This is going to be full-on geekery, so for those disturbed by such things, I suggest you go read something worthier... Hey, it's Live Earth weekend, why not support/bitch about that?

Anyway, I just took in the Fantastic Four sequel, or- as the BBFC title card had it- simply 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. As detailed at length elsewhere on this blog, I was bitterly disappointed by the previous effort. Despite the return of pretty much all the significant players I couldn't help but be jazzed by the very exciting trailer. I'm a fool to myself, I know. Comic are an abiding love, so comics adaptations always appeal at least a little, thought it has to be said my absolute favourites are no longer those about men in capes and tights. As far as superheroes go, I'm Batman to my boots. Of the various heroes in the Marvel stable, my favourites by far are the FF. The main reason, I think, is their lack of adherence to the stereotype (they're almost the anti-Bat): they rarely fight crime in any conventional sense nor do they maintain secret identities; with the exception of Ben Grimm's physical appearance there's a dearth of tragedy in their histories and no thirst for justice or vengeance; they have stable relationships, kids even; they're more adventurers in the classical literary mode- what victories that come their way are often Pyrrhic, so it's the journey that counts for them more than the outcome; and with only one exception, they have no truly great nemeses.

In their hey-day, the FF's magazine was home to Jack Kirby's wildest flights of visual fancy. Only his later work on the New Gods at rival publisher DC outdid the sheer vitality and weirdness of his run with The Four. In many respects it might be a fool's errand to attempt adapting them to cinema, and it's true that even second time around Tim Story and co. are still failing to get certain fundamentals nailed down (in this day and age, there's really no excuse for the ropeyness of some the Mr.Fantastic stretching effects seen here, surely a very simple task for modern cg animators?). But I'm getting ahead of myself...

This film is better than the last, but only just. Weirdly, most of what I both loved and hated have been diluted. Ioan Gruffund and Jessica Alba are still thoroughly miscast. Recent comics storylines have taken him to the brink of facism, but even in the beginning there was a hard, cold centre to Reed Richards. Yes, he loves his wife, feels guilty about the fate of his friend Ben and acts morally in defence of the world, but ultimately his is an abstract intellect miles beyond anyone else and that leads to irascible, impatient and often hurtful behaviour toward those around him. The too-young Gruffund plays him in an overly playful and puppydog-eyed manner. There's flashes though, and his "the geek shall inherit" moment was nice.

Alba's weird look (the ever-deepening tan you'd expect from someone with her ethnicity jarring with the Boys From Brazil cobalt contacts and terrible bleach job make her an even less convincing WASP than last time, and thrown into even starker relief when we're reminded she's supposed to be the sibling of the pasty-hued Chris Evans) and overt sexuality still don't gel in my mind with the saintly, maternal Sue Storm. "Relax", she tells her husband-to-be, meeshing her breasts against the back of his head... Uh-huh. At least there was only one "Invisible Girl loses her clothes" gag this time, and that in itself was (I think) by way of acknowledging how over-done it was before. Ditto the product placement that rankled so, although it still doesn’t quite sit right with the characters; by all means use the venal, spotlight-hogging Johnny Storm to make a comment on corporate sponsorship, but Reed building the Fantasticar with Dodge parts? No.

On the plus side, Michael Chiklis still makes a good Ben Grimm (and his Thing costume has much improved). Sadly, after forming the heroic centre of the first instalment he's given much less to do this time. His interaction with Chris Evans, tender and prickly by turns, feels the most truly successful adaptation of the comics' spirit. I was very impressed by Evans' performance in Dannny Boyle's Sunshine, playing a character that bears comparison to Johnny Storm. Once again he's the best thing in this movie; in the original comicbook 'Surfer storyline, the Torch is charged with a Herculean task that drives him nearly insane. Nothing quite as intense here, but his character has the most well-defined and interesting arc.

As for the top-billing new comer... It's a mixed bag. The Silver Surfer does pretty much what it says on the tin. Silver? Yep, gloss or matt, depending on what's happening. Surfing? You bet. Good. And that's it. Truth is, he's a bit of a non-character to begin with; a thin Christ metaphor wrapped up in a lot of slightly Sixties cosmic bong smoke. Doug Jones' physical performance provides the requisite grace, Larry Fishburne's voice the necessary earnest portents. There's some nice riffing on what the board actually is and what it can do. Shame they blew the character's, and the film's, best set piece in the afore-mentioned trailer. I also could have lived without the "Teletubby" moment. What I was most curious to see was how, and indeed if, the film-makers would handle the not-so-small matter of his boss.

