Well, they did it. Marvel Studios finally made their own Fantastic Four movie and it’s actually good. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is easily the best Fantastic Four film ever made, which isn’t saying much if you know anything about Marvel’s first family’s troubled history on screen. However, it is a feat that’s worth celebrating if only because the amount of pressure Marvel put on this film to succeed.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps not only has to introduce audiences to a new roster of heroes, villains, and scene-stealing side characters, but it also needs to reset the narrative surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The once bulletproof brand has struggled to reclaim the critical, commercial, and cultural dominance it enjoyed in the lead up to 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. While May’s Thunderbolts* marked a positive creative step forward for Marvel Studios, the film’s underwhelming box office did nothing to assuage worries that the MCU had lost its juice. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a triumph for Marvel: a thrilling superhero film that successfully hard launches an entire new universe.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the first MCU film set in a chipper, 1960s-coded, alternate universe called Earth-828. We’re told via a slick in-universe video package exactly how Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) became the superheroes known as the Fantastic Four four years prior. The quartet ran afoul of cosmic rays on humanity’s first trip into space, returning to Earth with powers that now made them Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Thing, and the Human Torch.

It’s to The Fantastic Four: First Steps‘s credit that the film is less concerned with how these characters became superheroes than how they’ll navigate a much more profound change to their family unit. The film opens on a domestic scene where Sue Storm tells husband Reed Richards that they are, years after giving up on their hopes of conceiving a child, expecting a baby. The news is met with joy, but also fear. Reed not only has to juggle the same existential fears all new parents have for their kids’ safety, but also concerns that the cosmic rays that gave the Fantastic Four their powers could doom the child.

Reed’s worries are only compounded when the mysterious Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) arrives to herald the imminent arrival of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a ginormous supervillain with an insatiable appetite for devouring whole planets. The Fantastic Four initially applies their trademark “can do” spirit to tackling this latest threat, only to swiftly realize they are dealing with forces that might actually overwhelm them once and for all.

What makes The Fantastic Four: First Steps so dizzily fun to watch is director Matt Shakman’s commitment to its throwback aesthetics. Drawing from Jack Kirby’s original art, the film fully immerses you in a distinctly retro-futuristic world full of flying cars, talking pits, and mid-century modern lines. Shakman’s TV credits include Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and forty-three episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but his work on the groundbreaking Marvel series WandaVision obviously nabbed him this gig. He gives Marvel’s first family the same beguiling blend of cozy nostalgia, modern wit, and deep human emotion that defined that Disney+ hit.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps also boasts the best cast Fantastic Four team to date. Just when you think you can’t love Pedro Pascal more, he plays a version of Reed Richards who is as brilliant, determined, and infuriating as he is in the comics. Pascal soars the most in Reed’s most vulnerable moments, where he’s confronting his own failures and deep-rooted fears. Vanessa Kirby is class incarnate as Sue Storm, making the Invisible Woman the glue that holds both the family and humanity together. Ebon Moss-Bachrach plays Ben Grimm as the perfect mensch; a deeply loyal, always loving wingman who never lets his friends down. Finally, Joseph Quinn’s Johnny Storm is a charming mix of rascally youth, big dreamer, and secret softie. They are the Fantastic Four.

A lot of what The Fantastic Four: First Steps gets right is what recent DC blockbuster Superman also nailed. Both films are whimsical, colorful, cheerful, and totally unashamed of their comic book origins. In fact, what makes both movies must-see capers are the way they blend complex world-building with real human pathos. The MCU’s Fantastic Four draws their strength from their humanity, in much the same way that David Corenswet’s Clark Kent does. Even when The Fantastic Four gets goofy, you stay locked in.

I would be remiss, though, if I didn’t mention my one singular pet peeve with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. If you read any of DECIDER contributor Sean T. Collins‘s recaps, you’ll know that he has a bugaboo with the teal/peach color palette that has dominated film and television since the Obama era. Once you begin to recognize it everywhere, you, too, start to find it trite and lazy. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is hands down the most blue and orange film I’ve ever seen. I almost have to applaud Shakman’s chutzpah in hitting it so hard — as it’s a clear choice — but there it is.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is everything Marvel needed it to be and more. Matt Shakman has delivered fans a raucously fun movie, punctuated by Michael Giacchino’s banger of a score. Fantastic Four is a love letter to the comics that launched the Marvel brand so many decades ago and a promise to fans that the MCU’s days are not numbered. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm have finally been done right and I can’t wait to see them team up again.

Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens in theaters July 25, 2025.