In 2025, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has a glaring problem: if you’ve seen one Marvel movie, you’ve seen them all. Worse, the quality of these films is in freefall.
A franchise that should have ended six years ago with Avengers: Endgame keeps limping along, desperately trying to rekindle the magic of its glory days by introducing new characters. Marvel seems to think audiences will fall in love with these newcomers, but the reality is, fans are checked out.
Enter Fantastic Four: First Steps, a reboot of a franchise Hollywood has run into the ground over the past two decades. The damage done to Marvel’s First Family, particularly by the 2015 Fant4stic disaster—where director Josh Trank publicly disowned his own film—has turned the Fantastic Four into a cinematic punchline.
Previously under 20th Century Fox, the Fantastic Four brand was a mess, but many assumed Disney’s stewardship would guarantee a fresh start. That hope ignores the MCU’s current state: a creative toilet. When your franchise’s savior is Pedro Pascal—an actor audiences are growing weary of seeing in six films a year—you know you’re in trouble.
First Steps attempts a bold reboot, setting the story in the 1960s, before the MCU’s established timeline. Reed Richards (Pascal) and Sue Storm are expecting their first child, prompting Reed to make the world safe for his growing family. That plan crumbles when Galactus, an intergalactic devourer, targets Earth for destruction, leaving Reed and his team with no time to devise a defense.
Faced with annihilation, the Fantastic Four confront a gut-wrenching choice: sacrifice their unborn son to appease Galactus and save humanity, or reject the deal and risk global extinction. The premise nods unsubtly to Christ’s sacrifice, with Galactus positioned as a Gnostic demiurge—a perverse, god-like entity echoing the cosmic Marvel villain’s comic origins.
This philosophical undercurrent is intriguing but buried under the film’s broader issues, which mirror the MCU’s Phase 6 malaise. Like most recent Marvel films, First Steps is visually hollow, filmed almost entirely against blue screens because Marvel can’t afford real sets while rushing to meet deadlines.
The result is a soulless aesthetic that feels indistinguishable from the last MCU outing. The cast, including Pascal, is serviceable—nothing more. Their performances lack the spark needed to make these characters iconic, a far cry from the charisma of early MCU heroes like Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.
This film is meant to launch the “Doomsday Saga,” but it stumbles out of the gate, failing to generate the excitement that once defined Marvel’s interconnected universe. The MCU’s Phase 1 films had replay value and emotional weight. Post-credits scenes used to hype audiences for the next chapter; now, they’re perfunctory, and the movies themselves are forgettable.
First Steps epitomizes this decline: it’s not terrible, nor is it great. You’ll watch it once, shrug, and move on. Marvel has been stuck in this creative rut for years, churning out rinse-and-repeat blockbusters that lack the heart of their predecessors. The Fantastic Four, a team with rich comic history, deserve better than being another cog in Marvel’s content machine.
What’s maddening is the squandered potential. The 1960s setting could have offered a fresh aesthetic, but the film leans on tired CGI backdrops instead of embracing practical sets or period detail. The moral dilemma at the story’s core—sacrificing a child to save the world—should be emotionally gripping, yet it feels hollow because the characters are underdeveloped.
The script rushes through their relationships, leaving audiences with little reason to care. Even the action sequences, a Marvel staple, feel rote, lacking the inventive choreography of earlier films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Marvel’s refusal to evolve is its downfall. First Steps isn’t a bold reinvention but a symptom of a franchise coasting on fumes. Fans once flocked to theaters for the MCU’s promise of spectacle and storytelling; now, they’re met with formulaic mediocrity.
This film, like its recent predecessors, is destined to be a one-and-done experience—watched, forgotten, and buried under the next MCU release. Until Marvel reckons with its creative decline, the Fantastic Four and their cosmic foes will remain trapped in a cycle of diminishing returns.
2/5
Society Reviews 
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