Fantastic Four: First Steps is helping Marvel to “get its mojo back”, according to most early reviews of the new superhero reboot. The 37th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is “Marvel’s best film in a decade”, the Telegraph said, while the Guardian declared the studio had “regained its buoyancy”. But other critics brought the returning comic book superheroes’ feet back down to earth. The Independent suggested the retro-looking film is “no disaster – but it’s no Superman, either”. The latest attempt at a Fantastic Four reboot follows a 2015 adaptation that flopped at the box office and was poorly received by critics.
The new iteration stars Pedro Pascal as Mister Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as The Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as the Human Torch and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing. Set in the 1960s, it sees the heroes forced to defend Earth from a hungry space god named Galactus, played by Ralph Ineson, and the Silver Surfer, played by Julia Garner.
US publication Variety was impressed, running the headline: “Marvel gets its Mojo back with a satisfying retro-styled reboot.” Reviewer Peter Debrudge said it was right to scale back from “the overcrowded feel of recent offerings”, adding: “There’s relief to be had from a Marvel movie in which you needn’t have carefully studied multiple other movies to make sense of what’s happening.”
The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin offered four stars, saying the reboot “feels like the start of an exciting new chapter for Marvel”. “First Steps is earnest, colourful, upbeat,” he said, “and asks its audience to bring nothing to the table beyond a willingness to be wowed.” It makes the viewer “wish that Marvel had reached this point years ago”, he opined.
In a three-star review, the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw explained that “in a retro-futurist version of early 1960s New York, Mr Fantastic and Sue Storm are living together as a dysfunctional family with the Human Torch and the Thing – with a baby on the way.” The result, he wrote, “hangs together as an entertaining spectacle in its own innocent self-enclosed universe of fantasy wackiness, where real people actually read the comic books that have made mythic legends of the real Four”.
The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey also dished out three stars, underlining how actress Kirby “is a standout as Susan Storm and the set design dazzles”, but that “this franchise-starter is still weighed down by the usual unfunny banter and pathological Marvel aversion to risk”. She wrote: “It’s Reed and Sue’s marriage that also births one of the most fascinating ethical quandaries Marvel’s ever put to screen – and, yet, it’s somehow happily solved about three scenes later.
Director Matt Shakman has said his latest attempt to bring the comic book heroes to the big screen exists in its “own universe” so fans need not worry if they haven’t seen all or any of the previous 36 MCU films. John Malkovich had been due to appear in the film as Red Ghost, however, Shakman told Variety, it was “heart-breaking” to ultimately have to leave his scenes on the cutting room floor.
Over the weekend, Marvel boss Kevin Feige teased that the studio has “a seven-year plan”, which includes the release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day in summer 2026 followed by two Avengers movies. He told Hollywood trade publications including Variety that the expanded universe and its many overlapping characters and plotlines “used to be fun” but lately may have left some viewers wondering “do I have to know everything about all of these [characters]?”
He detailed why he liked rivals DC Comics’ recent hit Superman movie “a lot”. “I love that you just jump right into it. You don’t know who Mister Terrific is? Tough, you’ll figure it out. This is a fully fleshed out world.”
For BBC Culture’s Caryn James, Marvel’s own 2025 release, its take on the Fantastic Four, is “pleasant enough but lacks tension”. “Despite strong performances by Pedro Pascal and others – and for all its ‘breezy competence and flair’ – this retro vision of the future from Marvel doesn’t have enough suspense,” she wrote.
Empire’s Dan Jolin enjoyed it much more, offering four stars. “If the script doesn’t hit quite so many comedic high notes as some other Marvels, it at least brims with sincerity, presenting a heroic squad committed to protecting the Earth, while encouraging the whole world to link arms and do its bit, too,” he said.
Fantastic Four: First Steps is out in UK cinemas on Thursday.
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