Far-Too-Lame Foursome: Rise of the Sucky Sequels

Well I'm not going to be in Mumbai when Ratatouille comes out (that's by far the only movie I'm sincerely "looking forward" to), so I didn't want to miss the chance to watch a movie before heading back to good 'ol "we-show-only-hindi-movies" Raipur.

Firstly, the Fantastic Four was never really a favorite. I remember picking up with one of my first Spider-Man books at a book fair when I was in elementary school (Other books in bought during that time were Punisher and Batman). Fantastic Four, to me, has always been riddled with camp and too many "inter-galactic" adventures for my simple tastes.

That said, I have to say that I absolutely loved The Incredibles, which while borrowing a LOT from Marvel's famous family of foe-fighting superheroes, was able to translate the concept on to screen with a BANG!

The story of FF2 is quite simple really: The herald of Galactus (the planet eating cosmic being),Norrin Radd (or Silver Surfer - I prefer his real name) has come to earth to prepare it for his master. The Fanatastic Four have to stop this from happening, and surprise-surprise they do. All this happens in the midst of Reed Richards and Sue Storms wedding plans.

There's nothing really wrong with Fantastic Four - it's just too simple to be interested in; a paint-by-numbers (Finally! I get to use that phrase!) picture that is very easy to forget.

The good:

• Chris Evans as Johnny Storm - he can get pretty annoying, but I think his character kinda grew on me. The payoff of him using all the four powers to fight doom was quite cool.
• The Silver Surfer - they pretty much got his character right. I really like the way he silently disposes of any obstacle in his path. And Doug Jones is always awesome.
• Ioan Gruffud as Mr. Fantastic is also okay. But that's the whole point. I can't come up with anymore positives because everything is just "okay".

The bad:

• Julian McMahon as Dr. Doom - totally not needed.
• Galactus - I like the cloud, but it ain't Galactus.
• Silver Surfer without his sheen is very hard to watch and not too believeable.
• Lawrence Fishburne as Silver Surfer - it doesn't work.
• Some of Mr. Fantastic's stretchy effects
• The Surfer having weird powers and sometimes being too reminiscent of T-1ooo.

The ugly:

• Jessica Alba's hair and eyes. UGLY, UGlY, UGLY.

Well, there you have it. A mediocre movie. If they make a sequel, it should be straight-to-video.

Actually - this one should've been too.