Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is surprisingly entertaining; a vast improvement upon its predecessor. As a longtime fan of THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMICS MAGAZINE starting in the mid-70's (it was the only comic book I bought regularly from around 1974 to around 2004), I was disappointed by how much the first movie got wrong, but with this movie I was elated by how much it got right... they even threw in a nice action scene set in London to win me over!

I forgive the apparant change of Galactus from a tall man in a purple suit to a big cloud -- whatever it takes to make my superhero movies seem a little more believable. Doctor Doom is still not himself, though he moved a little further from the first movie's bad businessman back to his original Latvarian roots.

It's far from being a great movie, but it gets the job done. The Jerry of 30 years ago would have absolutely loved it. It doesn't have the artistic pretensions of most other modern superhero movies, nor does it go overboard with way too many drawn out special effects stunts like the recent Spidey and Pirates movies.

So this second installment in the Fantastic Four series follows the pattern of other recent Marvel Comics adaptations. Spider-Man 2 was better than Spider-Man, X-Men 2 was better than X-Men, and next year's Incredible Hulk (starring Edward Norton!) can only be better than the worthless Hulk movie from a few years ago.

This past weekend's box office numbers make it all but certain there will be a third Fantastic Four movie. Maybe they'll finally get Doctor Doom right, but again I will go with lowered expectations... after all, the third installments of Spider-Man and X-Men were not as good as their second chapters.

With apologies to DC Comics (home of Batman and Superman), when it comes to movie adaptations: Make Mine Marvel!