Marvel’s First Family finally get a film worthy of their iconic status.

1994. 2005. 2015. At an alarmingly regular rate over the past three decades, someone, somewhere sees fit to take a wild stab at making the Fantastic Four a big screen thing. However, despite the undeniable appeal and clear potential of this iconic superhero quartet, there’s just something about them that refuses to click in film form.

For whatever reason, rebooting one of Marvel’s most famous groups just hasn’t worked. Despite the seemingly insurmountable task of making the Fantastic Four work as a cinematic entity, here we are yet again with another take on the team. That said, after several decades of having their good name dragged through the mud, surely we finally have a Fantastic Four adaptation worthy of their iconic status? Surely?!

Set against the vibrant, retro-futuristic backdrop of Earth-828, Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) – best known as The Fantastic Four – face their most daunting challenge yet. Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous cosmic being known as Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), who have marked the planet for immediate destruction.

Granted, the bar is so low it may as well reside in Subterranea, however, after so many false starts, the Fantastic Four finally have a big screen adaptation to be proud of. God knows why it’s taken so long to get it right, but with The Fantastic Four: First Steps finally delivering on the group’s cinematic promise, we can now look forward to a bright future for Marvel’s First Family.

Full of retro-futuristic charm and a sparkling, irrepressible Silver Age energy, First Steps is an utter delight. That fact would be enough reason alone to rejoice; however, it’s made all the more remarkable when you consider just how much of a torrid time the Fantastic Four brand has had through the years.

Delivering a strikingly similar throwback energy to the one he brought to Marvel’s WandaVision show, director Matt Shackman is someone that undoubtedly gets what makes the Fantastic Four tick and his vision here is delivered to perfection. Nailing the very essence of who the Fantastic Four are as both individuals and a collective, Shackman clearly understands their appeal to audiences and fans, a factor that really shouldn’t be underestimated after so many lacklustre adaptations.

By far the most important aspect to nail with any Fantastic Four film is the family dynamic. It may seem an obvious thing to try to get right, but it’s a factor that all of First Steps’ predecessors failed to grasp. This time around, however, the familial elements land perfectly.

As individuals, all four of the team are deftly crafted with a smart balance of comic book accuracy and a fresh interpretation that breathes new life into characters that have been part of popular culture for the best part of sixty years. Clearly, Shackman and the film’s writers know what makes each character work and it’s this clear insight that allows us to connect with them in a way that hasn’t been possible before. But, while Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben all operate well as individuals, it’s their chemistry as a team that makes First Steps shine.

From beginning to end, the team feel like a true family and certainly not a group of superpowered strangers that they’ve come across as in the past. Hitting the ground running and dispensing with the laborious task of retelling their origin story, First Steps portrays the Fantastic Four as an already established, baked-in superhero unit, a move that lets us immediately warm to the family while letting the actors themselves showcase their chemistry right off the bat.

The writing is extremely solid and knows both the characters and their dynamics well, however, it’s in the casting that First Steps truly excels. Not for the first time, Marvel (and, more specifically, Marvel’s regular casting director, Sarah Finn) absolutely nail their casting choices, and if there were ever any doubts that the four leads would struggle to embody their respective characters, they can be well and truly put to bed now.

With a finely tuned script that does well to balance things between all four leads, no one feels particularly shortchanged within the story. Every one of Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bacharach play their part in proceedings, however, it’s safe to say that some of the stars come more to the fore than others.

Quinn and Moss-Bacharach as Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm/The Thing respectively make for a nice, fun little duo while having bits and pieces to do on their own (although more certainly could’ve been done with the relationship between Ben and Natasha Lyonne’s character), however, there’s little doubt that it’s the pairing of Pascal and Kirby as Reed Richards and Sue Storm that represent the film’s true standouts.

Both together and as individuals, Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby are absolutely perfect fits for their roles. There were certainly fears that Pascal couldn’t be the Mr Fantastic everyone wanted him to be, however, these have been proven to be way wide of the mark, as the actor embodies the hero wonderfully, managing to nail both the character’s rational intellect and leadership qualities, but also his quirks and idiosyncrasies too.

As First Steps’ true MVP, however, Vanessa Kirby absolutely runs the show, and while leadership duties for the team are fairly evenly split between her and Pascal’s Reed, her Sue Storm proves herself both the heart and the soul of the group. Not afraid to throw herself into the physicality of the role, Kirby also manages to simultaneously capture both the maternal strength and emotional intelligence that holds everything together, all while encapsulating the film’s energy beautifully.

And what wonderful energy it is! Stuffed full of heart, earnest endeavour, creativity, and spectacular action, First Steps does well to honour Jack Kirby’s legacy while simultaneously blazing its own trail. Whether it’s the goofy 2000s awkwardness of the Tim Storey films, or the car crash grim cringe of the Josh Trank abomination, in the most positive way possible, we have never seen the Fantastic Four on screen like this before and the dazzling retro-futuristic results are quite the treat.

Visually, the film is pure Jack Kirby from start to finish, and whether we’re Earth-bound or flying through space, there’s a very satisfying mix of quirk, sophistication, innovation, and wonder on display here; a blend Kirby would’ve undoubtedly approved of. Full of flying cars, lo-fi but high-tech robots, and shiny Space Age optimism, the film’s Earth-828 setting is an eye-popping, Jetsons-like 60s sci-fi joy that offers charm and delightful idiosyncrasies around every corner, yet it’s First Step’s cosmic side that really pops.

Brought to terrifying life by the booming baritone of Ralph Ineson, Galactus is a truly awe-inspiring monster that requires witnessing on the biggest screen possible. Flanked by Julia Garner’s fantastic Silver Surfer, Galactus feels like a Jack Kirby page brought to life, and while there were certainly worries as to how such outlandish villains could work on the big screen without looking ridiculous, all doubts are immediately dispelled, with both cosmic entities fitting the screen and the story perfectly.

Within all this cosmic craziness, however, lies a simple but well-constructed plot that has more than a few familiar elements to it, however, there’s plenty there to ensure First Steps stands out within the overcrowded superhero genre. Allowing our heroes to be heroes, all while delivering just the right emotional punch, the narrative boils things down to the very essence of what makes the team so special and cuts right to the heart of things in a way that none of the previous Fantastic Four iterations were ever able to do.

It’s also a brand of pure, unfiltered heroism that you rarely see anywhere in the current superhero landscape. With bleak, brooding, terminally conflicted superheroes left, right, and centre in both the MCU and the wider comic book movie world, it’s hard to find truly earnest, out-and-out heroic ones that you have here with The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Arriving, as it does, just two weeks after the similarly wholesome and uplifting Superman, First Steps feels like a breath of fresh air and a fair reflection on the kind of unashamedly positive content audiences are looking for from their superheroes in these dark and troubling times. It also appears to mark a positive turning point, not only for the fortunes of the recently troubled Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the entire superhero genre.

After so many false starts, the Fantastic Four finally have a big screen depiction worthy of their status as Marvel’s First Family. Full of retro-futuristic charm and sparkling Silver Age energy, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is an utter delight. Stuffed with heart, invention, earnest endeavour, and awe-inspiring cosmic wonder, this feels like a huge moment, not only for a group of heroes whose name has been well and truly dragged through the mud over the decades, but for Marvel Studios themselves as they plot a course for redemption after a bruising couple of years.