Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Spoilers within, baby.

So, I saw Rise of the Silver Surfer again. And I thought it was just as good as the first time I saw it. This time I looked for more things; I looked at the story harder, the effects, the little things more. I basically micro-reviewed the whole film in my head. And I gotta tell you...it's good.

Let's start with the things that ruined the first movie. "It was way too kiddy". Now, Rise of the Silver Surfer does have a PG rating, but it is way less kiddy than the first one. First of all, the story is way darker. The world is going to END. There's this wicked scene where the Silver Surfer is being tortured by this mad scientist guy. And we see a guy literally get caramelized right on the screen by Doom the surfer. Sure, it does have some childish moments, but it still has a great sense, and the Human Torch is a lot less dickish in this one.

"There were too many jokes". Sure, in this one there were a lot of jokes, too. But they were a lot funnier than the first. I found myself actually laughing out loud at some things, which is telling, since I don't find movies ha-ha funny most of the times. but this movie, unlike the first, didn't try to pass itself off as a comedy. It was a super-hero action flick, and it showed. It showed.

So now let's start with things the movie did wrong. It was short. It was an hour and a half, which can be good, but it really left me wanting more. I mean, it filled up the whole 90 minutes, and there wasn't really a spot where it was dragging or anything bad. In fact, I thought the pacing was one of the higher points. I just wish there was...more.

Also, there were still a lot of moments when it had a Nickelodeon like feel. The Thing saying "My Bad", Ben having to squeeze himself on a commercials airliner, all these things just seem to be really childish. But I know why; they have to have SOME things to keep kids interested. It is, after all, a kid's movie.

And finally, Sue Storm. I'm still a little hung on this one. I don't know if it's Alba's bad acting, if the script was written to make both the character and actor appear in a bad light, or what, but the invisible woman comes off as a bitch during the whole film. She's annoying, she yells at Reed way too much, she has these insane sudden mood swings, and she's not really the involved. Plus, she has that death scene that was SO predictable and SO fake it blew my mind.

So what did they do right? Well, luckily, a lot of the movie is done right. The CGI was WONDERFUL. The Silver Surfer was amazing; I mean, he looked so real it was almost scary. Galactus Cloud was also great, I mean, they took something as un-menacing as a cloud and gave it an intimidating look that really is kind of spooky. I mean, it's not the great planet eater we all know and love, but it works. Which is another thing. I keep seeing people blast Galactus, but it had to be done this way. Imagine you've never seen a comic, and you go to see a movie, and the bad guy is a big dude in a purple suit who eats planets. Seriously. The Cosmic Cloud force of nature thing is so much better.

Another thing done right was Johnny Storm. In the first film, the Human Torch is the world's biggest asshole. In fact, he's mostly just a joke for most of the movie. I hated him in that movie. But in this one, he's great! The character is allowed to, and has, grown up a lot since the last time we saw him. Not only that, but seeing him go Super Skrull on Silver Doom's ass was GREAT.

So overall, this is defienetly a good movie. It seemes to get a lot of negative press, which is a shame. In terms of Comic Book Movies, this one goes somewhere between Spider-man 3 and the first X-Men. My grade? A 7.5/10, or a solid C+.

So go see it.