the Fantastic Four: First Steps has landed with a mixed reception from critics, garnering a 72% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 66 out of 100 on MetaCritic. this places it below the scores of other recent Marvel projects like James Gunn’s Superman (83% on Rotten Tomatoes) and the last MCU film, Thunderbolts* (88% on Rotten Tomatoes).
Previous cinematic outings for the Fantastic Four have fared less favorably. The 2005 film holds a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes, its 2007 sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, sits at 37%, and the 2015 reboot earned a mere 9%.
Critical Consensus for The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Early reviews highlight both the film’s strengths and weaknesses. Jonathan sim of ComingSoon awarded the movie an 8/10, calling it “great” and a “grand, marvelous movie that feels wholly unique.” Sim noted that Marvel has “a hit on their hands” and that the film offers “a new flavor of MCU.”
William bibbiani of The Wrap praised the film for feeling like a “real Fantastic four movie,” stating, “It’ll never be as important or influential as the comics, but it does feel like an idyllic summer afternoon… That’s more than enough.”
Witney Seibold for SlashFilm appreciated the film’s visual presentation, commenting, “I appreciate that First Steps is set in a gorgeous, sleek universe of miracle technologies, and the filmmakers… allow us, the astonished viewers, to sit and take it all in. It’s nice to actually be impressed by a superhero movie’s visuals.”
However, not all critics were as eager. David Ehrlich of indiewire expressed a more critical view on X, stating, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a story about the terror and beauty of walking into the unknown, but the movie is so afraid of defying Marvel convention that only the terror shines through. starts strong,crawls to the finish.”
The Fantastic four: First Steps is scheduled to premiere in United States theaters and IMAX on july 25, 2025.
