Now this is how you do a superhero reboot...
Yes after Superman reboot tripped over itself to face-plant DC into its new era, The Fantastic Four arrives to take it’s first steps and puts Marvel on far surer footing for the future.
It is hard not to compare the two films, not simply because they are the big summer superhero films by the rival companies, but because they are both tasked with starting a new phase of their respective Universe - and because the films are oddly familiar.
While Superman begins three years into him ‘coming out’ to the world, The Fantastic Four is set four years after their ill-fated mission into space, where a cosmic incident caused genius scientist Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) to become the elasticated Mr Fantastic, his wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) to become the Invisible Woman (with serious forcefield powers too), her brother Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn from Stranger Things) to become the Human Torch and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, from The Bear) to turn into The Thing.
As with Superman they are already lauded for using their powers to save humans, but unlike in Superman, the film chooses to bring the audience up to speed with a quick recap of the origin story and a whizz through a few of their triumphs to date, defeating supervillains including Mole Man. It does this through satisfying newsreel footage which highlights a key difference in quality between the two films: The Fantastic Four manages to create a convincing and distinctive world for its actions.
It’s not simply a flailing garish mash-up, what we have in F4 is a satisfying retro-future aesthetic set on Earth-828, which is basically a parallel 1960s America (the world into which the comics originally arrived), where the presence of Reed has accelerated technology to the point where there are flying cars and teleportation is possible, though most of the populous still drive chevys and wear hats. This immediately gives the film more literal weight than an unsatisfying reliance on CGI, with Bernie the robot powered by tapes, buttons satisfyingly pushed, vinyl being played and the interior design sleek in that post-War futurism style.
More significantly, is the emotional weight which is rendered here too. Again, Superman was too busy guffawing at its own absurdity to bother with anything emotional - other than a glib insistence that Superman just wants people to get along - but F4 builds its characters, and the dynamics between them, and what they have, and what they could lose.
Storm is pregnant and Reed is under pressure to figure out a new threat from space. A Silver Surfer, Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner) sweeps down to Earth as a herald for a being called Galactus, who is a planet eater; our planet is next on the menu. Cue an exciting trip up into space for the Four to speak to this Galactus, a giant machine-man god of sorts (played by Finchy from The Office, it turns out, Ralph Ineson) with a compulsion to destroy and devour holy bodies with his industrial space ship. When the Four come face to face with him, the being senses something special about Storm and Reed’s unborn baby and says he’ll spare the earth if they give the child to him. The superheroes barely escape back to Earth, and have to figure out what to do, for Galactus is on his way...
All of this is sold in particular by performances from Pascal and Kirby as Reed, which are as good as anything seen in the modern superhero genre. Pascal bringing angst and intensity to his science whizz who feels the burden of having to solve the planet’s problems and is cursed by the knowledge that the best decision may sometimes be at odds with his own wishes. Kirby us revelatory as a mother faced with impossible choices, who possesses a talent for speaking to people and bringing them in to see the world in a different light; as well as a determination to protect at all costs.
There are ethical questions at the heart of the film which elevate it. People on Earth rightly question why they can’t give up one child to save everyone else on Earth. They way Storm eventually resolves this in a speech, is a standout moment as good as any of the Human Torch/Silver Surfer battles/flirts. But again, the difference with Superman here is that the reactions of the citizens feels believable. In Superman, the Metropolis folk stay gawping from their office windows as their city is repeatedly torn apart, and the judgements of Superman are played out as a ‘like’ competition on social media. In Fantastic Four, faced with an outside threat to the planet, people listen, pull together and work to protect themselves and to assist the team.
There is some nostalgia here, for despite the parallel universe idea, it is very much misty-eyed over a time when America was prosperous and largely united post-War, and behave like good wholesome people, rather than Self-addicted trolls and Influencers. But it works as a way to transport us to a different time and place, is effectively rendered and tends to smooth out the action in a satisfying way. It has internal logic, which Superman did not.
It is not perfect. Quinn makes an effective Johnny Storm but not perhaps the James Dean-ish anti-authority pin-up you’d hope. Moss-Bachrach is good under the computer imagery as The Thing, but there’s a lack of exploration of the character’s depressive funk over no longer being human; his burgeoning relationship with Russian Doll’s Natasha Lyonne, is sweet but lacks any kind of acknowledgement that, yknow, he’s made of brick. Galactus is a decent villain, but he’s no Thanos, and is fairly easily dealt with.
Celebrity, and the faith in celebrities, is not particularly explored - Superman did give this a go, clunkily - since the F4 are more like statespeople, great minds to be trusted. As such it could be considered a cop-out to avoid anything too contemporaneous.
But look, The Fantastic Four: First Steps works on its own terms, it is visually a delight, has three or four jaw dropping moments, some great laughs and compelling performances. It explores big questions of science and ‘small’ questions of family, and sets up what’s to come in Marvel’s Phase Six in satisfying style, complete with an electric post-credits scenes.
Job done, fantastically. Now, somebody help Superman up off the floor...
