PHOTO COURTESY MARVEL STUDIOS

A funny thing happened at the end of my showing of “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” The eager audience couldn’t decide whether or not to clap.

This is an identifiable sound; if you’ve ever been to a musical, it can happen when the audience isn’t sure if a song is over or merely paused for a moment. A few people jump on the moment and clap; some start and then stop. Others sit on their hands.

There was no such musical explanation during “Fantastic Four” (although a pleasant folk-song ode to the villain Galactus does play late in the credits). In this case, the audience seemed to be trying to decide whether or not what they had just seen warranted clapping. It was good, right? It was exciting, wasn’t it? It made us hungry for more Marvel action … didn’t it?

Like the audience I saw the film with: I don’t know.

It’s certainly not a bad film. The tale of astronauts-turned-superheroes Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), “First Steps” is handsomely rendered in an alternate-universe version of retro futurism, imagining a modern world if we had advanced but not redesigned 1950s-era technology. The cast, also including a striking turn from Julia Garner as the villainous Silver Surfer, is a likable collection of rising stars. There are the thrilling sequences and imaginatively rendered worlds we’ve come to expect from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

On the other hand: Like many of the 36 preceding chapters in the studio’s overarching narrative, it all ends up being a story about the need to punch a big guy into a cosmic hole lest the world be destroyed. (The initial meeting with the big guy in question, Galactus, is impressive; the confrontation is forgettable.) Also like many of those prior films, this one feels more like place setting for future films — in this case, “Avengers” team-up epics due in 2026 and ’27 — than it feels like its own standalone adventure.

“Fantastic Four” flirts with the idea of being an unconventional-family sort of tale; Sue Storm has a baby on the way, and she and Richards fret over its future. But the film seems in a hurry to get to clobberin’ time, as only a few moments are spared for a subplot about Grimm’s difficulty fitting into life as a giant rock creature — and you’ll completely forget that Sue and Johnny are siblings.

Maybe that’s what makes it a real family: Everyone’s wrapped up in their own problems.

My Rating: 6/10

“Fantastic Four: First Steps” is now playing in theaters.