Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Review: I think this is definitely a worse film than the first, but I actually enjoy it more. The effects were questionable. The character design of the Silver Surfer was good, but at times he just looked so cartoon-y. I’ll talk more about the power swapping, but in the final act it was also pretty sketchy on the CGI front. I think The Thing looked really good, just like the first film, and I thought having him wear different baggy shirts like the jersey, bowling shirt, lettermen jacket, etc. was a funny sight gag (and I’m sure was somehow beneficial to actor, Michael Chiklis). In fact it had a lot of good little random gags, like the dartboard lighting on fire and The Thing yelling at the bear. The writing was definitely a notch down from the first movie, and this is very noticeable in the first half hour of the film. I like the route they went with the wedding at the end, but I thought that having Sue wear Chinese wedding attire was an… interesting choice.

High: I thought the storyline of the power swapping was brilliant. It’s so incredibly fun and the way they introduce it and demonstrate the 4 with each others powers was very entertaining. I also thought using it in the fight against Dr. Doom was enjoyable.

Low: Galactus. I couldn’t imagine being a fan of the comic books and coming to see this movie and seeing one of the ultimate, most intimidating Marvel villains on screen as an undefined giant cloud with fire inside it that roughly resembles his head. I would be curious to see how that choice was made. I also think having your villain be a giant storm (this works in ‘Twister,’ not so much in a superhero movie) is a bad step. I understand that Doom and the army were also pseudo-bad guys, but that was also fairly uninteresting. As we saw Doom in the first movie and the government can be hit or miss as a villain.

Rating: 7.5/10