Rewatched a good chunk of Rise of the Silver Surfer recently and there's something kind of admirable about how much comic-y stuff they try to cram in there because it seems fun.

Thats what happens when Marvel legally fucks you in the ass and severely limits what you can or cannot do.

Fox had to get seriously creative back then with their comic book movies because Marvel really got mad at them over the success of spiderman afaik.

Incredible hulk 2, Most of the early Xmen films, Fantastic four, even later spiderman films. Fox writers had to squeeze every last drop out of what they were legally allowed to do. Its why a lot of classic comic characters were completely redesigned (visually only) or completely renamed. Because they legally couldn't use the characters names.

Fox was really riding the creative, family friendly 'campy' high from the success of spiderman and spiderman 2. And even some of the creative storywriting from Xmen and Xmen 2. Was it good? Eh, thats up for debate. But you could tell fox was genuinely firing on all cylinders writing movies back then.