This review might sound negative, but there
were many aspects of FF2 I enjoyed. It was a fun time at the theater, and the audience seemed to be having fun. For me, it doesn't have a high re-watch value though. The first film actually is still my favorite.
Basically, I give Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer a
C+ It had its good parts, but overall the film was lacking. It had potential for greatness, but didn't fully reach it, imo. The humor in the film hit all the right notes for me. I was suprised to actually fine the humor funny, and not corny. I hope they edit out the final scene featuring the four in a special edition, though. It was cheesy.
This franchise has great
actors, but for some reason their acting in this film (and even the first) were bad at parts. Jessica Alba, Ioan Gruffud, and Julian McMahon suffered most from this. I know they are good actors, so maybe the director didn't do enough takes, because he didn't pick the best ones.
The
visuals of the film are great. Lots of great locations are covered, and I love the world-wide aspect this film decided to take on. Special-effects wise, all of the FF's powers are equal to what we saw in the first film. I saw no vast improvement on any of the powers. Just more of the same (which isn't really a bad thing). I did like the simplicity of Sue's force fields in this one.
Silver Surfer was my favorite thing about this film. He's a great character, and actually gets to show some character development in this film. I loved seeing him talk about his planet and his love. There were some great touching scenes between he and Sue.
IMO, Dr. Doom should have NOT been in this film. I felt that it was pointless having him there. Besides a fight scene, I found no real reason why he should be there. His 'conclusion' in the film was sad, and forgotten about. IMO, He was not improved on in any way (his new costume looks worse than the first, imo. Also, Julian McMahon is a good actor, but once again...horrible acting in many parts.
Galactus. His 'look' was not even the bad thing. They really didn't spend enough time showing Galactus. He sorta just pops up at the end and quickly goes away. I will agree that the humanoid Galactus would not have worked in this film. Save that for the SS spin-off. I truly believed he was in the center of that 'cloud' though.
Did anyone else see the faint outline of Galactus' face when SS was flying towards the center? If you didn't, watch it again and pay close attention. Maybe my eyes were playing with me, but I swear...
Tim Story gets what the Fantastic Four are all about, and I think as a director, he is improving on some things. He truly masters showing the FF as people in society and how they live with their fame. He gets the 'family' aspect down, but everything else needs some work.
Basically the beginning of the film was greatness. The middle lagged. The end picked up the steam, but never truly 'wow'd me because it was so rushed. I will say though, that the final scene with Silver Surfer (before and after credits) got me excited. I'm hoping FF3 really steps up to the plate, because so far they have released two ok (but not great) films. Again...that's just my opinion.
So yeah, C+.