Film: The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Ralph Ineson, Julia Garner, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, Ada Scott, Angela Jones, Maisie Shakman
Director: Matt Shakman
Rating:  3.5/5
Runtime:115 min

This fourth iteration of The Fantastic Four is a fast paced, witty, slick entertainer that gives a booster shot to the new MCU. The screenplay by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer, doesn’t make “The Fantastic Four: First Steps ” an origin story. Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created ‘The Fantastic Four’ comic book in 1961 and this film set in a futuristic alternate universe, Earth-828 is a tribute to their combined creative force.

We get a brief introductory sequence underling Dr Reed Richards and teams superpower origins and an update on how they have been faring as saviors of the world. The team of four led by Richard Reed/Mr Fantastic (Pedro Pascal) with his wife Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), his brother-in-law Johnny Storm/Human Torch(Joseph Quinn) and Reed’s bestie Ben Grimm/The Thing(Ebon Moss-Bachrach) lives in the Baxter Building in Manhattan, retro-futuristic 1960’s New York, and are already world heroes. It’s been four years since their coming out as superheroes and their exploits get aired regularly as they appear on the The Ted Gilbert (Mark Gatiss) Show. One of their greatest achievements, was a peace settlement with the Mole Man, Harvey Elder (Paul Walter Hauser), the ruler of Subterranean.

But the cosmically compromised four are not exactly secure in their world. Reed and Sue are finally going to be parents and keeping in mind their genetic mutations, Reed is worried whether the child will be normal or safe. Ben and Johnny though, are excited to be uncles. The no-nonsense Silver Surfer Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner), a silver-skinned alien, herald’s a prophesy that Earthlings will be destroyed by Galactus- a hungry alien devour-er, billions of years old, who eats planets from the inside. In addition to this new threat Reed and company have to deal with 47 criminal organizations that could cause them harm.