Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer (spoilers)

[Dire Bare]

Sure, those are TOTALLY not silly. Much better than "hey, look at that guy, he's got armor on... and it's purple!".

Silver guy on a surf board? Not silly, cool.

Big orangey rock dude? Not silly, cool.

Alba with bleached blonde hair and too much makeup? Well, okay, that's silly.

Giant armored purple guy floating through space? Silly, not cool.

Did Galactus have a spaceship in the comics? An armored dude in a spaceship who "eats worlds" seems rather silly, and not cool to me. A giant cosmic monster who must eat worlds? Totally cool, even seen it on Star Trek once or twice I think.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Silver guy on a surf board? Not silly, cool.

Big orangey rock dude? Not silly, cool.

Alba with bleached blonde hair and too much makeup? Well, okay, that's silly.

Giant armored purple guy floating through space? Silly, not cool.

He's not floating through space, as I said.

Did Galactus have a spaceship in the comics? An armored dude in a spaceship who "eats worlds" seems rather silly, and not cool to me. A giant cosmic monster who must eat worlds? Totally cool, even seen it on Star Trek once or twice I think.

There was a large barge/spaceship at some points, so far as I remember. It seems to me that's a lot better than a guy who "eats" planets literally...

Giant Space Monsters are okay, but lack the feel that requires a Herald like Silver Surfer, IMO. I think the main thing is that it's not "silly" by default, but how they use it, and Armed Space Giant is a perfectly reasonable concept that could have been done well.

 

[Fenlock]

Regarding Galactus as a cloud

I havent seen the movie, but regarding Galactus i thought i was a nice nod towards this book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud

//F

 

[WayneLigon]

Did Galactus have a spaceship in the comics? An armored dude in a spaceship who "eats worlds" seems rather silly, and not cool to me. A giant cosmic monster who must eat worlds? Totally cool, even seen it on Star Trek once or twice I think.

Yes, he did; he's had several. His home base you can see it in the article I link to below; it's bigger than our entire Earth-Moon system. The world eating is really more of 'draining the life energy from a world', as you can see here. That funky thing wedged atop the Baxter Building is Galactus' life draining machine. From I remember he doesn't need the machine; it just makes things go quicker and easier. I could be wrnog on that, though.

http://www.mp-shoot.com/comics101/27.html This is an extremely good capsule synopsis of what and what the Silver Surfer is, the first Galactus story, and all things related to it. As you can see from reading it, the movie actually does incorporate quite a lot of the original comic story beginning with the strange natural phenomenon (though not their cause) and ending with the Surfer's defiance of Galactus because of being inspired by humans.

Note that part where he's saying that his power has never been really tested. Having the Surfer follow through and being the one to drive Galactus off indeed makes for a better story than having the Deux Ex Machina of the nullifier show up at the last second, something no-one has ever heard of before. It's like having an NPC suddenly defeat the Big Bad Guy.

 

[Dragonblade]

1. I really felt this movie got a lot of things right. I think Mr. Fantastic, Johnny Storm and the Thing were all *perfectly* cast and the banter within the family was spot on.

2. I am a huge Andre Braugher fan and really liked his dripping disdain for Reed Richards.

3. The surfer was *awesome*. The look, the voice, the characterization, spot on.

4. Doom was doom in this movie. I also liked the way the four never trusted him. Their reactions to doom made him seem menacing. I also *like* the guy from Nip/Tuck they cast to play Doom and think he did a good job in both movies. But I liked him better in this one than the last, because he was Doom, not an evil Enron exec with powers.

5. I like Galactus. I don't think a giant white anglo-saxon dude in purple armor with purple lipstick walking through the universe would really work in a movie. So making Galactus mysterious was just fine with me.

6. I liked the relationship between the characters. The FF isn't just four individuals, it's a family of four that really love each other, but are borderline disfunctional and fight a lot. All that was on display here.

7. I liked the power switching played for comedy, occasionally for tension and then finally as something the group used to their advantage. I also loved seeing all their powers merge. It was almost a shout-out to the SuperSkrull.

I did love the FX, and I loved seeing geeky things like the Fantasticar. But, as I listed earlier, those aren't the reasons I think this movie is great. I really thought the casting was just about perfect. I also thought the group dynamic was perfect.

And yeah, I recognize that there was a plot hole in the movie. It just didn't bother me. If it doesn't bother me, it's not a big deal. Some of the plot holes in the first movie DID bother me.

But overall, I thought this movie was really great, for what I go to see a comic movie for: it captured the essence of the comic it's based on.

Given that the comic in question is a freaking CLASSIC, that makes the movie really good.

