It took Marvel years to finally get back the movie rights to the team they call their “first family,” and then they had the bad luck to release THE FANTASTIC 4: FIRST STEPS two weeks after James Gunn’s SUPERMAN. It won’t matter in the long run, but right now you can’t miss the similarities in its approach: it’s light and stylized, it’s old timey, it skips over the origin story and gets right to it. It feels like a restart because it’s set in a different reality than the MCU and it’s the sixties – theirs has some flying cars, a race of mole people and possibly less racism. I believe they also got baby monitors and fist bumping early over there.

So in many ways it feels fresh for a Marvel movie. The retro-futuristic designs are very appealing, and it’s always nice when they have one that’s a visual experience. But I’m sorry to say it’s not nearly as fun or as funny as SUPERMAN, mostly a glossy surface with nothing but air beneath. I remember the idea of these characters from the 2005 movie – here are those ideas again, looking less embarrassing (love those turtleneck sweater uniforms!) but really not exhibiting much more depth than before.

Fuck the Fantastic 4, though – those entitled celebrities who live in a fancy building, take family trips to space and don’t even have to wait five years to get a fawning anniversary special on TV – the bad guys are the best part. They’re maybe even more simplistic than the heroes, but they’re just cooler. You got Galactus, devourer of worlds, you’ve seen the pictures. A giant space god with a huge purple helmet who comes to earth to eat it. He’s portrayed/based on Ralph Ineson (FIRST KNIGHT, THE GREEN KNIGHT, THE WITCH), who has a voice so low it actually could eat planets if it wanted to. Galactus doesn’t want to, I don’t think – this life seems to be a curse, with no space in it for pursuits of passion or culture. Too busy for hobbies, too transient for love, too large for jazz clubs. When he finds out there’s a baby on earth who has “the power cosmic” or whatever it’s great news because it means he can finally take this job and shove it on to some other schmuck. Maybe go to Vegas or something.

His “herald” is The Silver Surfer, Shalla-Bal, played by Julia Garner, an actress I really admire from WE ARE WHAT WE ARE, THE ASSISTANT, THE ROYAL HOTEL and APARTMENT 7A. (Also she was good in WOLF MAN even if I didn’t love the movie.) Is it the very best showcase of her skills to play a mocap/animated metallic naked alien lady? No, possibly not. Is she cool in it? Yes, definitely. She too is cursed, having sacrificed herself to save her family, now spending forever flying through space choosing which planets Galactus should eat and going there ahead of him to warn everybody they’re fucked and should go out and have a fun night or whatever while they can. She does it in a creepy voice but it’s kind of a nice service, I suppose. Thoughtful.

The animation of the Surfer is pretty cool – I like when she hits some Human Torch fire and they posed her like a real surfer riding a wave. When she heralds Galactus for the earth Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn, OVERLORD) chases her into space and becomes intrigued by her. And I get it. I get it.

There were quite a few years when Marvel Studios seemed like miracle workers, turning the nerdiest shit into movies with undeniably broad appeal. I guess that’s why it’s no big deal that we have Galactus on screen (previously depicted only as a vague shadow). While creating a cinematic world where a giant purple guy is possible, they pushed things as far as they could. There was no way to go bigger than AVENGERS: ENDGAME, except to expand into uncountable hours of tie-in TV shows that spread things thin until almost nobody could follow the whole thing, the track record was spotty and even in the good ones the magic of the earlier movies wasn’t all there. Now each release has the burden of being the one that shows they’re back on track. I still haven’t gotten to CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD (if even I’m fatigued…), but THUNDERBOLTS* was pretty good. I love Florence Pugh as Yelena, I like the idea of the climactic battle involving all of their traumas so it’s personal. But is it a great story I remember, a distinct movie that I will revisit on its own like a BATMAN or X-MEN or THE SUICIDE SQUAD? No, not at all. It’s a pretty good episode.

FIRST STEPS has even more pressure on it because the ongoing series kinda needs exciting central characters in lieu of Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff and T’Challa, but they haven’t figured out how to do Blade and forgot to bring back Shang-Chi. Weirdly instead of choosing a story that will try to sell us on why the Fantastic 4 are the characters who can fill that void they kinda act like this is part 3 or 4 in a series that has gotten stale and is desperate to find a way to mix things up. Shit, I don’t know – add a baby?

Like SUPERMAN it begins with the Fantastic 4 already powered and famous as super heroes, summarized in the aforementioned TV special. Unlike SUPERMAN this means most of their super heroing is in the past, relegated to quick glimpses in a montage or references in dialogue. There’s a good shot of the giant monster from the cover of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and descriptions of a battle and peace talks with Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser, RICHARD JEWELL), and then it’s okay, now what if the status quo you know and love from that opening 5-7 minutes were SHAKEN TO IT’S GOD DAMN CORE? Because the one thing Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Girl never expected was TO BECOME PARENTS!!!!!!!

Can you imagine? Dealing with all the regular parenting stresses except Dad can stretch and Mom can invisible? They’re building the crib and everything except Dad gets in trouble because he has his robot H.E.R.B.I.E. do it. But on a more serious note what about the powers of the baby? It could be the chosen one and shit! That’s why Galactus offers to skip lunch today in exchange for just taking the baby. What an important baby! A powerful bloodline! A consequential lineage! Tune in next time, or the time after that, or whenever. This is only the first steps but there will be other steps I promise you. So important, this baby. Powers!

