Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Rating: 5/10 (2 June 2014)

The dreary sterile foursome are back...rubbery bloke, fat rock thing, the flaming flamer and woman with really obvious fake blue contacts and blonde hair. This time in a bid to actually make an interesting film they've added an actual antagonist...or have they. Oh no my mistake he actually turns out to be another good guy whom everybody thought was bad. So who is the bad guy this time?? well I guess its Doom again...oh no he's working with the Four...until the very end when we get one single battle and a large cosmic cloud, oh geez Hollywood.
Yep so we've had the obligatory origins part of the franchise that took up the entire first film, now things can step up a gear...right??!! Well no not really, this time most of the film simply revolves around the marriage plans of Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Woman...yes *deflated acceptance of the truth*. Yep as the two love birds are trying their best to get hitched admist the usual cartoonish childish tomfoolery of the other team members, the Silver Surfer pops up from outta nowhere.
So even though the rest of this film still generally looks as poor as the first film at least the Surfer does actually look pretty slick, no pun intended. Admittedly it shouldn't be too hard to capture the Surfer's look, how could you fudge it up?! (ahem!), but yes he does looks really nice here as does his board. That doesn't excuse some plot issues though, apparently the board is a beacon for Galactus the cosmic cloud, but why? does Galactus own the board and he loaned it to the Surfer? what connection is there between the board and Galactus? I did always think the Silver Surfer's people on his home world all had boards like it was their mode of transportation, but in this film things aren't really explained and I've no idea how accurate it is to the comics.
This leads to Galactus himself or itself. Yes in the comics we all know that Galactus is a big God-like humanoid with a nifty helmet, but in this film he's a big swirly cosmic cloud in space...he's been Bayformed. I understand the need to maybe conceal this mega characters true form to a degree (in his first movie appearance) so I can go with this myself, but I can also understand why some fans were upset with this way forward. Hollywood does this to some characters and it can be very frustrating I know, but leaving such a vast character to the last five minutes of the film doesn't help either does it. What bewildered me was the fact the Silver Surfer decides to wipe out or kill Galactus at the end...but why didn't he do just that right at the start before he was forced to destroy so many planets?! he could of done what he did (don't ask me what he did) ages ago for Pete's sake! eh? Oh and what were all those huge holes in the Earth in aid of exactly??
The actual main heroes (the Four) are completely useless and just as annoying as they were in the first film...so I won't bore you further. Where as Doom is!...just the same as the first film *groan*. Somehow he gets released from his metal prison because of cosmic rays from the Surfer? whatever...and naturally plans dastardly plans to get even. The utterly stupid thing is even when the planet is clearly on the brink of destruction by Galactus, Doom is still being a dick and refusing to cooperate trying to keep the boards power for himself. Yeah that will do you good when planet Earth gets obliterated you utter utter cock.
It all sounds exciting doesn't it, lots of action and CGI for the kids...yeah, great. Thing is just like the first film there isn't all that much action until the end again. We do finally get to see Doom have a proper battle with the Four and errr...lots of military blokes getting thrown around, one guy gets a hole blasted in him! But that's it really, the finale is just a big super powered energy explosion that makes no real sense but you just gotta accept it.
I admit this film is much more fun than the first and visually more thrilling but a lot of that is purely down to the Surfer. Without this one character the film would be just as pants as the original, and even with this one character its not exactly brilliant. The problem being most of the film is filled with rubbish and characters you don't care about, plus it all feels so very puerile still...they added more childish visual gags! They broke the wall of semi reality within this universe by having Stan Lee play himself and being recognised as the comicbook uberlord that he is. Cute moment but it takes you out of the film, it makes a mockery of the whole movie...if that's even possible. On top of all that they still go ahead and end the film focusing on that stupid flippin' wedding and the same 4 logo motif in the sky! originality anyone?
5.5/10