Marvel has dropped the first teaser trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the studio's first movie starring the famed super-family. The Fantastic Four have had adventures on the big screen before, but that was back before Disney bought 20th Century Fox. This is the first Fantastic Four film to come direct from Marvel Studios, and the first to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The teaser trailer is fun, uplifting, and zeroes in on the idea that these four are a family, where the previous three Fantastic Four movies from Fox — released in 2005, 2007 and 2015 — felt a good deal more dour. I also like the aesthetic the new movie has going on; it kind of looks like the future as envisioned by Americans in the 1950s.
In short, the trailer looks fun! The Fantastic Four: First Steps stars Pedro Pascal as patriarch Reed Richards (unfortunately we don't see him use any of his stretchy powers); Vanessa Kirby as his wife Sue Storm, aka the Invisible Woman; Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm, aka the Thing; and Joseph Quinn as Sue's brother Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch. We also get a glimpse of supervillain Galactus, a huge cosmic entity who travels the universe consuming entire planets. Shouldn't be that hard to stop.
It's also pretty funny that the Thing gets a cooking gag in this trailer. Moss-Bachrach is best known for his work on The Bear, a Hulu show all about a Chicago restaurant and its scrappy staff. Marvel is leaning hard on that connection, I guess. I don't remember the Thing getting up to much in the kitchen in the previous movies, so we're getting to see a new side to him.
In Marvel lore, the Fantastic Four get their powers when they travel to space and are exposed to cosmic rays. In real life, radiation is like to give you cancer. In comics, it gives you superpowers; go figure. Anyway, in two of the past three Fantastic Four movies, we actually saw the foursome get their powers. In the new one, it looks like they already have them when the movie starts, which is refreshing. We've had a lot of superhero origin stories over the past couple decades and they can wear thin.
Overall, I think the movie looks pretty good. The one thing I don't like is the title: The Fantastic Four: First Steps cues up a sequel a bit too overtly for my tastes. This is the MCU and we all know that Disney's plan is to get us to fall in love with these characters so we'll keep coming back to the theater to see them in their next adventure, but they don't have to be so obvious about it.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps will hit theaters on July 25. That's just a couple of weeks after the new Superman movie, simply titled Superman (hint hint, Marvel), comes out on July 11. So we're about to have a good old-fashioned Marvel-vs-DC movie brawl! That is, if legal problems don't knock Superman out of orbit:
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