Best Foot 4Ward

The Fantastic Four : First Steps marks the third cinematic imagining of the first family of superheroes (not counting the unreleased Roger Corman movie of the 90's) and their introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Well, sort of.

It's sort of because the story takes place in a separate dimension from the rest of the films. This is Earth-828, where the Fantastic Four are seemingly the only super heroes. More than heroes, in fact, they are the de facto most important people on the planet and via science and diplomacy they have ushered in an era of worldwide peace and unity. The world itself is a fantastically realised retro-futuristic version of the 1960's, something like Fallout crossed with the Jetsons or, closer to home, a live action Incredibles. The Four consists of; Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), brilliant scientist with stretchy powers, his wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), who can go invisible and create force fields with her mind, her brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn), who can fly, turn into flames and seemingly control fire, and Ben "The Thing" Grimm ( Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who is made out of super tough organic rock and is very strong. The movie opens with the team already having defeated and/or made piece with most of their comic book rogues gallery (except the really famous one who's name is in the title of an upcoming Avengers movie) and they are soon looking forward to becoming a quintet when Sue announces she is pregnant. Jubilation is short lived however, as a different arrival puts the world on notice. The Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) carves into town to let everyone know her boss, Ralph Innesin's Galactus, plans on having the planet for Sunday dinner, plunging team FF into a race against to time to protect both their planet and their child.

Setting things away from the main MCU story was defiantly the right move, no need to have watched umpteen hours of previous superhero shenanigans to be up to speed here, the opening few minutes tells you everything you need to know and the super stylish world is the star of the show, even if we don't get to see as much of it as we would maybe like. There is also an all round visual polish that is often missing from Marvel movies of late. In terms of story, things are kept simple and the action is used sparingly, with two big (literally) set pieces. The focus is on the family bonds and even the world ending stakes are folded into a more personal family dilemma involving their new baby. This absolutely works in terms of getting the characters across even if it means some liberties need to be taken with how excepting the general population are with their heroes choices. A fair bit of the humour misses the mark, a running joke about The Thing's famous catchphrase just isn't funny, but enough lands to keep the tone lighthearted.

The characters all work well and give a different flavour from the frat bro adults that have become the staple of Marvel's cinematic offerings. Pascal brings his usual understated charm to Richards but also plays him as a man who is burdened by his massive intellect, if he is smart enough to see everything then anything that goes wrong is by his logic, his fault. Johnny and Ben are the ones there to provide the patter but there is a sincerity to them both. There is a side plot around Johnny earning respect for his intelligence that probably had more to it in a longer draft of the script. Vanessa Kirby has the most challenging role as Sue. We are told about her diplomatic skills and when it comes to super power, she is shown to be the strongest, but in terms plot character she mostly boils down to supportive wife and mamma bear. It works in terms of this particular story but hopefully she is given more in future outings. The villains aren't the most complex but they both look cool and a great job is done of making Galactus feel scary and imposing while still sticking to Jack Kirby's iconic original design.

Unique visuals aside, First Steps is a very safe and solid film. Some may have been looking for a bit more adventure but using the biggest addition to their film franchise in quite some time as a well packaged entry point for new or lapsed viewers is a shrewd move on Marvels part. Sometimes just making a good movie anyone can enjoy is the right call. Who'd have thought.

7 cosmic babies out of 10

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