{"id":4975,"date":"2026-11-10T15:00:56","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T22:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=4975"},"modified":"2026-10-28T21:33:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T03:33:28","slug":"movie-the-fantastic-four-first-steps-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/10\/movie-the-fantastic-four-first-steps-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: The Fantastic Four &#8211; First Steps (2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/thumb.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/1\/13\/The_Fantastic_Four_First_Steps_poster.jpg\/250px-The_Fantastic_Four_First_Steps_poster.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&amp;utm_campaign=parser&amp;utm_content=thumbnail\" alt=\"The Fantastic Four: First Steps\" width=\"250\" height=\"370\" \/>The Fantastic Four: First Steps<br \/>\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2025<br \/>\nRating: PG-13<br \/>\nLength: 115 minutes \/ 1.92 hours<\/p>\n<p>Now that Marvel has control of most of its intellectual property again, I\u2019m glad that they took the same approach with <em>The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/em> (2025) as they did with <a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/02\/movie-spider-man-homecoming-2017\/\"><strong><em>Spider-Man: Homecoming<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (2017). We don\u2019t need another origin story here. What was more interesting was how the multiverse plotline running through these phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) allowed for an alternate 1950s aesthetic for this movie instead of integrating it directly into the main MCU timeline. This allowed the re-introduction of one of the most famous superhero groups in a way that let them breathe without having a bunch of MCU references leak into it.<\/p>\n<p>Since they attempt to make a <em>Fantastic Four<\/em> movie every 10 years, this third time may actually stick because they paid attention to the golden age of comics. The costumes and setting make it feel like it\u2019s pulled straight from the comics of the 1950s, and the casting choices seemed to fit pretty well for the characters (despite everyone complaining about Pedro Pascal being in everything). And with four \u201cmain characters\u201d there was enough time given to each for them to have a sub-plot that aided in their character development.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, that this movie has a standalone feel to it does somewhat prove that the superhero fatigue is wearing on us all. I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t have to watch two seasons of a TV show and catch a post-credits scene from three years ago to appreciate what this movie was trying to do. It\u2019s honestly what made some of the Phase 2 films like <a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/25\/movie-guardians-of-the-galaxy-2014\/\"><strong><em>Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (2014) and <a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/05\/movie-ant-man-2015\/\"><strong><em>Ant-Man<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (2015) so enjoyable. Still, I look forward to how Marvel will fit everything together for <em>Avengers: Doomsday<\/em> (2026) since Doom is mainly a <em>Fantastic Four<\/em> villain.<\/p>\n<p>The best <em>Fantastic Four<\/em> movie in 20 years, I give <em>The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/em> 4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4100\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3.png 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-300x114.png 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-768x292.png 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-640x244.png 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Fantastic Four: First Steps Year: 2025 Rating: PG-13 Length: 115 minutes \/ 1.92 hours Now that Marvel has control of most of its intellectual property again, I\u2019m glad that they took the same approach with The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) as they did with Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). We don\u2019t need another origin story [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2],"tags":[4189,2651,4728,84,779,780,13,3137,8,4727],"class_list":["post-4975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-movie","tag-4189","tag-fantastic-four","tag-galactus","tag-marvel","tag-marvel-cinematic-universe","tag-mcu","tag-movie","tag-pedro-pascal","tag-review","tag-the-fantastic-four-first-steps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4975"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4981,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975\/revisions\/4981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}