The Fantastic Four: First Steps review: "An occasionally thrilling heroic adventure that sits safely within a B-tier MCU range"

"We will protect you," Pedro Pascal's Reed Richards promises a waiting press pack as The Fantastic Four hastily return from an intergalactic mission gone very, very wrong. The supergroup's leader is talking about the impending threat of the world-eating Galactus, but could just as easily be referring to the shaky prospects of the MCU as it hurtles towards Doomsday.

Fresh off a one-two bruising of Captain America: Brave New World's middling critical reception and Thunderbolts' failure to spark at the box office, The Fantastic Four: First Steps suddenly has a lot of pressure riding on it.

Not that you would know from its self-assured beginnings. Set on Earth-828, Fantastic Four's first standalone MCU movie feels like it's from a world that's always existed despite operating away from the Sacred Timeline. That's only bolstered by a breezy opening 10 minutes that races through the origins of Reed Richards, Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) in favor of a sizzle reel of their greatest heroic exploits in their first four years.

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Director Matt Shakman, best known for bringing WandaVision to life, only helps matters, painting a rich alternate-earth using the brush of a gorgeous retro-futurism aesthetic, coupled with a tone that combines the debonair '60s style of Mad Men with the pie-in-the-sky utopian technology of The Jetsons.

With the world-building effortlessly set up, Reed Richards suddenly has to grapple with something that's light-years away from supervillainy on the streets of New York as Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) discovers she's pregnant with Franklin Richards, a child who – as Marvel fans will know – carries far greater importance than turning a group of four into five.

Putting family first

Yet, it was never going to be all crib-building and wholesome family dinners as Silver Surfer Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner) drops in to herald the arrival of the Devourer of Worlds, Galactus (Ralph Ineson, whose booming voice is utilized well enough to make up for the scarcity of the planet-gobbler's lines). With scores of celestial bodies already left in his wake, the race is on to stop the immovable force before it snacks on Earth to satiate his endless appetite.

Of course, Fantastic Four's cosmic aspirations can't work if the four aren't, well, fantastic. As is now becoming commonplace, Pedro Pascal excels as a Reed Richards suffocated by his own genius, slowly being pushed out of his comfort zone by the fear of becoming a new father. Ebon Moss-Bachrach's everyman quality shines through The Thing's rocky exterior, too. Though Joseph Quinn's Johnny Storm – while just as warm and charming as you'd expect – doesn't burn quite as bright as Chris Evans' cocky crimefighter in the pair of Fox's Fantastic Four movies in the 2000s.

It's Vanessa Kirby's Sue Storm that steals the show, however. Far from merely being the calm-and-collected yin to Reed's overwhelming yang, Sue is positioned as a world leader, a political force, and a supreme tactician. Sue is only emboldened by her impending motherhood, with Kirby adeptly grasping some of the movie's standout moments and monologues with the sort of fierce, steely determination that immediately positions her as one of the MCU's leading lights moving forward.

That quartet then comes together as a ticking clock begins, one that sees the Fantastic Four head off beyond the stars on an ill-advised interrogation with Galactus. You don’t have to be the world’s smartest man to realise that won’t go well – and the family is suddenly faced with an impossible choice as they must swap Earth's survival for the thing they hold most dear to them.

Admittedly, Fantastic Four mostly brushes off this ethical dilemma, with Reed frustratingly sidestepping much of the plot as he dreams up new ideas to try and save the day. It's here – after the Galactus parlay – where cracks emerge and First Steps begins to stumble over itself for the first time.

Shak attack

Far from experiencing Fantastic Four in their pomp or at the peak of their powers, around an hour of First Steps involves Reed and company running away and stalling – not exactly a glowing endorsement for a group being prepared to lead the Avengers in just a year's time.

As the Fantastic Four go on the backfoot so, too, does the movie's structure and pacing retreat into more standard, bland comic book fare. First Steps is at its most engaging when it embraces personal conflict and Reed's inability to step outside his own bubble (including a humorous aside about failing his driving test). Yet, that all melts away amid world-ending stakes that, 37 movies into the MCU, don't quite feel as cataclysmic as it once did, even if its surprising lack of connective tissue to future Marvel projects may be refreshing to a sizeable portion of the audience drained by cinematic universe fatigue.

Galactus may be a spectacle and a far cry from the nebulous cloud that became a punchline in 2007's Rise of the Silver Surfer, but Shalla-Bal sadly feels like a relic of Fox's dated comic book movies.

With a one-note motivation and undercooked, tacked-on backstory, Shalla-Bal's character never extends beyond a vehicle for exposition. Her presence in the final act smacks of a movie that never quite works out what to do with the character after her initial arrival.

Take a step back, then, and you'll soon see that Fantastic Four is a by-the-numbers, if occasionally thrilling, heroic adventure that sits safely within a B-tier MCU range, complete with an achingly straightforward third act.

Thankfully, it's anchored by a strong Reed/Sue dynamic, an instant-hummer of a score by Michael Giacchino, and is further carried by the towering dual powers of director Matt Shakman and production designer Kasra Farahani crafting a New York that could have been ripped out of the panels of Marvel's comics – a fitting tribute to the work of Jack Kirby, who gets his own nod in First Steps' credits.

Fantastic? We'll settle for merely good. Fantastic Four may not be the confident stride Marvel fans were hoping for but, at the very least, it's a solid first step.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps releases in UK cinemas on July 24 and US cinemas on July 25.

For more, check out the rest of the upcoming Marvel movies flying your way very soon.