The Life and Times of Skyler Bartels: Episode 37: Fantastic Pictures (or: Photographic Four)

As promised, here are both things I said I'd do yesterday, about fifteen minutes late:

First off, Fantastic Four: The Silver Surfer (he didn't really rise, so to speak) was pretty awesome. The first movie suffered from some... interesting pacing issues as well as a kinda weak script. The lines were cheesy, the acting was kinda bad, and the special effects were only so-so. And Dr. Doom was wasted.

Not so in FF2; First off, the story was just right. It had balance of humor and drama and tied up every loose end it created (unlike two other blockbusters I can think of... Spider Man and Pirates, I'm looking at you guys...). This time, instead of... uh... nothing happening for 90 minutes, the planet is in danger and the FF are there to step up and defend it. Along with Dr. Doom who pretends to be good but, come on, anyone with any comic book knowledge knows better.

Then there's the Silver Surfer. His origin isn't really covered in great detail, but you don't need it. To make him a fully fleshed out character is what ruins movies like this. Davey Jones would have been much better if they'd left him to be just.... Davey Jones. But in Pirates 3 they just tried to hard and, well, that movie sucked. In this movie, though, the "bad guys" (more on Galactus in a second...) are not given the greatest depth; Dr. Doom got his in the first movie, the Surfer is really just a pawn, and Galactus is just a storm cloud (again, more in a bit). This movie needed to be about the Fantastic Four's growth as a team and as individual characters since the first movie decided against this, and this time it worked.

And Galactus; If you're big into comic books, you know Galactus is a giant man in a purple/blue suit with a ridiculous helmet. In this kind of movie, it would only have been made fun of if that is how he appeared. So instead, the writing team for this film decided to make him a storm cloud that kills planets. And it worked. When the thing finally shows up to Earth near the film's climax, you'll be awed.

All in all? Not the best comic book movie made (Spider-Man 2, X2, and Batman Begins are in a constant war for that title), but its the best movie so far out of the summer blockbusters. And that's saying a lot. I give it a 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.
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Now on to the picture show:

This summer I'm doing a little photo project I'm calling... well, I don't know yet. But basically its me taking group photos of myself. Here, have a look at the first batch of them: