Norrin Radd-ically underwelming

It isn’t the product placement that bothered me, it is the fact that they choose the Dodge Ram over the “Fantastic Ford.” Of course, the point of product placement is so I can go out and get the stuff, right? So, I want to buy a flying car ASAP.

For the second superhero movie in a row- they insisted on a dance sequence. God lord, why has it come to this? Spiderman was at least evil when he did his – what is Reed’s excuse?

There were some things about this movie didn’t make me want to vomit. I liked the fact that we never actually saw Galactus. I liked the fact that Doctor Doom was smarter than Reed Richards – he always was. I liked the idea of the Board as the source of the power, kind of like Mjolnir, Thor's Hammer. I liked the fact that the Surfer turned black when he lost his power – I wonder what Lawrence thought about that, eh?

That said, this movie was bad. Very bad. The first hour was completely unnecessary except to provide the back story for the true message which was probably lost on most people.

“The sacrifices you make for love are nothing if they make you abandon your principles and prevent you from doing that which is right.”

On a micro-level, Sue is mad at Reed for screwing up their wedding (again) and wants to leave this life behind to raise a family. On a macro-level, Sue sees that Norrin Radd made an actual sacrifice – never to see his planet again. Through living his servitude, Sue comes to realize that it is selfish to deny the world her powers for her own family desires – knowing that she can still have a family, just not the white picket fence kind. With Great Power...Don't they have any other morals in the Marvel Universe?

Ironically, at the same time, Norrin comes to realize that his sacrifice for love was very selfish, and that the principle of standing up to the blight should trump it, regardless of the cost to you personally.

And that is when the movie lost me, because if the Silver Surfer was able to kill Galactus before, why didn’t he? It took Sue Richards whining about choices to make him realize that the deaths of billions, if not trillions of lives was ok? Right.

How the Silver Surfer was able to destroy Galactus from within is not explained. The Silver Surfer was the servant of Galactus – it would be kind of like the photocopy guy at Enron taking the elevator up to the top floor and saying “Stop- all evil must be arrested or I shall take you down with my list of numbered copying accounts.”

Galactus, as a villain, was designed to be a force of nature. Like a sentient storm that destroys all in his path to survive. Reed Richards never realized this until he was given the option to make the EXACT OPPOSITE choice Norrin Radd made by fighting against Galactus to prevent him from winning the very first Secret War. Doctor Doom and Galactus figured out the cosmic chess game in about one second. It took Reed Richards seven issues. Some genius… And of course, he makes the selfish choice and fights against Galactus so that he can see Sue again. Imbecile.

For me- this movie has re-inspired a lot of the great ideas for Galactus/Surfer that never quite made it into comic books. For one- In the books, never truly see Galactus’ revenge on Zenn-la – we know that he went back and ate it and that only Mephisto (the devil) saved any part of it (stealing Shalla-Bal’s soul to torment the surfer). That is a book that needs to be done right now. "The Surfer has sacrificed you for strangers- prepare to reap his reward." Nice.

My other pet project is a Superman/FF cross-over where Kal-el learns that he isn’t actually the last son of Krypton, but the lost herald of Galactus, with General Zod et al being the greedy criminals who drew Galactus to Krypton in the first place. Of course, some idiot has already fucked up the idea.

Luckily, it isn't so bad that I can't rewrite it for them in a sequel to their bad movie. Kind of Like FF2.