Fantastic Four: First Steps Is One Of Marvel's Best Movies In Ages (Until It's Not)

It's spoilerin' time! This article discusses major plot details from "The Fantastic Four: First Steps."

From Marvel Comics' First Family to the savior of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, the trajectory of the Fantastic Four might as well have been written in the stars. To many, including /Film's own Witney Seibold in his review of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," that's exactly what director Matt Shakman delivered at a time when the franchise needed it most. Moviegoers disappointed by a string of high-profile swings and misses ("Thunderbolts*" innocent) couldn't have asked for much more than an ensemble of perfectly-cast stars, a retro tone infused with style and hope, and a crowd-pleasing adventure ripped right out of the pages of the source material. The ready-made narrative of this "fantastic" blockbuster giving the MCU a much-needed shot in the arm and a new lease on life is almost too obvious to dismiss.

So why are some of us coming away from it feeling very differently?

For two-thirds of its runtime, "The Fantastic Four" earns every bit of praise as the most refreshing, back-to-basics, and downright entertaining Marvel entry in quite some time ... until that abruptly changes with one of the most baffling final acts of any film in the series. In a way, it would've been easier to accept and move on from an effort that was mostly a mess from beginning to end — looking at you, "Captain America: Brave New World." But the notion that this reboot comes oh so close to perfection only makes its lackluster aspects feel all the more glaring. For the skeptics and jaded fans among us, this is pretty much the self-contained, visually distinctive, and straightforward story we've been asking for ever since "Avengers: Endgame." Instead, we're left with the bitter aftertaste of a well-intentioned and mostly great movie face-planting at the final stretch, right at the moment we needed it to soar.

Unlike so many of these installments that kick things off with a bang, grabbing audiences by the throat with mindless, front-loaded action, Marvel's latest begins on a quiet note: Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) breaking the news to her husband Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) that she's finally pregnant after two years of unsuccessfully trying. In fact, for much of the opening act, "First Steps" is almost entirely unconcerned with establishing any sort of overarching threat or building connections with the rest of the MCU. Instead, we're dropped headfirst into this world where our heroic quartet are mostly preoccupied with baby-proofing the Baxter Building, yearning for a return to space exploration, and otherwise making themselves at home with an adoring general public.

All of these early table-setting details builds a strong foundation for the rest of the movie to actually feel like it's about something meaningful. Not entirely unlike rival DC's "Superman" and its obvious immigration allegory, "The Fantastic Four" soon turns into a parable about what role superheroes are meant to have in society and what their responsibility is to everyday citizens — a global "family," of sorts, in which every individual can contribute to the greater good. It isn't until roughly the 40-minute mark that we finally get a heaping dose of action, when the extraterrestrial Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) heralds the impending arrival of the planet-devouring Galactus (Ralph Ineson).

Yet even here, the stakes remain far more personal than whether the team can punch a cosmic god into submission. Galactus shockingly agrees to spare their world from annihilation ... if only they hand over Sue and Reed's infant son, Franklin (Ada Scott), who apparently possesses godlike powers to take Galactus' place at the top of the cosmic food chain. When the superhero team's refusal to bow to his demands becomes public and they seemingly damn Earth to a grisly fate, the film continues to fly high. The show-stopping pregnancy sequence leads to Sue's impassioned speech in front of angry protestors, where she convinces a desperate and frightened world to work together rather than turn on one another. Emotionally, aesthetically, and structurally, "First Steps" consistently feels bolder and more daring than the vast majority of its predecessors.

Until the final act happens, hurtling this strong start into well-trod territory that feels like more of the disappointing same.

Well, we'll always have the first few acts of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," at least? For most of the runtime, credited writers Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer manage to keep this roller coaster firmly on the tracks as we're taken towards the inevitable conclusion. The fateful moment where all that goodwill evaporates, however, arrives soon after Reed abruptly unveils his idea to teleport the planet far away from Galactus' ravenous appetite. When the Silver Surfer interferes and ruins their last chance at salvation, things soon begin to fall apart even more dramatically than those destroyed teleportation bridges.

It all goes awry when everyone agrees to move forward with Reed's backup plan to use Franklin as bait to teleport Galactus away, despite some pretty obvious holes. (The biggest genius on Earth couldn't anticipate the kaiju-sized Galactus spotting the very obvious line he needs to cross in order to get teleported or him noticing baby Franklin swapped with an empty cradle?) Even that, however, pales in comparison to the shockingly shoddy visual effects work that transforms the hulking space god into a weightless collection of unconvincing pixels crashing through even shoddier-looking skyscrapers. Unfortunately, this is also when the movie finally unleashes Reed's stretchy powers to full effect ... and, in the process, proves the wisdom of keeping those visuals to a minimum up to that point. Although shaky VFX isn't a total deal-breaker, it doesn't help that these idiosyncratic heroes get lost in the shuffle of another typical Marvel final act — one that fails to deliver on awe-inspiring spectacle, character-based action, or even coherent drama.

By the time Johnny Storm's (Joseph Quinn) big sacrifice play is shoved aside in favor of the Silver Surfer's redemptive scene and Sue undergoes a fake-out death that hardly feels very emotional, it's safe to say that several mistakes have been made and compound on one another. What makes it feel worse is that the rest of the film, so carefully established as a counterpoint to a franchise grown awfully stale, ultimately lets itself down with a collective retreat back to safer waters. First impressions only come once; with "Avengers: Doomsday" on the horizon, it's fair to wonder if Marvel's First Family missed their shot.

"The Fantastic Four: First Steps" is now playing in theaters.