About Heroes

Well well well, another Comic Book movie, and another review. Let's get right to it, shall we?

I'm not gonna dwell on the first movie that much cuz well...it's painful and this isn't about the first movie, but I think in order to really succesfully review the first movie, I should tell you what I thought of the first. To start, I'm not a huge FF fan, so I went into it not knowing a lot, but knowing enough to be able to spot some weird off-the-button characterization going on (especially with doom, illustrated by the nearbye comic...), which must have been quite apparent to true fans, since I was somewhat of a FF noob and I could see it. However, aside from all it's bmxing extreme schlocky dumbed down goodness, it was sortuva ok movie. I think I'd probably score it at a C / C-. When they announced the sequel with the Silver Surfer and Galactus, I honestly didn't care. I just kinda went...oh...another mainstream comic movie. Could be fun, I guess we'll see. then the trailer came out with Johnny chasing down good old S.S. and I said to myself....holy crap, no way! Did they make it decent? Immediately I guzzled the glimmer of hope with a healthy dose of "This is still the same Director who did Barbershop...don't get your hopes up." That did the trick. Time passed, Spidey 3 broke my heart, and then I learned to always walk in with low expectations.

And so I did.

There was a certain level of hype that I kinda bought into (I saw it at the Arclight across the street from my school at Sunset and Vine, and they have one of the life-size Silver Surfer statues hovering over their fountain which got me excited, lol.)

So in I went with a fellow Comic Nerd into Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer, with knowledge of alleged Galactus Clouds and silly power-swapping goofyness. My expectations were low (expecting a repeat of the first movie's quality), and well......I think I loved it?

The movie just had a lot going for it, and really learned from it's mistakes in the first one. Better action sequences, better characterization, better story, better Doom(!), and a lot less schlock in exchange for just the right amount of humor, mostly between Ben and Johnny. On top of all that, it had the Silver Surfer. Wooo! That makes it fun. The team seamed to be a lot more of just that. A team. Before it was kinda like a team-up of all these people who had no idea that they could really worked together, like the wall happened to be there on accident. This one takes place years after, and it shows. They work a lot better as a team, and that really helped out in the fruition of better action scenes. Also, I'm a big fan of Brian Posehn, who played the Priest at Reid and Sue's wedding, so that was really fun to watch. All in all, it was just a significant improvement over the last movie and there was a lot to enjoy about it, even the fact that Galactus did indeed turn out to be a big Space-Leech Could thing. It honestly helps to know this before you go in. If you can get past it, then it's not so bad. In all honesty, and I'm sure I'm gonna provoke Purist Nerd-Rage when I say this, but I kinda liked it. I thought it worked out as a good alternative to a giant guy in a goofy purple crown stomping around New York with 4 little runts and the Silver Surfer bugging it. Not saying I don't like the G-man or anything, but I think the transition to film would have been...odd at best.

So all that good being said, here's the bad in short form, because it wasn't SUPER bad in my eyes....
1. Product Placement. God....just.....bleh! STOP IT JOHNNY. JUST STOP. Ben, put the slurpee down. Mr. Fantastic, stop putting big car industry logos on your own cool inventions. Sue, stop watching E! entertainment television!
2. THE BLUE EYES!!!! THEY PEIRCE INTO MY SOUL LIKE THE ICY DAGGERS OF A FROST GIANT!!!! GYAAAAAH!!!!! (Sue's contacts were a biiiiiit much)
3. The way Johnny gets the ability to swap powers with team members on a whim through contact. It's just.....it's dumb cuz they haven't showcased the team really working as a team that well yet. Stop getting ahead of yourselves guys!
4. The Silver Surfer was a bit T-1000ish, both in look, and in new, added on morphing-ish abilities.

That's pretty much all I can think of at the moment. All in all an enjoyable film if you come dialed in to the first movie, if that makes sense. I'd give this flick a B-. Check it out kids, if you liked the first, you'll love this one. If you didn't like the first, you might want to give the Fantastic Four another go.

FLAME ON KIDDIES!

Until next time, you're amigo in Hollywood,
-Joshiebear.