The First Potential Steps Toward Marvel's Renaissance
The Fantastic Four are finally in a good movie.
I think it’s appropriate to apologize for the severe delay in this review. I saw The Fantastic Four: First Steps on Tuesday, July 29, and am just now getting this review out. Hand up, I apologize.
OK, now on to the review.
Marvel, a studio that seemed to be losing its way, might just be finding its stride again.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the kickoff to the MCU’s Phase Six, a phase that’s poised to be one of the most important in the franchise’s long history. Phases Four and Five were lackluster at best, as Disney and Marvel got too caught up in attempting to fill Disney+ instead of producing quality content that audiences actually enjoyed. There have been several projects that connected with the moviegoing public, but most have fallen flat, and the declining box office returns have illustrated the lack of trust the public seems to have in the MCU at the moment.
But it appears everything might be back on the upswing with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Marvel’s First Family has received the cinematic treatment several times throughout the 21st century, and while some provided surface-level entertainment, all of them fell far short of what a Fantastic Four flick should be—particularly Fantastic Four (2015). That thing is a train wreck.
With Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox in 2019, Marvel finally recaptured the rights to a slew of its key characters: the X-Men, Blade, Daredevil, and the Fantastic Four. With that acquisition, the wheels were officially put in motion for the Fantastic Four to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And wouldn’t you know it—it’s actually pretty good!
There’s just something so nostalgic about the retro-futuristic vibe of the movie, and that’s kind of insane given that I didn’t grow up in the 1960s—the decade in which the film takes place—nor did any of the crazy technology present in the film exist in real life. Still, I yearn to live in the world of the characters portrayed on screen, and I believe that’s one of the things the movie does best.
It’s an MCU movie that actually feels like it has its own unique style, which is saying something since most of them are just carbon copies of one another in many regards. That’s part of the strength of the franchise, but it’s cool that one of them strays a bit in a different direction.
The fact that it’s set in a totally different timeline than the main MCU continuity also helps alleviate any sort of ill will that moviegoers might have toward how everything with Marvel is going at the moment. Part of the issue with Phases Four and Five was that audiences now have so much prep work to do before going to see an MCU film. For instance, in order to fully comprehend everything that was going on in The Marvels, audiences needed to watch two TV shows and a movie that came out in 2019. That’s a lot to ask of the regular person. For The Fantastic Four: First Steps, there were zero prerequisites. In a world of sequels and prequels, that’s kind of nice.