America’s sweetheart Pedro Pascal (THE GREAT WALL) has the most charisma of any screen version of Reed Richards. The character is fine. He makes him a more lovable square than the ’05 version. His wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby, JUPITER ASCENDING) is to me the least interesting character, she’s very serious because she’s going to be a mother, she’s mad at Reed for being too analytical… I don’t know, as a non-parent I need to say that if this seems true and relatable to actual parents and they find it moving then obviously that’s who it’s for. From the outside it doesn’t seem like there’s a single detail beyond the exact standard issue new parent cliches out of an instruction manual. And you don’t have to have lived a movie for it to work, you know? ARE YOU THERE GOD, IT’S ME MARGARET made me cry about shit for pre-teen girls and their parents. This didn’t make me feel a thing. It made me think oh yeah you’re having a baby, let me give you a fuckin medal, nobody’s tried that before.

Johnny is played by Joseph Quinn, who I did not remember as the guy following Lupita around in A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE. He’s emblematic of my problems with the movie because he’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with him, but there’s nothing exciting about him either. It’s not like THOR (a much worse movie from what I remember) where there’s this new guy Chris Hemsworth who really pops. Johnny has a subplot where on his own he researches and figures out important things, and it’s kind of cool, but it seems like it’s supposed to be a big surprising change from a less serious Johnny we never got to see. I suppose they can’t make him be a horny womanizer hooking up all the time like Chris Evans in the ’05 version, so instead they just have him state that he has a past of being like that. Okay, you used to be more fun to watch. Thanks for letting us know.

Of course it doesn’t help that Quinn just does not look right with his hair bleached and I never stopped thinking he looked like Freddie Prinze Jr. in the SCOOBY-DOO movies. As with Jessica Alba in the ’05 version they cast someone they apparently feel is right for the role but not enough to brush off internet comments saying “IN COMIC BOOKS HAIR IS YELLOW NOT MY FANTASTIC 4!!!!!!!!!”

The best part of this team is definitely Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, STEALTH), street name The Thing. The orange rock monster is animated this time but he looks great, especially wearing his fedoras and giant shoes and shit. Unsurprisingly they play him very similar to Moss-Bachrach’s lovable curmudgeon character Richie on The Bear (which if you haven’t watched it I’m afraid I have to tell you that it’s exactly as great as everybody says. Makes me laugh and cry almost as much as Reservation Dogs). He acts exhausted with everything but he’s everybody’s buddy, he’s great with kids, even has a flirtation with a lady played by Natasha Lyonne (MODERN VAMPIRES) and unlike The Thing’s girlfriend in the ’05 movie or Lyonne’s character in BLADE: TRINITY she’s not blind. Just open-minded.

But the thing is there’s one scene where she talks to him and you get a vibe and another scene where he comes to see her as if they now have a relationship, and otherwise there is no relationship. Everything is minimal in this one.

I don’t want to sound too negative, I enjoyed the experience of watching the movie, but the more I think about it the weaker it seems. It feels like THE TREATMENT FOR FANTASTIC FOUR: THE MOVIE. You see what all the ideas they had were: these are the traits of each character, this is the type of stuff they do, this would be a funny joke if everybody wants Ben to say “It’s clobberin’ time!”, they could be forced to decide between protecting their baby and saving all life on earth as we know it, the parents could freak out the uncles by abruptly deciding it was okay to use the baby as bait.

It’s the bare minimum of all that stuff. It feels like they just hit each of those things but don’t develop anything, don’t let things flow out of it, don’t see where it goes. Just cross off the check list and go home.

For example the biggest conflict is Galactus’ offer to spare the earth if they give him their baby. Obviously they say no, and obviously the people of earth get upset when they hear that because it seems like a choice of give up your baby or give up all life on earth including the baby. But Sue makes a speech on the street saying well, I really love my baby that’s why I can’t give it up but I also love you guys I swear so I will try to save you. Then there’s a shot of one woman going from skeptical grimace to accepting smile and then everybody cheers and that’s it. This is really the barest bare minimum of exploring this idea, and the citizens seem like such dummies to need (and be instantly won over by) an explanation of why Sue would be conflicted about the situation.

The screenplay is credited to Josh Friedman (CHAIN REACTION, WAR OF THE WORLDS, TERMINATOR: DARK FATE, AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER), Eric Pearson (THOR: RAGNAROK, GODZILLA VS. KONG, TRANSFORMERS ONE) and Jeff Kaplan & Ian Springer (BERT AND ARNIE’S GUIDE TO FRIENDSHIP), story by Pearson, Kaplan & Springer, and Kat Wood (ARTHUR & MERLIN). Director Matt Shakman comes from the world of television – Oliver Beene, Everwood, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. They say part of the reason they chose him was that he showed them a picture of himself with his newborn baby (again – nobody’s ever been a dad before) but obviously his qualification was directing all of WandaVision, the first MCU show for Disney+ and still the most impressive in that it played with the television format and absolutely could not have just been a movie. Ironically maybe this one should’ve been TV – there’d be time for story and characterization on top of the bullet points.

But I don’t know, maybe years from now I’ll only remember the three animated characters and think of this as one of the good ones. Some movies don’t have a nice rock man, a giant planet eater and a flying metal naked lady. This one does, I gotta give it some credit.