{"id":11579109,"date":"2025-07-25T13:24:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T17:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/?p=11579109&preview=true&preview_id=11579109"},"modified":"2025-07-25T13:29:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T17:29:48","slug":"fantastic-four-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/2025\/07\/25\/fantastic-four-review\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Fantastic Four\u2019 review: In a jet age dream of Manhattan, Marvel\u2019s world-savers take care of business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten years after a \u201cFantastic Four\u201d movie that wasn\u2019t, Marvel Studios and 20th Century Studios have given us \u201cThe Fantastic Four: First Steps,\u201d a much better couple of hours.<\/p>\n

It takes place in the mid-1960s, albeit a sleekly otherworldly jet age streamlining of that time. Result? Extras in fedoras share crowd scenes with a Manhattan skyline dotted with familiar landmarks like the Chrysler Building, alongside some casually wondrous \u201cJetsons\u201d-esque skyscrapers and design flourishes. Typically a production designer working in the Marvel movie universe doesn\u2019t stand a chance against the digital compositing and effects work and the general wash of green-screenery. \u201cThe Fantastic Four\u201d is different. Production designer Kasra Farahani\u2019s amusing visual swagger complements the film\u2019s dueling interests: A little fun over here, the usual threats of global extinction over there.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the current James Gunn \u201cSuperman,\u201d worthwhile despite its neurotic mood swings and from-here-to-eternity action beats, director Matt Shakman\u2019s handling of \u201cThe Fantastic Four\u201d takes it easier on the audience. Having returned from their space mission with \u201ccosmically compromised DNA,\u201d Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm adapt to their Earthbound lives with some new bullet points for their collective resum\u00e9. Richards, big-time-stretchy-bendy, goes by Mister Fantastic, able to out-Gumby Gumby. One Storm\u2019s alter ego is Invisible Woman, while the other Storm is the flying Human Torch. Grimm returns to Earth as a mobile rockpile, aka The Thing.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s it all about? It\u2019s about a really hungry tourist just looking for one last meal before he \u201cmay finally rest.\u201d So says Galactus, devourer of worlds, for whom noshing involves planets, and whose herald is Silver Surfer. Galactus wants Sue Storm\u2019s soon-to-be-newborn baby in exchange for not devouring Earth. How the Fantastic Four go about dealing with Galactus culminates in an evacuated Manhattan, in the vicinity of Times Square, while the New York throngs hide away in the underground lair of Harvey Elder, the infamous Moleman.<\/p>\n

One of the buoying aspects of Shakman\u2019s film is its avoidance of antagonist overexposure. You get just enough of Paul Walter Hauser\u2019s witty embodiment of auxiliary more-misunderstood-than-bad Moleman, for example, to want more. And Galactus, a hulking metallic entity, is such that a little of him is plenty, actually.<\/p>\n

The Fantastic Four run the show here. Not everyone will love the generous, relaxed amount of hangout time director Shakman\u2019s film spends setting up and illustrating family dynamics and medium-grade banter. Others will take it as a welcome change from the 10-megaton solemnity of some of the recent Marvels, hits as well as flops.<\/p>\n

While Pedro Pascal, aka Mister Ubiquitous, makes for a solid, sensitive ringleader as the ever-murmuring Mister Fantastic, the emotional weight tips slightly toward Vanessa Kirby\u2019s Sue Storm, as she weathers the travails of imminent parenthood, wondering along with her husband whether the child of DNA-scrambled superheroic parents will be OK. I wish Ebon Moss-Bachrach had better material as The Thing, but he\u2019s ingratiating company; same goes for Joseph Quinn\u2019s Johnny Storm, a boyish horndog once he sets his sights on the metallic flip of the screen\u2019s first female Silver Surfer (Julia Garner).<\/p>\n

Michael Giacchino\u2019s excellent and subtly rangy musical score is a big plus. The costumes by Alexandra Byrne are less so. This is where indefensible personal taste comes in. There\u2019s no question that Byrne\u2019s designs fit snugly into the overall retro-futurist frame of \u201cThe Fantastic Four.\u201d But holy moly, the palette dominating the clothes, and picked up by numerous production design elements, is really, really, really blue. Really<\/em> blue. The movie works bluer than Buddy Hackett at a \u201964 midnight show in Vegas.<\/p>\n

Few will share my aversion to the no-doubt carefully varied shades of French blue prevalent here, but what can I do? I can do this: be grateful this film\u2019s just serious enough, tonally, for its family matters and knotty world-saving ethical dilemmas to hold together. It\u2019s not great superhero cinema \u2014 the verdict is out on whether that\u2019s even possible in the Marvel Phase 6 stage of our lives \u2014 but good is good enough for \u201cThe Fantastic Four.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Fantastic 4: First Steps\u201d \u2014 3 stars (out of 4)<\/strong><\/p>\n

MPA rating: PG-13 (for sequences of intense action, and some suggestive content)<\/p>\n

Running time: 2:05<\/p>\n

How to watch: Premieres in theaters July 24<\/p>\n

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the new “Fantastic Four” movie fantastic? No, and not everyone will love the amount of downtime in this one. 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