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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark Chance" data-source="post: 3605643" data-attributes="member: 2795">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).</blockquote>

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