Not bad - but too aimed at teen and female audiences

Rating: 6/10 (18 June 2007)

For those who have actually read them, as opposed to just seen the movies, just how many Marvel superhero comics feature weddings? We have had 2 now in this movie and Spiderman 2.
Yes, there has to be a "love interest" in most if not all of the superhero lives, but to allow it to dominate a super hero movie is a mistake, it's to make it into a part-time chick flick or soap opera.
The other element in this feminisation of the superhero concept is the repeated miscasting of Jessica Alba, who comes across as pretty much a dumb blonde type, and would do a lot better in my view if she STAYED invisible throughout the entire movie.
She has a nice shape, but that's about it, and when she talks about being "hot" for Reed when he stands up to the army general, and says she had a wild bachelorette party to outdo Reed's mostly unwanted and really pathetically tame bachelor party, it comes across too much as a "girl power" exercise, which really is not what male superhero comic fans want to see, because if they did, they'd go to a Spice Girls concert instead.
(Jessica Alba also claimed in an interview she was the most powerful of the FF characters, which isn't really proved in the movies or the comics to the best of my awareness, especially when in the first movie it was claimed Johnnie could "go supernova", and it was mainly his superpower that stopped Von Doom)
But of course, we'd be mistaken if we thought this movie was being made for the original 60s and 70s comic book superhero fans, because they are mostly in their 40s, 50s or beyond, and they are not the 7 - 30 year old demographic that is presumably the target audience for the movie and DVD purchases.
So instead of getting a proper woman to play the Invisible Girl who would appeal to the older genuine comic audience - e.g. Michelle Pfeiffer, Elizabeth Hurley or Rachel Weisz with a blond wig, or whoever - they ironically have cast a young girl like Jessica Alba - who mostly only appeals to teenagers because she has got so little depth and maturity - as the Invisible Woman, once again taking an unneeded liberty changing her title inappropriately from the Invisible Girl.
And it's very sad, because all the male characters are well cast, and the Thing in particular is a great effort, given the fact he is real and not CGId except in some of the more difficult action scenes no doubt.
The Silver Surfer is visually stunning, but again, he is made a romantic figure with a love interest, not only in his own alien relationship, but also with Jessica Alba's dull and tedious portrayal of Sue Storm.
The humour also seemed to be poorer in this second effort, too formulaic, whereas it was quite fresh in the first movie, like the scene on the bridge where a bird dumps on the Thing and he talks the guy out of jumping only for the cops to turn the guns on him, and the combative interplay scenes with Johnny Storm.
The first movie was far better, though probably suffered a little from under-budget, because it needed more protracted action scenes, like in the Spiderman 2 movie, in which there are probably from memory about 4 or 5 separate confrontations between Spidey and Doc Ock including the fantastic train sequence.
Nevertheless, because the FF characters are fundamentally so good, I hope they make a third movie with the following changes:
a) replace Jessica Alba with a much better and more intelligent and womanly actress e.g. Jeri Ryan from Star Trek Voyager b) get a genuine comedy script writer to write in scenes between Johnnie Storm and the Thing, you know, the kind of guy who writes for the Simpsons, Futurama or whoever c)make the movie 2hrs, space it out more, allowing more complex plot line and character development and not make it such a non-stop action roller coaster, which appeals only to dysfunctional zap game addicted nine year olds.
This grossly expensive movie is not even as satisfying as an average Star Trek TOS episode, and just consider the primitive technology they had to do the special effects in the 60s, or likewise the brilliant Forbidden Planet movie in 1956. So if they actually want people of all ages to enjoy this movie, they should heap a lot more money and attention on getting good writers to put together a really strong and sparkling script, which this one was not remotely.
e.g. using the London Eye was a dumb idea, it's not famous or interesting enough, it's not the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State building or British Houses of Parliament or Golden Gate bridge or whatever.
But in conclusion, despite this mediocre follow up to the first fun, exciting and unapologetic movie, let's hope that when the Silver Surfer said "All that you know is at an end", which line was probably the only truly memorable thing in the whole movie, he didn't mean THE FRANCHISE.