The Fantastic Four: First Steps Film SPOILER FILLED Film Review

It's really safe to say that Marvel's first family have had the worst luck when it comes to live action movies as all of their movies have either been really bad to average at best or just straight were never meant to get released in the first place. Well now there is a new Fantastic Four movie out there that really looks set to end that trend for the time being and restore people's faith in the failing MCU and so then join me as I give you my SPOILER FILLED review of the film that is pretty much a remake of another Fantastic Four movie with the film in question being called simply just "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" enjoy.

The plot of this film is when The Fantastic Four get warned that Galactus has his sights set on eating earth next it up to the fearsome foursome to find a way of defeating him once and for all. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good as this is a plot that whilst it does seem like it's ripping off the main plot to Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer even down to having two of the same characters in both films this films plot does add in enough new elements that it makes it seem fresh and new all over again but on the flip of that is the fact that this films plot whilst it is a pretty strong plot it also feels like the plot that you'd expect from a sequel film as now the team have nowhere to go should they get a sequel as they can't up the stakes anymore then what they do in this film with the plot of this film being as well developed as it was ever going to be as nobody was expecting much from this film from a plot point of view in the first place with the film actually being alot more better then what it really had any right to be as well as by all rights this films plot should have fallen right on it's head and while it's far to early to tell if Marvel have learnt there lesson from past mistakes it does seem like they have as this is a plot that does oddly enough work really well in this film with the plot of this film also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic and Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm / Invisible Woman. Also starring in this film is Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm / The Thing , Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm / Human Torch , Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal / Silver Surfer , Sarah Niles as Lynne Nichols , Mark Gatiss as Ted Gilbert , Natasha Lyonne as Rachel Rozman , Matthew Wood as H.E.R.B.I.E. and Ralph Ineson as Galactus.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. With alot of this films actors turning in some really good performances in this film which is something that's to expected given just who exactly is starring in this film as even tho he seems to be showing up in everything these days Pedro Pascal is still a good actor and he's only showing up in a lot of things because of that fact with both him and the rest of the Fantastic Four also turning in some really good performances in this fil where the film does slightly faulter from an acting perspective is that of Julia Gardner as she just doesn't really get the chance to shine as Shalla-Bal as she does come across as being very monotone and robotic alot of the time and while that's fine for the character it does also mean that her performance as the character does suffer because of it with the best actor in the whole entire film being both Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby as while both Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn are a pair of perfectly fine actors in this film both Pedro and Vanessa are better as they do carry alot of the films performances which is something that does make some sense as both of them are a pair of really good actors in their own right something that they've really proven time and time again and prove again in this film with it really being helped by the fact that the two of them do have some really good chemistry with each other which makes it easier to buy them as a married couple with the acting that's in this film really being helped by the fact that this films script is just so good that all this films actors have to do is just say the lies as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.

Doing the CGI for this film is Clear Angle Studios , Digital Domain , Framestore , Industrial Light & Magic , Marvel Animation , Pro Machina , Sony Pictures Imageworks , Weta FX and capital T. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good with this films CGI being alot more better then alot of their more recent films and while The Thing does look a little bit weird in some shots then in others he does look really good on the whole and while it still would have been better if they did the character practically as that will always look better no matter what doing him CGI does has it's advantages as well as it now allows the makers of this film to get the characters into more awkward places that they would have been able to do if they did the character practically with even Galactus himself looking ten times better then what he did in the previous Fantastic Four movie but with that being said this film cost around $200 million American dollars and yet very little of that does show on screen from an effects point of view as films like Godzilla Minus One proved that you don't need to have a big budget to have great looking effects and you see where all of the money went in that films effects where as here the film looks like that it cost alot less to make and that the effects budget was alot less then what it already was as well as you very easily could have done this films effects for about $50 million American dollars but because Disney really likes to give there films bloated budgets we now have a film that cost quite a bit to make and whose effects budget would have been anywhere around the $80 million American dollar mark when it really didn't need to be that high in the first place.

SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those wondering there was two names that were purposefully left of the above mentioned cast list those being Paul Walter Hauser as Harvey Elder / Mole Man and Robert Downey Jr. as Victor Von Doom / Doctor Doom. With Victor appearing this films post credit scene which to be frank was kind of expected as he is their biggest foe and so having him debut in this film during the post credits scene was something that did make alot of sense as it does serves as a great way to set up the character for the next two Avengers movies as for Mole Man his role in the film is basically that of an extended cameo role in that he only appears in two scenes all throughout the film and doesn't really add anything to the films plot which is fine for a character like hi as he is a bit of a goofy villain and would oddly enough feel out of place in this film as this is a film that does take it self seriously and has a more serious tone to it but going back to Doom it would have made his appearance in the film all the more surprising if it wasn't already announced who was playing the character which fair enough they only announced Robert Downey jr. just so the main stream media would freakout about but picture this it's opening night you and your friends have just say through this movie and then the end credits scene plays and you see him decked in in pretty much all of the Doctor Doom gear all without knowing before hand who was cast as the character wouldn't that make that big reveal during the films post credits scene all the more shocking it would be like if in 2007 they announced that Samuel L. Jackson was playing Nick Fury it means that the post credits scene at the end of Iron Man whilst it would still be shocking you also miss out on that shock factor a little bit as well as sometimes not knowing who's going to appear in the film makes the film all the more exciting to watch and heck even the main actors from the unreleased 1994 film The Fantastic Four make cameo's in this film as well which wasn't announced and was therefor alot of fun to find out and see.

