The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the best Fantastic Four movie ever made. It's also the best Marvel movie in years, at least since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

For any other movie, that would be a high watermark. But for The Fantastic Four, it mostly shows how low the bar has been set. The last couple of years have been rough for Marvel, who have struggled to find a tone, style, or even coherent plot in the misguided Kang Dynasty and Multiverse era.

Between outright disasters like Ant-Man: Quantumia and depressingly average Avengers revivals like Thunderbolts, this past six year stretch has delivered few highlights in a sea of tedium.

Happily, The Fantastic Four is a step in the right direction. It looks like a real movie, with superb cinematography, great set design, and a stellar sense of scale. If that sounds again like faint praise, it's also because how low the expectations have come.

Yet that doesn't detract from the wins. The Fantastic Four is a handsome production with a marvelous cast, each of whom nails the essentials of their characters. When they're together, it really does feel like the first family of Marvel has come to life in a way it never has before.

In Pedro Pascal, Marvel finally nails the brilliant scientist just a little out of step with the rest of the world. Unlike Tony Stark or Dr. Strange, Reed Richards doesn't flaunt his successes. If anything, his smartness feels like the instrument that keeps him so taciturn with others. There's a lot of autism coding in the character, but unlike some other recent disasters, Pedro Pascal never lets the part turn into a caricature. Instead, it's a joy to see a realistic, heartfelt portrayal of neurodivergent life on screen.

In one of the best scenes of the film, Reed and Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) have an argument that blows up into a fight. At some point, we can see that Reed doesn't know what they're fighting about anymore. He's lost in the complexity of emotions and delivery, and outright says that it's just how he works. She explains that sometimes it's exactly that truth which hurts her, and he can't do anything but apologize and say he never means to do so.

It might not seem like much, but there's a frankness and beauty in such simple truths. Autism is always treated on screen as a magic power, and the people who have it as cold, calculating monsters and sociopaths. Here, Reed desperately yearns to do good, to connect, and to make sure his inability to read others doesn't result in pain through misunderstandings. It's a state where most of us autistic individuals live daily.

Meanwhile, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are equally great as Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm, respectively. They capture the brotherly quarrels and teasing with grace, even when the script tends to leave them with nothing to do.

In fact, most of the issues with the film stem from a chaotic and unfocused script that feels like four movies hastily patched together. At just under two hours in length, The Fantastic Four feels both too short and too long, like an oddly paced first act to Avengers Doomsday, which is due late next year.

That pacing forces the story to start and stop without warning, leaving the action in a place of tonal whiplash. At one moment, we're in a breathless chase through the heart of a collapsing star, the next it's a domestic montage involving months of waiting as the film settles into something resembling Deep Impact.

What's worse is the film doesn't give us a reason for this haste. In the opening act, we gloss over the origin story of the family, yet spend the next 90 minutes creating another one just like it. We're introduced to a potential love interest for Ben Grimm in Natasha Lyonne, who bizarrely shows up for two lines, and disappears from the film. A major character is glimpsed in a news reel and then returns for the climactic act as if it's supposed to mean something.

The main villains, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) and Galactus (Ralph Ineson) feels like monsters of the week, who only serve as fodder for the next big adventure. Silver Surfer, in particular, is completely wasted to the point that she also disappears midway through the action and nobody even asks where she's gone, or why.

Galactus, a formidable part of Marvel mythology, looks the part, and director Matt Shakman gets the scope and scale of this cosmic threat just right, but he remains a mystery to anyone that hasn't read the comics. We're told he's an evil who devours planets to placate his tormenting hunger, but that's about it. There's no tragedy to his existence, nor menace or intrigue. He's a force of nature, one that's routed as easily as building a dam.

In the end, as the film wraps up with an obligatory advertisement for Doomsday, the final result feels expressly unfair towards the property that Marvel has clearly bet the house on. This is supposed to be The Next Big Thing. The film that returns audiences to theaters and ushers in a new era without the messy backstory of unnecessary streaming shows and pointless multiverse dramas.

Yet once again, Marvel fumbles the delivery in their haste to get ready for the other Next Big Thing. They've got a cast of dozens ready for a new Avengers movie, and The Fantastic Four is here only to set up the board for that. Because of it, this film never gets to be its own thing, and if it was cut down to a 30 minute opening act of Doomsday, I doubt anyone would notice a thing.

It's still fun, flashy, and entertaining. I enjoyed myself without looking at the clock. But it's very clear that Marvel is still lost in the woods, and The Fantastic Four aren't the guiding light they hoped it would be.