Like a Rock

I found myself on a three-plus-hour flight on Sunday afternoon/evening, and to keep the passengers sated, the airline was showing Tim Story's 2007 film The Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. At least that's what I was able to glean from looking at the small screen, overhead and a good 15 feet in front of me. I never bothered with actually putting the headphones on.

I was also able to see that one of the characters possessed the ability to make his arms really long (and, coincidentally enough, possessed a suit with similar stretching capabilities), a capacity he used to place a suitcase in an overhead bin on an airplane. Another character seemed to be made of cooled lava; he walked around calmly on the streets, without ever inspiring any children to shriek and point at him.

Do they really expect grownups to watch this stuff? It's the kind of movie that I always think I'd someday watch if it were on TV and I had absolutely nothing else to do, but here I was with three hours to kill, and I would divert myself with my iPod, three pieces of the Sunday New York Times, a nap that needed to be taken, and God help me, if need be I would have spoken to the person sitting next to me before I would have watched any more of The Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer.