*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD*

Fantastic Four: First Steps is the most uncomplicated MCU movie since, well, Iron Man.

The premise is simple and explained in summary form during the movie’s first few minutes.  If you’ve ever read a Fantastic Four comic, you probably already know it: four normal people on an otherwise-ordinary Earth get exposed to cosmic rays, which unexpectedly give them unique powers, changing the course of human history.

When two members of the Fantastic Four—Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby)—have a baby, a cosmic entity suddenly takes interest in the child, leading to potentially disastrous results.

And that’s it.  Good guys have to stop the big bad guy from destroying Earth or taking their child, little Franklin Richards.

Yes, there are passing references to Reed’s theory about a multiverse, and the fact that Galactus (Ralph Ineson) somehow comes from a universe that existed before the current one, but this is the first Marvel movie I’ve seen since Phase One in which the following is true: even if you had never seen any other MCU movie, you could easily follow what’s happening.

There’s a good reason for the film’s straightforward nature.  Not only does it take place in the early 1960s, but it occurs on a different Earth entirely in a heretofore unseen corner of the multiverse.

The “clean slate” of Earth-828 is refreshing.  We get retro-futuristic tech designed by Richards that is sci-fi in some ways but unmistakably analog 1960s in others.  The lives led by the characters are fairly simple as well: as the only true superheroes in the world, they fight relatively harmless crooks and villains (including Paul Walter Hauser as Mole Man!) with modest goals, pulled straight from early 60s comic sensibilities.  These aims are a far cry from the endlessly escalating, world-destroying threats depicted in most MCU films.

That’s why the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) and Galactus seem so appropriately shocking to the Fantastic Four and the people of this Earth: they’ve never faced anything like this.  That tone is, again, a nice contrast to the main MCU Earth, which seems to face an existential crisis on a weekly basis.

It is truly a welcome change of pace that someone who has literally never seen an MCU movie or (mercifully) an MCU streaming show, or even read a Fantastic Four comic book, can watch this film without doing a mountain of homework.  When’s the last time the MCU released a movie like that?

Even the intro speaks to this.  No flipping through pages of decades of comic stories.  No animated Marvel logo with clips from three dozen MCU movies.  Just a simple graphic in a Fantastic Four motif saying “Marvel presents.”

The simplicity of Fantastic Four: First Steps was especially striking after recently seeing Superman.  Although that movie was also introductory in nature, James Gunn chose a different, busier path.  In both cases, the job at hand tasked filmmakers with reintroducing audiences to familiar characters that featured in multiple recent movies.

Gunn’s approach was to lean into the breadth of Superman’s world by plunking viewers down in a setting already packed with superpowers, aliens, enemies, heroes, and even a pocket universe.  For those who loved Gunn’s Superman, the richness of a world teeming with preexisting characters and superpowered action was one of its strengths.

Fantastic Four swings to the other end of the spectrum.  Its approach is to emphasize the “smallness” and, in some ways, familiarity and relatability of this world.

Personally, as someone exhausted by MCU oversaturation, I appreciated that take.  It’s clear that Marvel has begun to course-correct, at least with the movies, with the major reshoots to Captain America: New World Order and the more stripped-down Thunderbolts* followed by this very focused Fantastic Four reboot.

This is all good news, although it’s obvious that things will necessarily get complicated again in the next two Avengers movies.  As a sidebar, I think all of this is leading to a fairly obvious end to the MCU as we have known it and a near-complete reset of the entire Marvel movie franchise.  After perhaps a year “off” to let audience fatigue subside, the 2030s will feature all new stories with familiar characters but mostly new actors.

For now, Fantastic Four: First Steps happily gives us a bit of nostalgia.  Yes, there’s the superficial nostalgia for the 1960s that’s apparent in the movie—but much of that will be lost on younger audiences.

What won’t be lost on filmgoers under 70 is nostalgia for a time when Marvel movies hadn’t become tied to an increasingly-bloated canon that eventually undermines storytelling.  First Steps is an appropriate subtitle for a movie that feels like a decided move back to basics.

For those who crave the deep, interwoven lore of a 37-film universe, Fantastic Four may disappoint.  On the other hand, for those of us who are perfectly fine with a more conventional, direct plot—or perhaps even find it refreshing—this movie will be a welcome departure.