‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Review: Matt Shakman Brings Emotion Back to Marvel (Disney+)

When there’s no longer a way to make something enormous even bigger, one possible solution is to go smaller. That seems to be the lesson Marvel learned —or at least tried to apply— in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Not because the challenge they face or the threat they must confront is small —quite the opposite, actually— but because of the scale on which the story is told. Unlike the cumulative process of explosions and special effects that define today’s superhero blockbusters, Matt Shakman’s film commits to a clear visual style, a handful of characters, an unusually dramatic tone (for this kind of movie), and a direct, straightforward narrative. And it works. For the first time in a long while, you get the sense that a Marvel movie has a personal vision, a coherent one—and that it also fulfills its mission to entertain.

If you look at Shakman’s career, you’ll find he has directed only one previous feature (the little-seen Cut Bank, from 2014), but hundreds of TV episodes, including some from Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Fargo, and Succession. The key to reading this Fantastic Four reboot, though, lies in WandaVision—the series for which Shakman directed every episode and whose retrofuturist aesthetic connects directly with this film. That’s the organizing principle here: the story takes place in a parallel version of Earth (the multiverse allows for anything, after all) where the early 1960s are blended with futuristic technology. It’s a film shaped by styles of the past, to which Marvel adds its usual digital flair and intergalactic conflicts.

First Steps avoids retelling, in detail, how these four characters became the Fantastic Four. That origin story is neatly condensed into a well-crafted faux newsreel showing how, after returning from a space mission, they suffered an accident that altered them genetically. They are now the scientist Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (the tireless Pedro Pascal), his wife Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), her younger brother Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn), and their friend Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, from The Bear), who came back transformed into “The Thing.” Each has their familiar, easily grasped powers (Reed stretches like rubber, Sue can turn invisible and generate force fields, and Ben is literally made of stone), and by the time the movie begins, they’re already adored celebrities thanks to their victories over a series of villains—many of them classic comic-book foes quickly revisited in that mock “news report.”

Two parallel threads drive the story. On one hand, Sue discovers she’s pregnant, and the couple must grapple with the unsettling idea of having a child who could inherit their mutations. On the other, a figure named Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner in CGI form)—a kind of female Silver Surfer—appears over New York, heralding the arrival of the immense, all-powerful Galactus (Ralph Ineson), who intends to destroy Earth. It’s up to the Fantastic Four to stop him, all while welcoming baby Franklin, who becomes a key element in an intergalactic conflict of near-biblical proportions.

The plot doesn’t stray far from the familiar tropes of the genre, but Shakman manages to keep it contained within this small group of characters and their specific dilemma, without expanding it into something incomprehensible. The battles and action scenes are kept within a clear logic and a reasonable length. Most of the film’s 115 minutes are devoted to the personal drama of the four heroes—each with their own conflict—and their scientific attempts to prevent Galactus’s arrival on Earth. And that’s enough.

What elevates the film—beyond its extraordinary production design by Kasra Farahani (Loki), which recreates an alternate Manhattan straight out of Don Draper’s era—is the conviction with which each personal drama is told and performed. Pascal and Kirby could easily be starring in a domestic melodrama about a couple crushed by the literal and emotional weight of the world. Johnny has a mysterious connection with Shalla-Bal, while Ben flirts with a schoolteacher (a sadly underused Natasha Lyonne), in what’s perhaps the lightest of the subplots.

Despite the retro, slightly camp aesthetic of the superheroes in costume—the poster imagery has that nostalgic pop sheen you can also see in the recent Superman—The Fantastic Four is a very different kind of Marvel movie from what James Gunn has been doing. Shakman takes his story, his characters, and their emotions seriously. With only a few exceptions, there’s little room for goofy jokes, witty banter, or the usual self-aware irony. Just watching Pascal and Kirby struggle to save both their family and the world gives this experiment a genuine sense of gravitas. So much so that the few comedic moments that do appear almost feel out of place.

What makes First Steps work—ironically enough—is that Shakman comes from television and may simply be used to working within a tighter scope. I don’t know the film’s budget—it might be as massive as Marvel’s more bombastic efforts—but what matters most here is the decision to limit the story’s tone, style, and narrative focus. Whether or not it restores some of the studio’s long-lost luster remains to be seen. But as a self-contained story that doesn’t demand viewers to recall 35 other interconnected superhero movies, this version does justice to the creation of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee—born, fittingly enough, in the same year 1961 that the film so lovingly pays tribute to.