The Fantastic Four: First Steps (Matt Shakman, July 25, 2025) Movie • Page 34

Really mostly loved this! Felt the main cast did a great job. I wish Grimm had more going on/we saw more flash backs of human him.

The doom tease felt super lame. Show Downey or get out. I kept waiting for them to end up in the main timeline and it never happened lol

 

Saw it today and yeah these are pretty much my thoughts too

 

Really? Hard to think about Reed and Sue, especially their dynamic with each other and surrounding their son and their fears and think they're "paper thin".

 

My feeling and the reason I think Feige has been careful to not call this a reboot is because I actually doubt they're going to be excising much of anything or making any huge wholesale changes. I imagine the only major change is that it will be a universe where the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and the rest are all together.

I say this knowing the X-Men are going to be recast, but we don't really know how this is panning out anyway. Hell, maybe they'll bring Wanda back and have her say "hey, mutants, all the mutants, bring me your mutants, mutants, get your hot mutants here" like we thought was going to happen in WandaVision.

 

Also, if they can't make Kang an interesting Avengers-level threat (even though he is legitimately an Avengers villain) then I don't see how they're going to do that with Annihilus, even if he is a cosmic scurge in the comics.

 

Was looking forward to this film the most and it didn’t disappoint. I think all four characters were done well. Vanessa Kirby was probably the highlight but I also really enjoyed Pedro’s take on Reed. Ebon’s Ben (did they ever call him the thing in this movie?) I also enjoyed but felt could have been slightly more developed (like a lil more of his issues with his appearance) but they can def tackle that in the sequel. I was happy to see Natasha Lyonne and thought their scenes together were cute. Johnny Storm had some rough one liners but other then that I liked him and I did think it was cool how he took on deciphering silver surfers language on his own.

The chase/black hole sequence in the movie was the highlight for me, felt it was pretty thrilling how silver surfer almost got the baby and was thrust out and continued to chase into the black hole. Galactus was badass, thought that cgi was done well imo. Definitely could feel how truly giant he was as he moved about slowly.

My few critiques would be some moments of pacing that felt off, mostly around 3/4’s into the movie as they were preparing for Galactus. I just remember feeling antsy like ok let’s go. I did not care for Mole Man, sorry y’all. Some occasional moments of weird CGI (The thing getting off the ship when they arrived back to earth, some moments of them getting out of the car, Reed holding the baby at the end)

Production design, score, tone all top notch stuff. Excited to see this world again in doomsday. Was hoping for more connectivity between these mid credits and thunderbolts mid credits but just gotta be patient. Post credits was not worth the wait but it feels like it’s been a pattern with these movies lately that the post credits are just silly lil throwaways.

Enjoyed this more than Thunderbolts (which I also enjoyed) haven’t watched Superman, wasn’t really planning to but I guess I should. I was worried they would fuck up another Fantastic Four movie but nope! I think they did a pretty good job actually.

 

Go see Superman!

 

I think he’ll just be a threat for the cosmic side of the MCU. F4, Nova, some Eternals, and the new Guardians. No X-Men or Avengers. This is all my wild speculation. I have no idea how “big bads” will be handled beyond Secret Wars. There’s always the chance that Annihilus is simply a Nova and New Guardians threat. Marvel is apparently keeping Star-Lord for Annihilus, which could be a hint towards how far the villain will reach the different corners of the MCU.

 

ehhh

 

The whole “Galactus wants Franklin” thing was such an annoying angle. Really wish he just dispassionately hungered and wanted to eat Earth. Don’t see a reason to add a wrinkle (that in a different but similar way was already done in Multiverse of Madness & Wakanda Forever), outside of… the pointless drama of humanity wanting to give up the baby, then immediately being convinced to change their minds.

Also. Maybe they just gender swapped Silver Surfer because they wanted another woman in the core cast, which I’m all for. But, it kinda feels like all it accomplished was giving her ~maternal instincts~ and letting Johnny have a weird [hetero] sexual tension with her? Disappointing.

 

The way I interpreted it was that Galactus was tired of hungering and wanted Franklin so that he could be free of his burden, which is that not from the comics? I know there have been a ton of Galactus storylines where Galactus changes his "Galactusness" so I don't remember how exactly Galactus is supposed to feel about himself.

