Hideo Kojima Reviews ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’: “It Felt Like a Live-Action Version of The Incredibles”

Hideo Kojima, the Japanese video game creator best known for the Metal Gear Solid series, has been making a habit of reviewing big movies on social media. His takes are usually fun, thoughtful, and get a lot of attention from his fans. This time, he turned his attention to Marvel Studios’ latest release, The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

The movie is the 37th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and marks the second reboot of the Fantastic Four series. Directed by Matt Shakman and written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer, it stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn as Marvel’s first family.

The cast also includes Julia Garner, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, and Ralph Ineson as the voice of Galactus. The story is set in a retro-futuristic 1960s world, where the team must face the planet-eating cosmic villain.

The film came out in the United States on July 25 as the first movie of MCU’s Phase Six. Critics gave it mostly positive reviews, but its box office performance hasn’t been as strong as expected. In fact, it had the steepest second-week drop in MCU history, with an 80% fall in ticket sales. That’s even worse than The Marvels, which previously held the record at 78%.

Despite that, Kojima really enjoyed it. On social media, he wrote:

“Watched ‘Fantastic Four: First Steps.’ From the fashion, color palette, design, cityscape, TV and cartoon shows, to the costumes, spacesuits, rockets, cars—not to mention company names, food items (cereal, soda), and storage media (magnetic tapes, discs)—everything is crafted with a thorough commitment to a 1960s aesthetic blended with a sense of futurism. It felt nostalgic, like watching ‘Bewitched’ when I was a kid. Or at times, it felt like a live-action version of ‘The Incredibles,’ with ‘family’ as its central theme. Once I found out it was directed by the same person who did ‘WandaVision,’ it all made sense.”

He also praised the way the film opens, saying: “One thing the film does well is how it opens with a TV show that efficiently summarizes the Fantastic Four’s feats, role, and current standing. If it had taken the time to carefully depict how they became superhuman from the very start, it would’ve come off as overly explanatory and slow-paced. Superman skipped that part too.”

Kojima ended his review with high praise: “As a ‘first step’ to reboot the series, it’s truly ‘fantastic.’”

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