Galactus is arguably the Kirbyest of all Jack Kirby's visual creations: he looks great, but in a very immediate, graphic way. Try as you might, it's pretty hard to rationalise that hat of his. Cometh the hour, the film-makers bottle it. Their Galactus is a voiceless force of nature and not a palpable entity. Weirdly, that might be closer to the cartoonist's intent; Kirby wanted the original "Galactus trilogy" to be- literally- the FF versus God. It's strange also that this film should pop up at the same time as the return of the TransFormers; last time they were in cinemas they were facing the peril of a world-eater* too.
*Perennial trivia favourite: the voice of Unicron, the planet-sized robot, was Orson Welles' final screen credit. He told a biographer at the time "I play a toy who does unspeakable things to other toys."
Part of me knew that they'd be no attempt to straight-facedly "do" Galactus on screen. But I found myself really hoping, as the climax neared and the Surfer turned on his master, that huge purple helmet (no sniggering, you at the back) might hove into view. Was there the merest suggestion of a silhouette among the debris and fumes? Couldn't say.

So overall I’d say it's a three star effort, with the previous film ranking two. Tim Story's direction is workmanlike, the cast are 50/50. The effects are better than last time but still not quite where they should be. This script (by Don Payne and Mark Frost) is markedly superior to the first (Frost with Michael France), if guilty of the occasional wild inconsistency: their grasp of world geography is way off (Exactly how close is the Great Wall to Shanghai? How many grizzly bears in Germany?); while in a de-powered state, Ben Grimm appears to manage a feat of super-human speed. The tone remains lighter than what I'd like, though for what is ostensibly a kids' film there's a couple of quite salty jokes. But I can't begrudge them that... "Invisible kick to the nuts" made me laugh. And there are some nice nods for hard-core geeks (Roberta the Robot Receptionist, Frankie Raye, a side-long allusion to the Super Skrull, a highly specific Stan Lee cameo).

So what's keeping me from making a ringing endorsement? Can you guess? Could it be... maybe... the same fucking thing as last time, only (I can't believe it's possible) even more so?!

Grrrr! Must... kill... Julian McMahon!!!

The baffling mis-handling of Doctor Doom continues. I'll go over the main points again, briefly.
In the comics, Doom is a brilliant scientist and mystic, monarch of a small Eastern European nation, motivated by his family's brutal mistreatment at the hands of others and the loss of his mother's soul to the Devil himself. He wears a mask because his face was scarred during an accident for which he blames (wrongly) his only intellectual rival, Reed Richards. A monomaniacal tyrant, he seeks to control the entire world and wreak personal vengeance on Richards, his family and allies.
In the films, Doom is a sort of... business guy who shoots electricity from his hands. He wears a mask because... he had a mask on his mantle. He hates Reed Richards because... Reed didn't let him kill everyone in the last film. In the last film he wanted to kill everyone because... he lost his money. Hmm.

As I pointed out before, this crappy Donald Trump simulacrum the film makers chose to go with might have worked if they'd abandoned all the other trappings of Doom's persona. Yet they shoehorned in a reference to Latveria, his European fiefdom. As this new film opens, we find Doom's corpse back in his own land; in a chateaux no less. Incidental detail reveals this to be an ancestral home. Returning to life, Doom appears to have instant access to staff, computers, satellites, helicopters. All this costs money. Yet we were told he lost his assets in the last film, and in the intervening time he's been inanimate in a box. So he must have money. Lots of money. Old money. So his previous actions were meaningless! Great.

I hoped this might at least herald a more faithful take on the character, back to his roots. And when he walked into a meeting at the UN, my heart soared. Yes! Diplomatic immunity! One of the defining points of any Doom plot! But no. No raving. No grand design. Just smarm and sarcasm. Doctor Doom does NOT make with the funny!

Having botched why and how he is, these guys can't even settle on what he is. In their first film we saw him slowly turning into a man of metal. Distressed by his appearance, he donned a mask. Of metal. (I've compared this to an unctuous teenager putting on a giant zit helmet.) Then, in a battle that saw him exposed to extremes of heat and cold, that mask was fused to his face. This time, he has the mask forcibly removed, only to reveal a ravaged face far worse than before. Distressed, he dons a mask. Of cloth. Then, during an encounter with the Silver Surfer, his flesh is repaired and his face restored. Delighted, he swans about for a bit before putting on another fucking metal mask!
Note to Hollywood: if your actors are too vain to portray a masked character, or you can't credit your audience with the ability to empathise with a masked character, don't film stories involving masked characters. (cf: Judge Dredd, Spider-Man I-III).

I look forward to the next logical step, a threequel in which Doom’s face is removed, Nicholas Cage’s is grafted on, it explodes into Ghost Rider flame and so must be obfuscated by a Skeletor mask.