Excellent points Vigilance. I agree completely. I have read a lot of Marvel and I think this movie, even more than the first, really nailed the F4. So far this is the most enjoyable movie I have seen all year, and so far the only movie that I would like to see in the theater again. I liked it much more than Spider-man 3. And I really wanted to like Spider-man 3, up until the end where the ending felt forced and unnatural.

And Jessica Alba, may not be the perfect casting for Sue Storm, but I didn't mind her at all. And she is very pleasant on the eyes....

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

And Jessica Alba, may not be the perfect casting for Sue Storm, but I didn't mind her at all. And she is very pleasant on the eyes....

She smiles more in this one - which is good because she can power small cities when she does that.

 

[Tuzenbach]

Am I alone in my belief that Gary Sinese (sp?) would have made a much more believable Reed Richards?

 

[Rackhir]

Am I alone in my belief that Gary Sinese (sp?) would have made a much more believable Reed Richards?

Yes totally and completely alone. You're so alone that you make interstellar space look like downtown Tokyo on the weekend they release the new pokemon game.

Ioan Gruffudd rocks and made a terriffic Reed.

 

[Darth Shoju]

Yes totally and completely alone. You're so alone that you make interstellar space look like downtown Tokyo on the weekend they release the new pokemon game.

Ioan Gruffudd rocks and made a terriffic Reed.

Actually I agree Sinese would have been better. The guy playing Reed was possibly the worst part of the movie for me. Johnny Storm and the Thing were perfectly cast. Alba I like but not as Sue and Ioan I just didn't buy as a genius; he had no sense of dignity or intellect to me. Ditto for Doom-the man should be a powerful, prideful, megalomaniacal tyrant of epic intelligence, not a sleazy underwear model.

Overall I found the movie pretty average. 3 out of 5 (or 5 out of 10 if you prefer).

 

[Mark Chance]

Now let it be said up front that I like comic books. I collect the Fantastic Four comic. I also did not like the first Fantastic Four movie. Julian McMahon's character Victor Von Doom was petulant and silly, and true to Hollywood biases, wasn't an Eastern European autocrat but instead a Western capitalist. Jessica Alba as Sue Storm was nothing less than painful to watch. The origin story plot was expected to be predictable given that it was written over 40 years ago, but it was also boring, which is the mortal sin of any movie. Considering all of this, it ought not be a surprise that seeing the sequel wasn't high on my list of things to do, but I have children. They lack my sophisticated tastes in comic book fare and movies.

I was pleasantly surprised by TRotSS, but the bar was set so low by the first film that almost anything would've been an improvement. Doctor Doom's characterization remains trite. The movie takes the Fantastic Four's greatest villain, a megalomaniacal dictator super-scientist, and turns him into a creepy frat-boy. Doom does little more than sneer, deliver juvenile insults, and then sneer some more. I kept expecting him to rat out Reed Richards to some vindicative college dean in order to have Reed's fraternity disbanded. This one character who ought to inspire fear manages to inspire little more than a desire to see him off camera as quickly as possible.

On the plus side, Jessica Alba's Sue Storm almost bearable. The writers wisely decided to remove virtually every hint of Sue being a scientist. Not only does this fly in the face of established comic book history, it also flies in the face of what Alba can believably portray. Alba doesn't project the brainpower necessary to give Paris Hilton much of a run for her money, let alone pass herself off as a scientist. Unfortunately the lovey-dovey wordplay between Reed and Sue remains saccharine drivel. It's not as bad as Anakin and Amidala in Revenge of the Sith, but that's setting the bar for romantic dialogue as low as possible.

The main storyline of the Silver Surfer's tragic plight as the Eater of World's herald is generally well done. Laurence Fishburne, who voices the Surfer, has sufficient pathos to give the largely CGI character emotional weight. The Human Torch and the Thing carry most of the film, and the former is critical to resolution of the movie's major conflicts. Andre Braugher makes an appearance as an obnoxious lieutenant general with much more testosterone than brains. After all, according to Hollywood, career military men seem to be invariably stupid and malicious.

BTW, the whole Galactus as cloud schtick fits with comic book continuity. Galactus's appearance does vary, and is culturally conditioned by those observing him. What humans see as Galactus isn't necessarily what another type of creature would see. That point aside, it isn't even established in the movie that the cloud is Galactus. It could just be a freaky big space cloud surrounding Galactus (whose classic purple helmet does briefly appear in the shadows).

All in all, I'd hestitate to give this movie more than 6/10, which is about twice what the first one deserved (which is being quite generous since the first one deserved to be taken out into a dark alley and shot in the head).