Let's Shoot High, Shall We?

The first Fantastic Four movie was not so good. Now, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I did sort of enjoy a few moments. As my assistant at work put it, "the FF is kind of goofy by nature, so how good can it be? They're not the X-Men, you know." True enough.

A few weeks back, the 2007 sequel was officially named "Rise of the Silver Surfer". Well, that tells us who's in it although I'm not certain "rise" is the proper word for a being who comes DOWN from the cosmos. Maybe I'm being too picky. The big question, was whether or not Galactus was not far behind. As of last week, the answer is yes. This leads to an interesting conundrum for director Tim Story, who has an awful task ahead of him. Not only does he have to do one of Marvel's most loved characters (and one that will be nightmarish to present despite the fact that WETA Workshop is doing the SFX) to bring to life, but now the most powerful character in that corner of comicdom.

They certainly won't delve into the origin of Galactus as that would make Tommy and Susie, the common date-movie couple, blow a brain cell or two and walk out. For those of you who don't know, Galactus was the only surviving life-form from the previous universe before the latest of a string of infinity-spanning "big bangs". He's either pissed or bored and is working to consume all of the energy of this universe before it collapses again. Got that?

Anyway, the big problem with all of this is that the only reason the Fantastic Four EVER beat Galactus is because Reed tricked him or the Watcher intervened. Since Reed in the previous FF movie is pretty much a moron, I don't see that happening either.

I think they got a little ambitious with this one, and should have probably gone with the Mole Man and monsters rampaging through New York. That would have been a good, low cerebellum requirement pop-corn movie good time. The Surfer and Galactus is strictly top-shelf. I hope Story is up to it.