Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer

Rise of The Silver Surfer does better than the original, but still doesn't totally remove itself from that made-for-TV with a much bigger budget feel that considerably cheapened the first film. Fantastic Four's stories and characters lean more towards the lighthearted comedy angle, a change from the down to business seriousness we see in the X-Men and Spiderman universe. Those franchises do their thing well, but there's no reason Marvel stories should all be cut from the same mold, especially if a film can work well doing its own thing.

As we start Fantastic Four 2, we see that the interaction between the Four is more family-like now, they're living in the Baxter building and have their routine down. Despite the nagging of Sue who for whatever reason wants some 'normality' about her, it's a life of invoices from the city for destroying cars, taking care of endorsements and planning weddings. All this is the boring stuff, especially if you left the first film without a connection to the characters. But it all works, the arguing, the practical jokes and the kind words, create a believable family and its fun to watch this stuff, even if it is padding until the money comes.

As with any sequel, the action should be amped up, and it is. Our new character, the Silver Surfer, provides a good dose of mystery and threat. Our world's about to end, which in any superhero story is the ultimate challenge. It almost gives the Fantastic Four movie a feeling of the epic, something which after watching the first film would seem impossible in this universe. The Silver Surfer is the herald of this planet ending certainty, so it's up to the Four to track him down and find the answers. As a new character his personality is rather bland, he's joker Johnny Storm's polar opposite. The effects used to bring the buff older brother of the T-1000 to life aren't all that inspiring, indeed, he's more convincing through the detail we get to see when he's lost his Mr. Sheen.

There's not a great deal of battling happening in FF2, disappointingly. There are a few nice sequences of the Four going head to head, but when they do it's with Dr. Doom again. I like his character, and he's the Four's arch enemy, but they were battling him in the last film and he's really their only foe in the sequel again. A lack of Superhero vs. Superhero action is compensated somewhat a by few sequences of mayhem in which the Four save the day, such as at the London Eye or at the Wedding, but they're short. There's nothing that's particularly unfitting about the film, perhaps apart from The Thing's (Sgt Scrotes) continually terrible lines, such as "my bad". A better film, no, but when it's all put together, on a scale of expectations, Rise of The Silver disappoints less than Spider-Man 3 in Marvel 2007.

out of ten

Reviewed by Paul Boschen