This film was infamous before it's release for not featuring Norrin Rand as the Silver Surfer instead going for the female version of the character Shalla-Bal. Without going into politics and getting into the whole "well it was in the comics so there it's allowed to be in this movie" kind of argument the character as she is in this film fills out the exact same role that Norrin Rand played in the previous good Fantastic Four movie even down to her having pretty much the exact same backstory as him and even helping out the team after befriending one of them with the only difference being in this film it's Johnny that she befriends where as in the previous film Norrin Rand befriend Sue Storm and that's it which does make the writers of this film seem lazy as it looks like they just copied the character over from the script of the last actually good Fantastic Four movie and only changed the characters name as there's nothing about the two characters as it pertains to this film that makes one of them standout from the other now she very well might have had the exact same backstory in the comics and if so the makers of this film might get credit for being comic book accurate but if that is the case then the writers of the comic book then appear lazy for doing the exact same thing but to be fair the character does get plenty of cool moments in the film like the fact that when Johnny is about to hit Galactus in the third acct she swoops in on her board and sacrifices herself by going into the chest of Galactus which is something that does look really cool and the character does get plenty of cool looking visuals as well but that doesn't mean that the character was well done tho as she really wasn't as it makes no sense for her to be in this movie if she's just going to play the exact same role that the more better known Silver Surfer played in Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer.

Speaking of Galactus they did the character so much more better then what did in Rise Of The Silver Surfer. As for one thing he's not a giant space cloud anymore he actually looks like his comic book counterpart and secondly he actually talks in this film which granted is a very small thing but does allow for the character to have alot more of a personality to him and while the characters end goal is still the same as he still wants to eat up Earth here he also wants the Richards son Franklin as he believes that he is the only capable of stopping him and will therefor do whatever it takes to get his hands on there son which is an interesting thing to include in the film as both Reed and Sue outright reject his offer to give them there son in return for him leaving the Earth alone something which does cause the people of earth to turn against the team but here tho not only does the film move past that pretty quickly it also shows the people of earth going to lengths to defend the planet from him and while they do fail to do just that as he does of course arrive on Earth it is something that does go to show you just how much of a threat that this take on the character is and while he is better saved for being the villain for a potential sequel as now you have nowhere to go but down interms of threats that the villains can make it doesn't change the fact that he is done really well in this film with even the booming voice of actor Ralph Ineson really helping to sell us the audience on just how much of a threat that this character is with the only downside to the character being the fact that he doesn't really appear all that much in the film which is something that does make it much more harder for us the audience to form a connection with him outside of the fact that we're meant to hate him because he's the bad guy and that's really it.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and forty four minuets and eighteen seconds. Which whilst that is a shockingly small amount of running time or a comic book film that's featuring a group of characters that we really haven't seen before in the MCU here it oddly works as the film does skip over there origin story and only tells it in a montage at the start of the film done through a TV show and there for this film really doesn't need to be that long in the first place as the film has just about the right amount of plot there to cover that amount time but at the same time tho even with all of that running time now freed up by not having to tell the teams origin story this film still doesn't use it's running time all that wisely as the plot of tis film whilst it is fairly well developed it still isn't as well developed as it perhaps could have been and because of that the theme of family and what it means to be a family does feel forced as it is something that does come out of nowhere and doesn't even play into the plot of the film when given that the Fantastic Four are all about family it is something that should have been more present and given more of a focus along with the main plot of the film as well and while the films characters aren't that well developed they are as well developed as there going to be in this film as while of course the main team are going to appearing in more movies and therefor are more then likely to get alot of development over the course of those movies there's only one character that gets alot of development in this movie and that's oddly enough Shalla-Bal as she much like her male counterpart in Rise Of The Silver Surfer learns how evil that Galactus is and turns on him in the end which granted is another copy and paste and job but it's still better then nothing and given that she's so far a one and done character it is something that's forgivable in this film but I really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is an action film that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / resented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. With this film having alot of really exciting action scenes in it all of which proves that this films director Matt Shakman really does know how to make exciting looking action scenes something which is once again proven in this film as all of this films action scenes not only look really good but are also really creative as well with the films best action scene in the whole entire film being the films third act as we get to see all four members of the team use there powers to try and lure Galactus into this whole that will send him to another parallel earth all while using Franklin as bate to lure him to earth in the first place which was a really creative and fun scene as we get all of the characters work together as a unit and a s a family something that we did also get to see in all of the other action scenes in this film but here because of the fact that we have some pretty high stakes with the lives of everyone of earth and presumably even Franklin as well it does make that action scene all the tense and while the film does have some humor in it as do all of the MCU films it doesn't undercut any of the tension in any of the films action as it does feel natural that a character like Johnny would make the odd joke as that's in his character and to give this film some credit when the films third act action scene starts the jokes stop with the rest of the film having some really good action in it as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Overall while it of course is far to early to say if the Marvel Cinematic Universe is back on form or not the one thing that can be said for sure is that not only is Phase Six of to a good start but that Marvel really does still remember how to make a really good film as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then  i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad tings that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7.5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Disney fandom wiki page , the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition.