Thumbs Up on Silver Surfer

Okay, okay, it's not a great movie, or even a great superhero movie (like Spiderman 1 &2, or the XMen).  But Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is at least a good superhero movie. The Fantastic Four were a big part of my childhood, though not as big as Spiderman.  I love having my childhood heroes repackaged in ways that I can enjoy as an adult (though some readers may wonder whether that description applies).  The first FF movie was very disappointing, though it carved the heroes out very well and had a perfect cast.  All it suffered from was a very weak plot. 

The new film has a simple but strong story and sticks to it.  It is mostly consistent with the original story in the comic books.  I love what they do with the character of the human torch.  He is the very model of a modern young uber male, precocious, and with a flaming body to boot. But the real star of the show is  Ioan Gruffudd (that's Yoan Griffith, translated from the Welsh), as Reed Richards.  Reed was the kind of hero a science nerd such as I once was could aspire to be.  He was a natural born leader, always did his homework, and always new exactly what to do in any situation. That's not to bad a hero in modern movie land. 

Like the first movie, the second is doing very well at the box office.  From USAToday:

Riding on the shoulders of a computer-generated alien, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer breezed to the top spot at the box office over the weekend.

The comic book sequel took in $57.4 million, according to studio estimates from box office trackers Nielsen EDI.

The haul is about $7 million more than projections and slightly eclipsed the take of the 2005 original, which made its debut with $56.1 million and went on to do $154 million.

"You have to believe this did well for mainly two reasons: it's PG and the surfer," says Chris Aronson of 20th Century Fox, which distributed Surfer. "With (the surfer), it felt more like a new movie than a sequel. He was what the fans wanted to see."

Indeed, the film earned stronger — though still unspectacular — reviews from critics, who were primarily impressed by effects behind the intergalactic surfer, embodied by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne.