Superheroes and Gardeners

The Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer - 2.5/5

The danger of raised expectations, eh? The first Fantastic Four movie got dreadful write-ups, but, whilst being a pretty bad movie, was surprisingly fun. This time round they've got better reviews, so despite being probably a marginally better film, it actually comes as a bit of a disappointment. It should be applauded though because whilst the trend for superhero flicks at the moment seems to be darker and longer, they've gone lighter and shorter - I mean jus how serious can you get about a bunch of people in skin-tight lycra (Makers of the next Superman movie take note).

Silliness aside, the main problem with the Fantastic Four is that the leading two members (Ioan Gruffudd's Mr Fantastic and Jessica Alba's Invisible Woman) might be nice to look at, but as characters they're as dull as dishwater. We simply don't care enough about the angst of these privileged elite members having to postpone their wedding in order to save the world again. Gruffudd (seen most recently as Wilberforce in Amazing Grace) is also saddled with some of the dodgiest CGI effects seen in a long time. He does at least have one decent moment - a great comeback to Andre Braugher's stereotypically macho general. Braugher himself (as fans of TVs best ever cop show, Homicide, will know - a very fine actor) does well enough with the limited part, but deserves bigger and better than this.

The film also lacks a realy decent villain - the planet swallowing dust-cloud threat lacks any form of personality, whilst Julian McMahon, returning as the defrosted Dr Doom is both utterly un-threatening and utterly predictable. Hence the final showdowns lack any real sense of pazzazz.

We should be thankful, therefore, for the criminally underused Michael Chiklis as the Thing and Chris Evans as the Human Torch. They add most of the humour and fun to the film, so much so that when the prospect of Mr and Mrs Fantastic going into retirement and the leaving a Fantastic Duo arises, most of the audience probably wouldn't be too heart-broken. Evans once again proves that he has real star quality and comes very close to making this his movie.

What stands in his way is the Silver Surfer himself - herald of the planet munching monster. Motion-capture performance by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne. He has the most complex character arc by a long way and also the coolest effects. As the final shot suggests, expect him to have his own movie before too long.

Grow Your Own - 2/5

This years British comedy which is still attempting to follow in the footsteps of The Full Monty and tackle social issues whilst being funny. In this case the attempt is to address immigration through the medium of allotments. Which is not as daft as it might seem – its inspired by a real project in Liverpool that helped asylum seekers deal with their traumatic experiences by giving them allotments. A decent drama telling the true story of this project would doubtless have made a much better film as this one manages neither to be funny nor to really get to grips with the issues.

Its not without its moments and it certainly has heart. Benedict Wong (seen most recently in Sunshine) gives an amazing, almost mute performance as a deeply traumatised Chinese immigrant. What is lacking from the film and its British protagonists is a sense of backbone. This is a gentle, mild, inoffensive film whose British characters never seem to get much beyond mild concern. The problem is that some of the injustices it chooses to tackle are very offensive. The film finishes with an attitude which is almost like “It’s a bit of a shame that the nice Iranian doctor got deported and the Chinese man had his plot ripped up by the mobile phone company, but never mind ‘cos the African lad won the prize for the best plot, so its all right in the end.” Except it isn’t – huge injustices are done here and you want to see somebody actually get up and do something about it, not just moan over a cup of tea.

Its also rather curious, at a time when allotments are becoming trendy for environmental reasons, etc…, that the portrayal of the allotment community is so hopelessly old-fashioned. The less said about the cringe-worthily scripted romance with all its blossoming double entendres the better.

All in all, could and should, have done much better.