At The Movies: The Fantastic Four reboot trades dysfunction for heart

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (PG)

115 minutes, opens on July 24
★★★★☆

The story: On Earth-828, human society has made great leaps in technology by the 1960s. The planet is protected by guardians dubbed The Fantastic Four by the media. Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), his wife Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Reed’s best friend Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Sue’s brother Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) are astronauts who, four years ago, travelled to space and returned with superpowers from an encounter with cosmic rays. Their gifts are put to the test with the arrival of the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), a herald of doom announcing that the planet will be consumed by her master Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a cosmic being who devours worlds.

Here we go again: A new decade, a new Fantastic Four reboot. Marvel has analysed the previous failures and tweaked the formula. Its answer? A slightly older cast, whose members are comfortable with and confident in their superpowers.

Compared with the 2005 version, which had the beats of a sitcom built around a dysfunctional family, or the 2015 reboot, a brooding exploration of what it means to be different, this iteration of the comic book heroes presents them as the picture of mental health.

Reed and Sue are a couple deeply in love. Ben and Johnny have professional respect and admiration for each other.

In one revealing scene, Johnny and Ben are together, minus Sue and Reed, preparing dinner.

In lesser hands, this would have been a moment for mean-spirited quips, or building jokes around the idea of the armour-encrusted The Thing being clumsy in the kitchen or a cocky Human Torch shooting flames to cook sausages. Instead, Ben is portrayed as a delicate perfectionist, with Johnny his wary but respectful companion who “flames on” only in the line of duty.

As Ben notes in another scene, catchphrases like “flame on” belong only in cartoons. The two of them set the table and, in a charming display of sensitivity, wonder if it would be impolite to start the meal without Reed and Sue.

These are among the small character-based surprises director Matt Shakman sprinkles throughout the film.

His gift for character-driven drama has been showcased in the Emmy-winning Disney+ miniseries WandaVision (2021), which had the American film-maker directing all nine episodes of the story centred on Marvel’s Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen).

In First Steps, the retro-futuristic setting – featuring furniture, flying cars and rocket ships from the minds of designers from a parallel world where it is still 1960 – feels natural and lived-in, yet unlike anything seen in a Swinging Sixties picture.

The sense of mystery that drives WandaVision pervades this movie as well. Haunting the minds of all four heroes is the question of Sue’s unborn child, glimpsed in the movie’s trailer.

The irradiated couple’s worries about the physical state of the baby are handled with a graceful economy, within a story that opens the door to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe without making it obvious.

Hot take: This reboot succeeds by focusing on emotionally mature, mentally well-adjusted characters rather than rehashing the dysfunction and angst of previous versions.