Of the last three movies I saw, none of them were good. But for some reason, the least likely candidate was my favorite.
You’d think I’d have more positive things to saw about my childhood friends, Transformers, or that the very explosiveness or Bruce Willisness of Die Harderer would have carried it along. But no, it’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer that I’m thinking of a whole day later.
Don’t get me wrong, it had some unforgivable flaws. Mostly having to do with Invisible Woman. I wanted to like her, and she was rather sweet in her scenes with the Silver Surfer. But she is the most pathetic superheroine…thinks her wedding is more important than the end of the world, wants to give up superheroics to raise a family, looks pretty silly posing with jazz hands when supposedly putting up an invisible forcefield (her only superpower). Worst of all, she has no chemistry with Mr. Fantastic. Probably it’s his fault. You mean to tell me they couldn’t find an actor who has romantic chemistry with Jessica Alba?
Then there’s the blondifying. She looked like a cartoon. I thought the special effects for Mr. Fantastic were bad in the first one and bad in the second one. Maybe it was the expression on his face when he was supposed to be stretching.
Further, they didn’t give the lovely Julian McMahon enough to do as Dr. Doom, and the origin of the Silver Surfer could have used some script-doctoring.
Still, I enjoyed it. Unlike Transformers, the proper comic book tone was maintained throughout. The dynamic between The Thing and Human Torch was solid. And it wasn’t three hours long.