I enjoyed this movie. It basically worked as advertised - a light summer romp with comic book themes and stuff blowing up. 
It’s a little odd in that it takes the Fantastic Four a good while to knock it into their heads that saving the world is job #1, but they get there. I do like how they played up the “celebrity” aspect of the FF as compared to the dual lives of a lot of other superheroes (they don’t have secret identities and are headquartered right in middle of New York).
And of course there’s Jessica Alba. Jessica Alba on a giant movie screen - every lad in America should have that prize. The funny thing is that there’s more nudity of Jessica Alba (implied, but still, nude) in this PG rated film than in her role as a stripper in Sin City which was rated R. I do get a little creeped out at the romance between her and Ioan Gruffudd (Mr. Fantastic) because he looks more like her dad than the love of her life. But fear not, Jessica Alba wears glasses for a quick bit in this movie and all is well.
The movie could have been a bit longer, frankly, and the third act feels rushed. Solid popcorn fun.
Rating: 3/5
“I enjoyed this movie. It basically worked as advertised - a light summer romp with comic book themes and stuff blowing up”
I agree.
It’s a popcorn flick, nothing more, but it never claimed to be anything more and as long as you go in with that expectation, it is entertaining.
A lot of fun. Lotsa good little bits for geeks like me. A mom and her kids were next to me…usually a sign of constant chattering to come. But, the kids were totally wrapped up in the flick. A nice, communal movie-going experience.
I’m sorry, but
*SPOILERS*
the Surfer’s power is in his board? That’s STOOPID. Almost as dumb as Marvel’s reasoning some years ago that the only thing keeping the Surfer exiled to Earth was said surfboard (which the Surfer can conveniently dematerialize and reform outside of Earth, hence his escape, board intact). Come on, he gets knocked off his board and he’s essentially powerless? Hop on his board and you get his power? What a brilliant plan by Galactus the world devouring cumulus cloud, to create a herald who can get board jacked and lose his powers to virtually anyone.
And what’s with Super Skrull Johnny?
Okay, these might be only comic nerd complaints to most (my eight year old daughter certainly couldn’t give a crap), but they seriously grate on me when it wouldn’t have been all that hard to write a better and more coherent story than “he who controls the board controls the power…dude.” Marvel is increasingly disregarding the comic source material and just making sh*t up as they go and while this may be a better effort than the first film (hard to go lower, really, and at least it’s watchable), it just continues the downward spiral from the vastly better Spiderman 2 and X-men 2. I’m just hoping they don’t f*ck up the Abomination, one of my favorite Hulk villains.
Yeah, Alba’s pretty to look at but is a really bad casting for Sue Storm. Ben and Johnny, by contrast, are pretty much perfect.
Doom is just painful. Every line out of his mouth just hurt. I was hoping they’d learn from their mistakes in the first movie and ditch the “snarky businessman” take for “legitimately terrifying supervillain”, but no such luck.
I actually didn’t mind the “gas cloud Galactus” take — works a lot better on a movie screen than Giant in Ridiculous Purple Helmet — but the “Oh yeah, the Surfer actually could have taken him out at any time” ending is just asinine.
Check out my post about Jessica Alba Being Ashamed of her Mexican Heritage Here.