June 18, 2007
Exciting, visually stunning, compelling, funny, touching - this is an excellent kids' movie. It's excellent in many ways considering it's a movie based on a comic strip; so OK, it aint Shakespeare and you have to bear that in mind. But oh! Thank God for a comprehensible plot (something Spiderman 3 and esp Pirates 3 were notably without), which adds greatly to the enjoyment of a film, giving it structure and coherence and preventing it from being just a sequence of clever special effects interspersed with witty one-liners. This was an old-fashioned story and character-led movie - hurrah! It looks absolutely luscious. Kids will appreciate the spectacular set pieces and cool effects, grown-ups the weird unearthly beauty of the Silver Surfer (divinely voiced by Laurence Fishburne), and we girls the quite astonishingly gorgeous Chris Evans as the Human Torch. I particularly liked the development of his character in this movie - coming to the realisation that he really is a profoundly shallow person and unable to connect with women in a meaningful way even when he thinks he wants to. The scenes of him needling the Thing were a delight and necessary to offset the rather schmaltzy plot-line about Mr Fantastic and Invisible Woman's thwarted wedding plans. Victor von Doom was once again a hissably creepy villain, ably abetted by a nasty US general who doesn't care much for our heroes.
All in all, extremely enjoyable - I'd say 8 out of 10.
All in all, extremely enjoyable - I'd say 8 out of 10.