It’s been a long time coming, but the Fantastic Four finally have a good movie to their name. The Fantastic Four: First Steps may not be perfect, as IGN’s Clint Gage said in his 7/10 review, but it gets the fundamentals right: the Four themselves are well cast, the leads have great chemistry, Galactus actually looks and acts like his comics self, and the thematic throughline about the strength the FF derive from their familial connection–literalized by rallying both themselves and the world at large to save both the planet and Franklin from Galactus instead of giving in to the latter’s desire to claim Franklin in exchange for sparing Earth–captures the spirit of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original source material.

But most of all, First Steps gives us something we haven’t seen from the MCU in a long time: a throwback to the Phase 1 way of doing things. First Steps isn’t interested in belaboring its runtime with shared universe subplots, nostalgic references, or multiversal cameos that distract from the story at hand, nor does it require doing any homework with other films or Disney+ series to wrap your head around the plot. You could watch First Steps with no previous MCU experience and come away with a solid movie that keeps the focus on its characters and the story it’s telling. Why does this feel like such a breath of fresh air for the MCU? Let’s take a look.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is directed by Matt Shakman and stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, and Ralph Ineson. The film is in theaters now.