Delayed Reaction: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

The Pitch: The first movie made enough that we need to have a sequel, even if we don't have any ideas for it.

How I Came Into It: I remember seeing the first movie and thinking that it was the closest to pure "by the numbers" superhero movie making it gets. The cast was right. The characters and conflict were there. It felt like it was there out of requirement more than anything. Part of this is unfair hindsight from a Marvel Cinematic Universe present where it's all big picture as opposed to the "one movie at a time" world when it was made.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) I really do like the Fantastic Four casting for these movies. Chris Evans needed to get this out of his system before becoming Captain America. I'm just not going to protest Jessica Alba no matter how much of a non-character she's given. Michael Chiklis is smart casting. I still don't know where Ioan Gruffudd came from or where he's been since, but I assume it's the same factory that Brandon Routh was developed in. Where Dark Knight was dark, Spider-Man was camp, and X-Men was political, Fantastic Four tried to be the light-hearted franchise. Oh, and I should also mention that supporting actors Kerry Washington, Andre Braugher, and Laurence Fishburne makes for the best TV cast of 2015.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I'm not sure how, but a movie about the world being destroyed didn't feel like it had any stakes. It takes way too long for anything non-wedding to happen, and when something does happen, it's all an afterthought. The Surfer shows up and spends almost no time as the bad guy. I'm pretty sure this is the closest I've ever come to watching a movie where the antagonist was a Macguffin. Seriously, I have no idea what they were fighting or why Johnny Storm had to take everyone's powers. It's very clear why they opted to reboot this.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend