So with Jenny currently refusing to see film of my suggestion following our recent disappointments, I decided to do this one solo.
Now as a kid I loved the FF - I eagerly anticipated getting the next comic or annual, the crazy bad guys, the evil Dr Doom, and I longed to be The Human torch. FF was one of the earlier comics I was in to, I then moved on to Spider-Man, The Avengers, Iron Man, Daredevil etc. etc.
I was incredibly excited when the first movie came out, and I thought it did a great job of bringing the spirit of the comics on to the silver screen. It did, however, lack any depth at all, and was over without the FF actually having much of a challenge.
So I wasn’t sure about the sequel… although it would be cool to see The Silver Surfer (toughest hombre in the Marvel Top Trumps) on screen, I wondered how they were going to make it work.
Fortunately the production team seem to have taken the criticisms from the first movie and put about creating a more substantial sequel. It still retains the sense of fun from the comics and the first movie, with plenty of the inter-team squabbling you would expect from the FF, and it adds a few sub-plots and some personal anguish for a couple of the characters. Knitted around this is the arrival of the silver surfer who sets around preparing the earth for destruction whilst a resurrected Dr Doom seeks to use him for his own ends.
All in all its an enjoyable movie and a better overall experience than the first outing. That’s not to say that it’s a classic - it is still fairly superficial entertainment.. some characters being badly under-used (the thing could have pretty much taken the week off), and you dont see that much FF action. However the SFX are very good, and these few gripes aside it’s a lot of fun. Hopefully the movie does well enough to justify a third and we can see the improvement continue.
And I wrote that whole review without mentioning Jessica Alba in a catsuit.
