6.17.2007

Rise of the Silver Surfer

I took my husband to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer today. For anyone who saw the first movie, this second offering is an improvement. It's still not a great movie, but it's an improvement. I'm of the opinion that comic book movies should be fun first and anything else after that. This movie scores on the fun part of the equation and it made improvements over the first film as far as the cheese factor goes.

The big problem I had with this film was the lack of character development. The Fantastic Four are still a little cardboard for my tastes and the Surfer doesn't get a lot of air time. They spend more time focusing on trivial stuff...like a wedding and media hype. The time would have been better spent focusing on the Surfer and how the Fantastic 4 come to form a relationship with him.

The second problem with this film is a pretty big plot flaw. SPOILER ALERT: Johnny Storm has a run in with the Surfer early in the movie. It leaves him with a virus that causes him to swap powers with whoever he touches. At the end of the movie Doom steals the Surfer's board and it makes him all powerful. In order to get it away from him and stop the planets impending doom the 4 all touch hands and transfer all their powers to Storm......Okay....wait a minute. Stop the movie.

Here's the problem with that:

(1) When he touches someone he changes powers with the person he touches. He gets their power and they get his. So, if he touched all three of the other Fantastic 4 he would get their powers, but they should all have gotten his, he shouldn't have his fire anylonger, right?

or....it should have swapped powers among the four with unknown results, but in the movie it simply automatically transferred all four powers into Storm.

Now, he takes off and flies after Doom where he starts fighting with the SuperVillian and we encounter plot hole two.

(2) Because of the virus the first time he touches Doom the powers that he has should transfer to Doom and the powers Doom has should transfer to him. But they don't why not?

I hate when they just have things work because they need it to in a movie. They need to give me a reason. Any reason, but damn it, give me a reason.

All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend an afternoon with my husband and my son.