Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
Cast: Ioan Gruffadd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Laurence Fishburne (voice)
Director: Tim Story
Writer: Don Payne, Mark Frost
Producer: Stan Lee, Mark Radcliffe
Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Mins approx.
Age Rating: PG
Plot - The Fantastic Four are
up against some new enemies;
the powerful Silver Surfer and
the planet-eating Galactus.
Review: By Ross Miller
After what I consider to be a total mess of a film, that is the first Fantastic Four, I was extremely sceptical about this sequel ever since it was announced. But hearing that the Silver Surfer was going to be the villain my expectations and anticipation in the movie started to grow. But as was expected the second film in the now franchise, although not as bad as the first, still holds plenty of merit in the crap side of film.
There was a few things that hold this film back from being totally horrible and unwatchable, a few things that at least kept my interest and kept me entertained throughout. First of all the most apparent thing is the
film is quite short, at just over ninety minutes at least
the film doesn’t pull a Spider-Man 3 and drag the film
out for all it’s worth. At least the film’s massive
weaknesses and annoyances don’t have to be endured
for all that long. The second thing is the main reason
at least I even gave this film a chance for was the
villain of the Silver Surfer. The animation to bring the
comic-book villain to life was done very well, a
couple of times my jaw hit the floor which is always a
necessity in a big budget flick such as this. The voice
acting of Laurence Fishburne, although he doesn’t speak all that much, I thought suited the Surfer very well and most importantly it didn’t become annoying or distracting. Director Tim Story and the Spectral Motion Inc. did a pretty stunning job bringing the actual Fantastic Four characters back, even if some of the effects involving them seemed a bit on the cheesy side, and the introducing of the Silver Surfer himself.
In my opinion the storyline for this film was an improvement from the first film, even if that feat isn’t that hard to accomplish, as it was both more exciting and interesting. But where this story makes up in excitement it is worse in plausibility and for you being able to take it even remotely seriously. And although I know you have to take a superhero film, and anything that it involves, just as it is and accept it, there has to be some sort of plausibility to any story. As anyone who knows the characters before the film should know, the villain of the Silver Surfer does not work alone. He is the ‘herald’ to the mighty Galactus, an enormous human looking being that travels the universe eating planets. For those aforementioned people who know this character and the storyline from the comics, they might be able to accept it. But for the average movie-goer that will and rightfully should be seen as one of the most stupid things to show on a film. It doesn’t even begin to enter the realm of plausibility and if it had been shown in its full glory then it would have been nothing less than just plain stupid. But they opted to hide the gigantic being, and I am left confused as to what (within the context of the film, of course) it actually was. But like I said Galactus is not the main villain in this film, it is the Silver Surfer and rightfully we deal with him a lot more. But without giving too much away here, the problem I had was that there wasn’t much actual battle with the Surfer as I’d expected and hoped. We do get to see a few set pieces involving him, one in particular was really wicked, but for the most part he is more talk than action. Usually I am a bigger fan of well written dialogue but when it’s a superhero action film I expect to see a lot more action than
this film has. But of course it had to be that way
because of the PG rating; it had to be softened
for the inevitable younger audience. The actual
Fantastic Four character's themselves are basically
just more of the same. No really, all of the powers
and the way they showcase them are just the
same as the first one, although obviously used in
different situations.
As with most superhero films there is some gaping
plot holes that were just too distracting for me not to at least mention. Again I am not going to go into any of them for spoiler reasons, but you will see what I mean if you decide to go and see the film. There was just moments where I thought, “Oh come on, that just wouldn’t happen.” This also happens with some of the dialogue, some of it is so cheesy that you literally want to hide behind the seat in front of you, and shake your head in disbelief that they actually just said that.
Overview
Who’d have thought that the Fantastic Four sequel would be better than both the Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean sequels? But that’s exactly what happened; in all honesty out of those films I mentioned I have to say this comes out on top, just for the popcorn entertainment factor. The film is far from good but it is enjoyable enough that you don’t want to walk out.
