After witnessing the Saturday morning cartoonish fiasco that was the first Fantastic 4, I wasn’t expecting to be impressed or even entertained by Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. To be honest, I mostly wanted to see it so I could proceed to write a scathing review. Since I’m not a paid critic and I don’t see every God-awful movie under the sun, this would certainly be the perfect opportunity to write a brutal review and tear away at the film like the unsuspecting bimbos locked up in one of Eli Roth’s dungeons. I figured the vault of torments would be endless this time around. But to my surprise (or perhaps shame and dismay) I actually mildly enjoyed this movie. I’m not saying it’s a great movie (it’s a mile from being fantastic), but considering my expectations for it bomb, it was surprisingly entertaining.
I must admit from the start, that out of all the reviews I have written so far, this will probably be the one to offend or appall readers with critical minds or medium to high film standards. Why? Because, ‘Rise of the Silver Surfer’ is technically a bad movie. I’m willing to admit that fact. But for a bad movie, it’s a lot of fun. The film is stuffed with screwball humor, it is ridiculously cheesy, and it bombards its audience with an endless supply of the most absurd dialogue you’re sure to hear in any film this summer. There are times the dialogue came close to putting Batman & Robin to shame. My brain has plenty insults to toss its way, but my heart just doesn’t want to. So lets look at the where the film succeeds.
Its main success is its special effects, which are pretty fantastic. When you have superheroes that can engulf in flames, create force fields and stretch to fantastic lengths, you want to see these abilities in action. The first film got it all wrong by only using the powers for the sake of using them. Sure the effects were impressive, but they were wasted. It was a live action cartoon featuring mutants performing powers in a four-ring circus, with a villain thrown in for the end. If I wanted to see freakish people exhibiting amazing abilities for 2 hours I’d go see Cirque Du Soleil. For the sequel, they seemed to get most of that unnecessary showboating out of the way and kept a more steady focus on the plot. Now we finally get to see Superheroes use their powers the way they are supposed to be used. We also meet the Silver Surfer, who is one of the most interesting CGI creations bound to come along this summer (at least until Transformers comes out) and the type of villain Spider-Man 3 desperately needed. The only problem I can find with the CGI of this film is that it does look ‘cartoony’ at times. Then again, this might not be a problem with the CGI as much as it is with the effects required for these characters. I’m not so sure a think tank composed of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Stanley Kubrick could make a stretchy man look realistic.
The film opens with two of the Fantastic 4 getting married. Reed Richards or Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) is about to tie the knot with Sue Storm or The Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba). Everything seems to be going fine until an I-pod phone thing rings in the stretchy guys pocket, which is apparently very important. He is working on some type of science project, which requires him to have up to the minute progress reports (I guess). Richards is definitely the most irritating part of this movie. Most of his scenes involve him reciting pseudo rocket science jargon and having epiphanies with no meaning or logic behind them. The dialogue used during these scenes is so useless and laughably bad, it makes scripts by the Wachowski Brothers look like Moby Dick. Gruffudd played his character so rigidly serious I couldn’t help but cringe. Jessica Alba wasn’t that much better, but she at least had a few humorous moments. On the other hand, Chris Evans provides a hysterically hammy performance as the egotistical Johnny Storm a.k.a. the Human Torch. To Johnny, saving lives is a lucrative business as he dons his costume with sponsor logos. Michael Chiklis also provides a fun performance as the ogre like creature called The Thing. These two seem to know they’re in a B movie and love every second of it. As the Fantastic 4, they are even more famous than they are in real life and it is fun how these actors play comic hero versions of their on screen personas.
My favorite part of the movie is the Silver Surfer. Not only is he visually interesting as his shiny ghostlike form zips along on his surfboard, but he is sympathetic and crestfallen. He has come to mark Earth as the next planet to be consumed by the god like Galactus. He is a slave who must aid in the destruction of countless worlds in order to save his own. When I finally heard him talk I gasped at the genius of Laurence Fishburne’s extrinsic voice. As bizarre as it sounds, I was actually emotionally invested in this character.
The rest of the film involves the Fantastic 4 facing off against the Silver Surfer, who just might be their hero. There are many amusing action sequences. One involves the giant Ferris wheel in London. There is also an awesome spaceship chase sequence reminiscent of Star Wars. And even though most of the jokes are cheesier than Kraft, a few of them were pretty funny. I don’t think I would recommend that anyone should go out and watch this any time soon, but considering the previous film, I wasn’t disappointed.
B-
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