Garp
20-06-2007, 22:17
Well.. I was in two minds about this film. Everyone had warned me off from the first, but when I watched it a couple of weeks back I actually found myself liking it. Sure it wasn't the greatest film I'd ever seen but it was no where near as bad as people said it was.
I'd still got a couple of free tickets to use at our local cinema so I figured this evening as I had no major plans I'd go and catch the film after work.
Wow.
Okay, still not an absolutely mind-blowingly awesome film; but it is still very good and very well done. The production and effects quality are as top-notch as we've come to expect from Hollywood blockbusters these days. The story line was nearly spot on, following the basic comic book outline for Norrin Rad (Silver Surfer), albeit the story had a few plot device holes in it*. The balance between character development and story progression seemed to be just about right for a second film too, allowing each of the main actors to develop their roles sufficiently to take them away from the rather 2 dimensional characters portrayed in the first film. Laurence Fishburne and Doug Jones did a superb double team with the Silver Surfer, the former having the right kind of voice that even at a whisper manages to have an immense rolling quality about it, and the latter is a wonderful physical actor, particularly when you look at all the roles he's done before.
The only disappointment character wise was Victor Von Doom. Julian McMahon was superb in the first film, and I'd have loved him to have some more screen time than he did. His actions in the film were all rather on the predictable side.
There were the usual boring product placements in the film that I'm growing tired of seeing, e.g. his PDA is a Nokia and rather prominently so. FFS, I've paid to see this film, I shouldn't have to see shameless plugs... At least its not quite as bad as that Coke bottle in Hackers, or the myriad placements in "I, Robot"
Overall.. 7 1/2 out of 10.
*
Johnny Storm's powers were doing a switching thing, not absorbing thing, so how did he take the entire teams powers at the end? His at least should have passed to someone.
I'd still got a couple of free tickets to use at our local cinema so I figured this evening as I had no major plans I'd go and catch the film after work.
Wow.
Okay, still not an absolutely mind-blowingly awesome film; but it is still very good and very well done. The production and effects quality are as top-notch as we've come to expect from Hollywood blockbusters these days. The story line was nearly spot on, following the basic comic book outline for Norrin Rad (Silver Surfer), albeit the story had a few plot device holes in it*. The balance between character development and story progression seemed to be just about right for a second film too, allowing each of the main actors to develop their roles sufficiently to take them away from the rather 2 dimensional characters portrayed in the first film. Laurence Fishburne and Doug Jones did a superb double team with the Silver Surfer, the former having the right kind of voice that even at a whisper manages to have an immense rolling quality about it, and the latter is a wonderful physical actor, particularly when you look at all the roles he's done before.
The only disappointment character wise was Victor Von Doom. Julian McMahon was superb in the first film, and I'd have loved him to have some more screen time than he did. His actions in the film were all rather on the predictable side.
There were the usual boring product placements in the film that I'm growing tired of seeing, e.g. his PDA is a Nokia and rather prominently so. FFS, I've paid to see this film, I shouldn't have to see shameless plugs... At least its not quite as bad as that Coke bottle in Hackers, or the myriad placements in "I, Robot"
Overall.. 7 1/2 out of 10.
*
Johnny Storm's powers were doing a switching thing, not absorbing thing, so how did he take the entire teams powers at the end? His at least should have passed to someone.