albeit more sporadically – reintroducing from scratch some of the most well-known characters could seem like an easy and redundant strategy. Thus, both Superman and Fantastic Four leverage their notoriety to give breath to their untold stories, abandoning the origin story format and assuming the audience already knows enough to understand who, how, and why they’re facing a stretchable man, an invisible woman, a young man who catches fire, and a talking rock.

In Fantastic Four – First Steps, however, this narrative device immediately creates a sense of chaos in a film where, as is increasingly the case with Marvel productions, it’s the writing that wavers. The start of the cinecomic is confusing and fragmented, with an introductory collage on the characters’ pasts, who they are and what they’ve done – longer than necessary – only to suddenly find ourselves in the heart of the story, which in turn remains confusing and fragmented. While choosing to deviate from the standard storytelling conventions when reintroducing a character can be commendable – as with James Gunn’s Superman – the lack of precision and direction in the writing of Fantastic Four – First Steps generates a chain of situations, that generate a chain of scenes, that generate a chain of consequences, all poorly connected. The retro-futuristic concept isn't enough to captivate visually, a style the Marvel universe had effectively used in an episodic show like WandaVision. Here, the film's attempt to appear fresh feels like a step backward compared to a more successful recent MCU example like the critically appreciated but box-office-unlucky Thunderbolts*.

Adding to the instability of Fantastic Four – First Steps (which are not really beginnings, given how far into the story they already are) is the lack of chemistry in the much-promoted family that should serve as the emotional core of the story, but lacks the warmth and affection expected from a group made up of spouses, siblings, and best friends. On paper, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach had all the potential to be a winning team, yet they work only individually, never really blending into a cohesive unit. There’s no real connection between Reed Richards and Susan Storm, and even less between them and their companions, Johnny and Ben, who interact with more conviction than the rest of the group but still fail to provide the necessary chemistry for the Fantastic Four or for any genuine sense of a close-knit family. It doesn’t compare to the animated crew of The Incredibles – not coincidentally scored by Michael Giacchino, who returns here as well – neither in portraying a superpowered family nor in executing the retro-futuristic vibe they’re aiming for. Ironically, it was the Pixar characters who originally took inspiration from the comics based on Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s creations.

A thirty-seventh film for the MCU whose fate remains as uncertain as the screenplay supporting Fantastic Four – First Steps. Creative director Kevin Feige has already announced a complete reset of the cinematic universe established in 2008, to be concluded with the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars. Not a reboot, but a total reset for a new beginning that will start with the X-Men. Everything seems to be leaning toward the most varied (and desperate) solutions for Marvel – let's not forget that they even revealed Harrison Ford’s character in Captain America: Brave New World to be Red Hulk right in the trailer – a spoiler that would’ve never been used as a marketing hook in earlier years. So perhaps there’s hope for a restart for the Fantastic Four as well, and hopefully, the second time will be the charm.