The Fantastic Four: First Steps Parent Guide

When an experimental space flight exposes scientists Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) to intense levels of cosmic radiation, all four astronauts suffer serious genetic mutations. Reed is now incredibly elastic, Sue can become invisible and project forcefields, Ben tranformed into a colossal rock creature, and Johnny gained some pyrokinetic abilities. Between them, they are the Fantastic Four, a team of heroes dedicated to protecting Earth. They’re looking forward to welcoming a fifth member of their little family, as Sue and Reed are expecting their first child.

The arrival of a mysterious silver woman riding a surfboard through space brings their latest challenge. The Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) is a herald of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a world-eating extra-dimensional superbeing the size of a large building and older than our universe. He is, predictably, coming to eat Earth, and even the Fantastic Four aren’t sure if they’re going to be up to stopping him.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has overcomplicated the backstory for most of their movies. Thankfully, this one takes place on a different multiverse version of Earth, so you don’t need any of the convoluted backstory from the Avengers films. (Not yet anyway.) This tale takes place in 1960 on the charming retro-futuristic Earth 828. That makes it a pretty accessible spot to start if you haven’t been keeping up with the unimaginable deluge of MCU flicks in the last twenty years.

Marvel has really scaled back the negative content in this film compared to most of their other offerings. Apart from one scatological curse and a smattering of mild profanity, all parents need to consider is some thoroughly non-fatal comic-book violence. It doesn’t go as far as Superman in having the heroes dive out of the sky to save a squirrel, but there are some very sensible emergency evacuation procedures here that keep the collateral carnage to an absolute minimum. Except for the local infrastructure, of course. The primary antagonist isn’t even particularly cruel – it’s more a case of krill fighting off a whale.

The Fantastic Four has good pacing, a fun cast, and a really distinct visual style, all of which I enjoyed. If you are, like me, suffering from a terminal case of superhero movie fatigue, this won’t cure you, but it isn’t going to make you any worse, either. It’s a lighthearted, well put-together summer action flick, and for those of you less frustrated with Marvel market saturation, a really fun film.

About author

Keith Hawkes

Keith Hawkes graduated from Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada with a degree in English and History. His interests are movies, American literature, science fiction, almost every kind of music, and museums. He enjoys criticizing films for fun - although he's okay with being paid for it.