Succeeds On Its Own Terms

Rating: 7/10 (3 July 2007)

Fantastic Four 2 is a much less ambitious film then Spiderman 3, but it succeeds better on its own, limited terms. Yes, the characters are two dimensional, the actors wooden, the jokes corny, the special effects mediocre. But Tim Story and co. manage to keep it moving/entertaining for 89 scant minutes. The only real disappointment is Galactus. In the comics, the big G is a God-like being beyond simple human concepts of good and evil; in the movie, he's (literally) a bag of gas.
The most interesting aspect of the movie, from a cultural perspective, is the Abu Ghraib prison scandal reference. The Silver Surfer, having been captured by the FF, is "interrogated" (tortured) by the U.S. army! He isn't waterboarded or led around on a leash, but he is shackled to a table, injected with an unspecified drug, and given electrical shocks with a defibrillator. The FF are so incensed by his treatment that they bust him out of stir. It's a jarring contemporary intrusion into otherwise mindless escapist fare.