The best Fantastic Four movie was released 20 years ago – it just wasn’t made by Marvel

Reed Richards, Sue Storm, and the rest of Marvel’s first family have always been wildly popular (except in Latveria). Yet, every attempt to make a decent Fantastic Four movie has crashed and burned like a rocket hit by cosmic rays.

In the 1990s, Roger Corman produced a low-budget film featuring the four that never saw the light of day. Then, in the 2000s, Tim Story tried his best to bring the team into the new millennium with not one but two Fantastic Four films. Sadly, there was nothing fantastic about either of these mediocre movies, and it seemed like things couldn’t get worse.

Then, in 2015, things got worse. We hit the bottom of the metaphorical barrel with Josh Trank’s dreadful Fant4stic, a superhero movie so bad it snuffed out Fox’s nascent shared cinematic universe quicker than Galactus gobbles down a bucket of KFP (Kentucky Fried Planets). 

Only time will tell if the upcoming Marvel movie, Fantastic Four: First Steps, can break this punishing pattern. Yet, were I Kevin Feige or director Matt Shakman, I know exactly where I’d be looking to for inspiration right now. I’m talking, of course, about the best Fantastic Four movie Marvel never made: The Incredibles. 

Forget fantastic; I want to be incredible!

Pixar

The Incredibles (which just so happens to be turning 20 this year) is arguably one of the best animated movies ever made, and as such, it has a lot going for it. The plot is superb, the characters are lovable, and the action is so well-choreographed that it would turn Tom Cruise green with envy. 

Now, I don’t think the team working on First Steps needs me to tell them that their movie should have a decent story and likable leads (they probably learned that lesson after making The Incredible Hulk). No, the lesson I’d like them to learn from Pixar’s first foray into the superhero genre is that the Fantastic Four aren’t like other superhero teams.

They’re not colleagues forced together by a dire situation or outcasts who band together for safety; they’re a family.

Family first

Marvel

This is what makes The Incredibles such an incredible accidental adaptation of the Fantastic Four because it captures this fundamental truth and puts it at the heart of the story. Everything Bob does in the film impacts Helen and the kids, and it’s through that familial lens that we see the fallout of his selfish actions. 

That’s what gives the scene when he believes his family has been killed in a plane crash such power. Because the geniuses at Pixar took the time to show just how deeply his loved ones matter to him – and how much his return to superhero work feels like a betrayal of that bond.

It sounds incredibly obvious, but it’s something other adaptations have failed to capitalize on time and time again, especially in Trank’s film, where the Four treated each other like that one uncle who’s never quite got the hint that he’s not welcome at Christmas.

So, Kevin and Matt (I know you both hang on my every word), if you want to capture the same lightning that Pixar did twenty years ago, do yourself a favor and put family front and center as the Fantastic Four take their first steps into the MCU. You won’t regret it. 

Looking for other takes hotter than the Human Torch? Well, we’ve got a ranking of every MCU movie ever made and a list of the ten best Fantastic Four comics to read before the next movie is released.