The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (2025)

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a 2025 American superhero film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer & Kat Wood, and directed by Matt Shakman, the film is the MCU’s 37th entry, marking the start of Phase Six.

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, Mark Gatiss as Ted Gilbert, Natasha Lyonne as Rachel Rozman, Paul Walter Hauser as Harvey Elder/Mole Man, & Ralph Ineson as Galactus, the film set in a retro-futuristic 60s following Marvel’s first superhero family, The Fantastic Four.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (2025) Synopsis:

Welcome to the family.

Against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Marvel’s First Family is forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, while defending Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer.

The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (2025) Review:

For a change, I’m going to cut to the chase and tell you, I was disappointed with this one. And my expectations were pretty low to begin with. And that’s saying something, despite liking the lead cast, as well as It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia director, Matt Shakman at the helm.

The marketing team for The Fantastic Four: The First Steps went all out in trying to position the film as a comic-book accurate film, promising a fresh and fun superhero movie separate from the main MCU universe, but still part of the same multi-verse. To be fair, the film does deliver a comic-book accurate story with so many amazing easter eggs that fans are bound to love.

But, it also fails at many storytelling fundamentals that makes you wonder: are Marvel Fans so used to getting bad content that they’ll gobble down even mediocre media and call it a masterpiece?

Okay, I would be lying if I said I hated everything about the film. Because frankly, I did enjoy some bits. And objectively, the film has a lot to offer.

Comic Book Accurate, With Loads to Love.

Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach & Joseph Quinn as the Fantastic Four

From their iconic blue suits, to Mole-Man’s inclusion, to even the cartoon theme song, the film strives really hard to present a fun and lighthearted superhero movie to compete with the likes of James Gunn’s Superman (2025). And in many ways, it succeeds. Fantastic Four fans will have a ton to appreciate here, and so did I. The retro-futuristic setting does have its charm. It feels fresher than any of Marvel’s content in quite a while. The separation of this universe from the MCU’s main one actually gave this film an open playground not restricted by the countless canon events that seemed to bog down earlier film entries.

But, the film failed in every aspect that Superman managed to succeed. Because, being comic-book accurate doesn’t mean you solved all your other problems. The film in tone is very different from the film that we saw in the trailers. It’s darker than expected, which then begs the question: how is this different from your earlier entries? Is this film going to tell one full story, or is this just another stepping-stone in your “wider-universe”, where conclusions are replaced with teases of future instalments?

The film is chockfull of easter eggs, and in the “Marvel-stop-focusing-on-these-and-give-us-a-plain-simple-story” way. The film’s editing—especially in the first half—clearly highlights a certain lack of direction. The pacing feels very wonky, with the first 15-20 minutes suggesting they didn’t know what they were doing. As if Marvel just filmed a ton of content that could appeal to fans of the comic, then realised they also needed a story.

Throughout the film, we get loads of epic comic-book moments. But, that’s where the problems start. Despite the awesome nature of the action set-pieces, they don’t feel fun and innovative like in Thor: Ragnarok or Guardians of the Galaxy; they feel like generic Marvel CGI. And none of it has an appropriate set up, development, or even a satisfactory explanation. The film takes interesting plot points and completely drops the ball with its illogical reasoning. Which brings me to the bigger problems at hand.

Idiotic Plot-Holes, Poor Character Work

Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal/The Silver Surfer

For starters, the four of them don’t seem to have much chemistry in the beginning. I don’t know if it’s a fault on the actors’ side or the filmmakers, but it’s very apparent. I’ll admit, their chemistry did grow over time, but it still wasn’t anywhere on the level you’d expect from Marvel’s first family.

What’s worse? Their individual characters don’t really have much to offer. Their motivations feel very surface level, and their personalities don’t go deeper than what the immediate plot point demands. All this results in a story that oscillates between events with the weakest of logical anchors. If the film had bothered to spend half the effort in developing the characters and plot, the film actually could have ended up a masterpiece on the level of Thor: Ragnarok or the Phase 3 Avengers films. Instead, Marvel chooses to provide superficial aesthetic wins, sidelining the more crucial aspects of character and story.

Do the characters act like in the comics? Yes, arguably. But, there’s not enough set up for us to get to know these characters. Instead of seeing them be good at what they do, the film tells via a documentary narrator who and what these people are. Their struggles feel unworthy because they don’t try anything more than the exact things that the plot demands of them. They never fail, because they don’t try anything else. The only thing they fail at is teleporting the Earth, an idiotic plan to begin with.

Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner), Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and every other character here actually has a very compelling backstory and personality in the comics. But, the filmmakers seem to have taken the leanest pickings from the source material to offer just enough to appease fans, but not enough to tell a compelling story to everyone.

The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (2025) Ending Explained (SPOILERS)

Ralph Ineson as Galactus

When their plan to “teleport Earth to another location” (yes, I am not joking) fails, the Fantastic Four decide to use Baby Franklin as bait. The same baby that they weren’t willing to sacrifice, they now use as bait because there’s no time to think of an alternate plan. So, that’s kinda what they do. Of course, Galactus—the cosmic devourer of planets—almost falls for it, stepping into the teleporter. The team perform a classic cartoon switcheroo, and that… almost works? After a relatively mediocre action set piece, Shalla-Bal intervenes and sacrifices herself to push Galactus through the teleporter,

Sue dies from overexerting herself, but Franklin manifests his powers just then to revive her. The world celebrates their survival, and later celebrates 5 years of the Fantastic Four. The celebration cuts short as the team rushes out of the studio to respond to an unknown threat.

Honestly, the film failed to set up the ending appropriately. Both “solutions” were too cartoonish to take seriously. I mean, they couldn’t bother to think of a creative way? They couldn’t show the team failing before resorting to these Hail Marys? Why not show us the consequences of Shalla-Bal’s actions, and how it affected her? Did we just forget about her because she’s not important?

The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (2025) is honestly a stale egg sandwich wrapped in gold foil. Yes, the film has a ton worth appreciating. But story-wise, it’s so idiotic that I’m shocked to see fans going gaga over it. I finally get why people were annoyed with Snyder fans hailing Man of Steel (2013) as an art film despite its many flaws.

The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (2025) Mid-Credits & After-Credits Scenes Explained

Mid-Credits Scene: 4 years after the events of the film, Sue is playing with Franklin. She gets up to go search for a book for him. When she returns, she finds Franklin interacting with a stranger in a dark green cloak, holding a metallic mask. Dr Doom.

Post-Credits Scene: The in-world Fantastic Four Cartoon theme song plays.

Honestly, I did not enjoy either of them. The post-credits scene was a fun little easter egg, but not worth waiting till the end for. I’ll admit that the mid-credits scene, despite my complaints, is actually decent, and sets up Avenger’s Doomsday. It also hints at why the Fantastic Four ship entered the MCU’s main universe in the end of Thunderbolts* (2025).

Is The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (2025) worth watching?

Honestly, it depends. It’s an average film that’s surviving because of the hype, star power, and undying loyalty of fans. Yes, it’s comic-book accurate in many ways, but it’s also disingenuous and riddled with idiotic plot-holes. If this were a fully stand-alone film like Iron Man (2008), maybe it could have held on its own. But, the film tries to “sneakily” cram in too many easter eggs because it doesn’t trust itself to tell a compelling story without.

What a waste of great talent.

It’s not a bad film, but it’s nowhere close to being a good film either.

In Conclusion:

The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (2025) is an average film at best. All it’s great set design and world-building are pointless because it fails at something fundamental: story and characters.

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