The Fantastic Four: The First Steps review – style only gets a superhero film so far ★★★ - The Jewish Chronicle

Hot on the cloak of DC Studios’ reboot of Superman comes Marvel’s revamp of the Fantastic Four sporting an A-list cast led by Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby.

They play long-term couple Mr Fantastic, who can stretch like one of those bendy toys that stick to windows, and Invisible Woman, who can generate forcefields and disappear. The team is made up by The Thing with his Hulk-like strength, and Human Torch, whose name conveys so completely what he is it deserves to be on a tin.

If the two blockbusters were to go head-to-head in a superhero battle of the box office – something the studios avoid – the smart money would be on Superman which has unexpected depths and wit.

This latest movie featuring the quartet is far superior to the earlier iteration led by Ioan Gruffudd in 2005. But that is to set the bar lower than a limbo dancer could handle. It can however be said that the new movie sets its stall out in style – literally.

Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Pedro Pascal in 'The Fantastic Four'Marvel Studios

It boasts a Sixties retro look that is both high tech and nostalgically analogue. Director Matt Shakman deploys the same eye for period detail that he brought to the Marvel TV series WandaVision, the show set in a world of Lucille Ball-era sitcoms.

The result here looks expensively peeled from comic-book visions of the future in which space rockets are very pointy and cars fly, or at least the fabulous quartet’s does. Meanwhile the civilians, who must be saved from a space god who is so hungry that he devours planets for breakfast, wear New York high-street fashion of 60 years ago.

However, these days style only gets a superhero film so far. There are none of the sinister undercurrents or mind-bending plot twists that made WandaVision or the equally good-looking Loki such a gripping watch.

The lesson delivered by those shows and Superman is that you need the fantasy world of the film to have just enough in common with our own world to make the audience feel that the film is really about them.

A scene from 'The Fantastic Four'Marvel Studios

Superman did it with cutting observations about social media and a conflict that chimed with our 21st-century wars. The Fantastic Four nearly does it when the public turn against the superheroes for refusing to sacrifice Mr Fantastic and Invisible Woman’s newly born son to save the earth.

A more ambitious script would have developed this strain and asked if humanity is worth saving. But no. The darkness is quickly dealt with by a pretty speech delivered by Kirby’s Sue Storm in which she refuses to both sacrifice her son for the world or the world for her son.

At any rate the Four are now free to face the approaching Galactus and his morally troubled helper Shalla-Bal AKA the Silver Surfer. Sure he’s bad ass, and the special effects are cool. And true there is an unexpected Jewish sub-plot twist. But the villain here is no more complex than a very hungry caterpillar. DC one, Marvel nil.

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