Make Mine Marvel?-Part 2

FANTASTIC FOUR 2: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER-2007-The mostly miscast four (Ioan Grufford as Reed Richards, Jennifer Alba as Sue Richards, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm) returns to save the Earth from the high-flying Silver Surfer (voice of Lawrence Fishburne), herald to the planet devouring Galactus (unseen here). Director Tim Story injects a little more humor this time (and still delivers on the action scenes) but the over all story is not very good.

Andre Baugher is a cardboard army officer who decides it’s better to trust Doctor Doom than the FF. This means the film really takes a downward spiral as Julian McMahon returns to chew the scenery. Kerry Washington is back as Alicia Masters and Stan Lee has a cameo.

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Make Mine Marvel?

FANTASTIC FOUR-2005-The future super team (plus Victor Von Doom who is engaged to Sue Storm) goes into space and gets bombarded by cosmic rays. They begin to exhibit strange powers. Wow! This is kind of similar to a comic book Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created in the early ‘60’s!

Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd; Lancelot in KING ARTHUR) gets insulted a lot for being a detached egghead. Human Torch Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) is a wise-ass moron who makes you wish he'd really go up in flames. (well at least there's no Herbie the robot) Sue Storm (miscast Jennifer Alba) mostly walks around naked (but she’s invisible of course). The future Doctor Doom (Julian McMahon) likes to whisper and chew the scenery. In this version he doesn’t wear a suit of armor. He becomes one instead! Only Michael Chiklis’ Ben Grimm (aka The Ever Lovin’ Blue Eyed Thing) captures any spirit of the original comic. He needed funnier lines though. The action scenes and SFX are well done though except maybe for Mr. Fantastic’s stretching power. Director Tim Story had previously made BARBERSHOP and TAXI.

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Protect Us From Crap!

GUARDIAN-(2000)-This one is really bad!

It starts during the Gulf War and has to do with a demon and a child "chosen by God" to stop him. Pink cocaine like power (called "Chaos") makes everyone who snorts it go crazy. Mario Van Peebles and James Remar are cops trying to figure it all out. If they can't how can the audience?? Rapper Ice-T shoots a woman in the head and gets beat up.

Director John Terlesky helmed other "classics" like CHOPPING MALL, CRAZY PEOPLE and VAMPIRELLA. 

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American Idle

IDLE HANDS-1999-A stupid teenager's hand (Devon Sawa) becomes possessed and kills people against his will. He kills his parents (Fred Williard and Connie Ray) and then his 2 best friends (but they come back to life and try and help him). A young Jennifer Alba is his next door neighbor. After many crazy battles with his own hand, he chops it off and it goes on it's own and kills people at a costume party. A woman (Vivica A. Fox) has a knife that can kill it. There's a lot of imaginative scenes and some gore but I would have liked it better if the leads in this horror comedy hadn't been pot smoking slacker idiots.

The director Rodman Flender also made LEPRECHAUN 2 and lots of TV episodes. According to IMDB he was once head of Roger Corman's Concorde Pictures.

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Do You Really Care About The Storyline?

BIKINI GIRLS FROM THE LOST PLANET-2006-This is just soft core sexual hi jinx with science fiction trappings from Fred Olen Ray (under the pseudonym Nicolas Medina). There are several lesbian scenes and the acting is pretty funny. Ted Newsom who directed EDWARD WOOD: LOOK BACK IN ANGORA is in it. Also with Nicole Sheridan, Christine Nguyen and Rebecca Love.

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More J Stuff

PRAY-2005-More J-horror this time set in an abandoned school where a guy and girl have kidnapped a little girl for ransom. They soon learn from the parents that the little girl has been dead for a year. Weird things start to happen involving the girl, violent death and betrayal. This film isn't that great but the ending is poignant and unexpected.

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Too Strange..

VITAL-2004-A man named Takagi (Tadanobu Asano) survives a car accident that kills his girlfriend. He gets amnesia but later joins a medical school dissection group. Somehow he winds up dissecting his girlfriend. A weird J-horror film that I didn't particularly care for. Director Shinya Tsukamoto also made TETSUO 1 & 2, SNAKE OF JULY and TOKYO FIST. Star Asano was also in ICHI THE KILLER and Beat Takeshi's ZATOICHI.

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