The Fantastic Four: First Steps 4K 2025

It's all too common these days for storylines not to be properly developed. The latest incarnation of the Fantastic Four is proof of this. What's more, they started with what the films about these characters ended with in the 2000s. In other words, Galactus and the Surfer were there too, and here they decided to start with them as well. But it's strange to see the title “First Steps.” If this is a hint about a child, then it's not about the quartet at all. The characters' acquisition of their abilities is shown in passing, and here they are already famous favorites of the public. And to show the actions in this world, they come up with a pocket Earth-828 specifically and separately for specific characters in the film.

The retrofuturism was only slightly pleasing, although after YouTube-generated videos, it all looks derivative. Nevertheless, the picture becomes warm and pleasant. There are flying machines and robots with good intelligence. But the plot lets us down again. For some reason, they wove in Galactus, who can turn the planet to dust in a couple of moves, and naively show the opposition as a weaker foursome compared to even the Surfer's powers. But Galactus endowed the Surfer with these powers, which means that the planetary glutton has unimaginable capabilities. When you realize this inequality of abilities, which is not in favor of the four, the ending seems very clumsy and far-fetched.

But overall, the film is watchable, albeit disposable and unpretentious. It's another retro-futuristic attraction with Marvel characters. The special effects are cartoonish and don't really make you believe what's happening on screen, the ending is naive and illogical, and the sound work is very average. For a budget of $200 million, the film looks cheap, unfortunately.