dragonfire88's Full Review: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Movies based on comic books have been very popular, especially in the last several years. I was entertained by Fantastic Four when it came out in 2005, though it wasn't as good as many of the other comic book movies had been. Even though the first movie wasn't one of my favorites, I decided that I wanted to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer will make more sense to people if they have seen Fantastic Four first. Certain things won’t make sense if people jump right into this movie. Some things that I mention in talking about the new movie could be spoilers for the first movie.
The first movie introduced the characters of Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm, and Victor Von Doom. The five were involved in an accident that gave them all different powers. Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben decided to use their new powers to help people and became the Fantastic Four. Victor chose a different path and fought against the team.
Reed and Sue’s wedding was fast approaching and Sue was having some doubts about if the wedding would happen since they had already postponed it several times. Strange weather conditions were occurring around the world and General Hager wanted Reed’s help to find the cause of what was going on. Reed said he didn’t have the time because of the wedding, but he proceeded to work on the problem without telling Sue. Her fears were realized when things went horribly wrong at the wedding. Johnny took off after a silver man on a surfboard, later named the Silver Surfer, but was unable to catch him.
Johnny was having trouble with his powers after his encounter with the Silver Surfer which impacted his ability to work effectively with the team. Reed discovered that the Silver Surfer had visited several other planets which all died a matter of days later. New plans were developed to try to deal with the Silver Surfer and the team was forced to work with Victor when he turned up claiming he had useful information. The team was able to learn that the Silver Surfer wasn’t killing the planets. He was working for Galactus, a being that survived by consuming all the energy from planets.
I have no idea how much time passed between the end of the first movie and the beginning of this movie. It did seem like the team was more established and accepted in New York City when this movie started. They even had endorsement deals with several companies. I think that was mostly because of Johnny. The others didn’t seem as concerned with those things. The team was very well known and frequently featured in the tabloids. The press was going overboard trying to get as much coverage as they could for Sue and Reed’s wedding. People in New York were very accepting of the team and their abilities, which was a bit different from some other superhero movies that had the characters treated like freaks.
The movie had a decent plot, though I don’t think he was developed enough. Because of that, the movie wasn’t as strong as it could have been. There was a little bit of scientific talk related to what was going on. It was discussed how they could possibly deal with the Silver Surfer, some plans were developed and that was it. It did seem like there was more focus on the action scenes. There were some fights in different scenes that were well done and impressive looking. All the members of the team were involved in most of the action scenes along with the Silver Surfer and even Victor in a few of them. The movie really wasn’t that violent overall even taking the fights into consideration. The movie was rated PG, so it is more family friendly than many other similar movies. The special effects that were used throughout the movie were well done, especially for the Silver Surfer.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer ended up making me laugh several times even though I don’t really consider it to be a comedy. I think most of the things done to add humor worked well. I think most of the humor involved Johnny in some way. Some of the things that made me laugh were a bit silly, but I still thought they worked for the movie. There were a few funny things related to the problems that Johnny was having with his powers. Sue was involved in a few funny scenes as well. It was really funny when she trapped Reed between two force fields she created so they could finish a conversation.
Reed and Sue were engaged when the movie began and they were dealing with wedding issues throughout the movie. Sue was worried about how they could have a normal life and raise a family, and they did have a few conversations about it. Johnny overheard something that did cause some tension in the team. There weren’t any love scenes between Reed and Sue. They were barely affectionate with each other. There was no chemistry between them and it was hard to believe that they were so in love with each other. Ben was in a committed relationship with Alicia. Not much was shared about their relationship, but they seemed more connected than Reed and Sue did. There was one scene that showed Sue become visible in the middle of a crowd while naked for some reason. She was shown wearing a few low-cut tops, though I don’t think she showed off as much skin as she did in the first movie.
There really wasn’t much character development for anyone. Reed, Sue, Johnny, Ben, and Victor had been introduced in the first movie, so they were building on that. Even so, they did seem to be somewhat flat characters. Reed was obsessed with his scientific work and didn’t seem to be giving the wedding much attention. Once again, it seemed like the amount of grey in his hair changed throughout the movie, sometimes within the same scene. Maybe it was just the lighting. It was a small thing, but it did bother me. Ioan Gruffudd was fine as Reed.
Sue basically had nothing to do when the team wasn’t trying to deal with the Silver Surfer. She was just sort of wondering around the building, occasionally talking about the wedding plans or about her concerns for a normal life. It has been a while since I saw the first movie, but I thought that Sue had been some kind of scientist in that movie. In this one, there was no indication that she had any sort of scientific knowledge or understanding. She really did nothing to help develop a plan to deal with the Silver Surfer. She stood back and let Reed figure it all out. I still didn’t really care for Jessica Alba as Sue. I just didn’t think she fit the part and I still believe she was cast for her looks instead of acting ability.
Johnny was still arrogant and cocky, though he didn’t annoy me as much as he did in the first movie. He kept trying to figure out how the team could get more endorsements and make more money. He even talked about auctioning off his sister’s wedding pictures to the highest bidder. There wasn’t anything special about Chris Evans in the part. Ben went from being the most interesting character in the first movie to being shoved into the background for the most part until his strength was needed. There wasn’t any other development or exploration of how he was dealing with being made out of rocks. He did have a relationship with Alicia, but even that wasn’t explored. Michael Chiklis really didn’t have much to do. Kerry Washington was fine in the few scenes she had as Alicia. There really wasn’t anything new added to the character of Victor and it wasn’t surprising when he did something. Julian McMahon did fine with what he had to work with.
Very little was discovered about the Silver Surfer. He eventually did talk and explain his connection to Galactus and what was going on, but even then, not much was shared. Even less was shared about Galactus. Neither of them received enough development. Galactus, the few times he was shown, was depicted as a massive, swirling cosmic cloud thing. It was never said if the cloud thing itself was Galactus or if he just traveled through space in the cloud. From reading the book, Fantastic Four: The Ultimate Guide, I know that Galactus didn’t look anything like that in the comic books. Doug Jones played the Silver Surfer, though his voice was replaced by the voice of Lawrence Fishburne for some reason. The same thing happened with the character Doug Jones played in Hellboy. Andre Braugher handled the part of General Hager well in the scenes he had.
Main Cast
Jessica Alba - Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman Andre Braugher - General Hager Michael Chiklis - Ben Grimm/The Thing Chris Evans - Johnny Storm/The Human Torch Lawrence Fishburne - Voice of the Silver Surfer Ioan Gruffudd - Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic Doug Jones - Silver Surfer Julian McMahon - Victor Von Doom Kerry Washington - Alicia
Tim Story - Director
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer wasn’t the best comic book movie, but it was better than the first movie. It is worth seeing for fans of the Fantastic Four or comic book movies in general.
I would have given this one three and a half stars if I had the option. Since I don't, I'm rounding up to four.
The enigmatic, intergalactic herald, The Silver Surfer, comes to Earth to prepare it for destruction. As the Silver Surfer races around the globe wrea...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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