 

Originally Galactus is just coming to earth to eat earth, which to me is what the motive should’ve been for this. He’s had nuances added over the years, which wouldn’t have been bad to have (I’m all for him seeming weary), but like… by the end planet-eating is an afterthought here. He’s just chasing a magic baby, and they’re trying to trick him with it.

It’s also weird to add the idea of Galactus being tired of his existence, and then for the day to be saved with punching and shoving. (It was cool to have Sue do a power feat, but what it was in service of was… eh.) If you’re gonna raise this question, why not take a page out of Al Ewing’s Ultimates and have Reed make him into a Lifebringer? Would’ve thematically fit what they seemingly wanted the Future Foundation to represent, and also the birth and potential of Franklin.

 

also kinda weird that it seems clear given the stinger that the F4 are seen entering the main continuity in thunderbolts presumably because Doom wants Franklin (and seemingly gets him). annoying lol

 

Liked this much more on a second viewing. Looking forward to this being my daughter's first in-theater Marvel movie later this week (she's only seen the first Captain America overall).

 

Movie was great, nothing spectacular but an enjoyable experience.

Love they added the Human Torch / Thing team up to Marvel Rivals lol.

 

I can just by looking at them. (or is that the joke?).

After thinking about the movie, and reading some of the comments, I still stand by my opinion. I felt like there was no real depth to anyone in the movie. I wouldn't describe 2 parents wanting to save a baby as character development or particularly nuanced.

I also thought Ben and Johnny were flat too. Like 'oh, he's got someone who he likes but you know, he looks like a rock so it's awkward' and then 'oh Johnny, when are you going to meet someone you perpetual bachelor you!'. Johnny translating the language was a clumsy / rushed arc with a predictable outcome that wasn't earned.

I also thought the dialogue was stilted and bad and lacked any impact. Like when Pedro delivered the 'he wants our baby and we said no!'. Okay.. How do you think Earth is going to react to that? You (a genius) can't think of anything smarter than just to announce that? Oh but maybe he's intellectually smart, and not really all that emotionally smart and he can't help but be honest!

I really can't see any reason why would I watch this movie again and that's pretty damning considering how fun, entertaining, and rewatchable the marvel movies used to be. This just felt like shallow spectacle and yet again a case of Marvel focusing more on future plans and planting seeds than actually making good individual content with deep and relatable characters who do surprising things (or least the expected in a surprising way). Great... family (especially a mothers bond /strength), came together and dealt with a villain who for 80% of the runtime was portrayed as unstoppable and then suddenly it's over.

Just a basic paint by numbers story with a fresh coat of paint with the retro futuristic setting.

 

On the one hand, Lifebringer would have been cool, but are we relying on Franklin to do that? Franklin is a baby. He wouldn't have the mental capacity to even know what Galactus is let alone what to turn him into.

And before it's asked how he knew to bring Sue back to life, we don't know that he even did. For all we knew he thought "Mama get up" and instinctively used his power without actually understanding what he did.

 

The only Franklin I care about

 

No, Reed would’ve done it, probably inspired by Sue and their baby.

 

I feel like that's a gigantic ask too since he makes a point about how little they know about Galactus and how he works. Where would they even begin? Feels more illogical than what they did do under those circumstances.

 

counterpoint it's funny that they seriously wanted to King Solomon the baby

 

I mean, it’s all fantasy. This is a world where they already have faster-than-light travel & Reed invents teleportation, but sound is recorded on sci-fi vinyl.

It wouldn’t be that hard to have Reed working on some side project that he realizes, while Galactus is there about to eat earth, can be repurposed into something that will help/transform him. Or maybe a thing meant to be a weapon that he can, idk, reverse the polarity of or whatever gobbledygook they wanna say.

 

Feels contrived. He just happened to be working on something completely unrelated that somehow he was able to repurpose to change the entire nature of a being he only just found out existed and knows nothing about?

 

Multiple story beats in this movie as it presently exists are a lot more convoluted than what I’m suggesting (a Reed who is capable of using his science brain to, with dramatic movie effort, find a new solution).