Fantastic 4 Trailer – 2005
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer – 2007
Director: Tim Story
Run Time: Fantastic 4: 106 Minutes, Rise of the Silver Surfer: 92 Minutes
Rated PG-13
Cast:
Ioan Gruffudd: Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards
Chris Evans: Johnny Storm/The Human Torch
Jessica Alba: Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman
Michael Chiklis: Ben Grimm/The Thing
Julian McMahon: Victor Von Doom/Dr. Doom
Kerry Washington: Alicia Masters
Andre Brauer: General Hager
Doug Jones: The Silver Surfer
Laurence Fishburne: The Silver Surfer(voice)
During the first decade of the new century, we saw a lot of movies based on comic books by Marvel and DC Comics. One of the first movies that really kick-started a new craze for comic book movies was X-Men. It proved again, that when you have film-makers that actually care about a film franchise, they can create something amazing. Spider-Man would show up two years later and take the world by storm. So, we’ve got a few successful films that showed that comic book movies can be a viable genre in film. Unfortunately, we’ve also seen some not-so-good films like Daredevil and Ghost Rider. One of the franchises that Marvel wanted on the big screen was another of its flagship superhero stories: The Fantastic 4. Featuring a unique cast of characters like the super-intelligent Reed Richards, the beautiful Sue Storm, the hot-headed Johnny Storm, and tough guy Ben Grimm, it was essentially a family of superheroes. The Fantastic 4 comics also gave us one of the most unique and iconic villains ever: Dr. Doom. Doom has inspired many villains including Darth Vader. I figured since Fox is releasing a brand new film based on the Fantastic 4, I would re-visit Fox’s previous attempts. I’m going to be reviewing both of them together, so this may be a little long-winded.
The first film opens as Reed Richards and Ben Grimm visit Victor Von Doom to get financed for their mission to space. Why? They’ve discovered that a cloud of something-something may have evolved life on earth, and another cloud of the same something-something is on its way. So, they make their way on to one of Doom’s space stations with Sue and Johnny Storm in tow. Instead of having 7 hours before the cloud arrives, Reed discovers that they only have minutes, so he tries to warn Doom to close the shutters so they can be protected. Doesn’t work and the cloud slams into the station hitting each member with a massive dose of interstellar radiation. They wake up on Earth to find that they have developed unique powers. Reed Richards can stretch like rubber, Sue can be invisible and generate force fields. Johnny can generate and control fire. Ben Grimm gets the worst of it physically as he’s transformed into a gigantic….Thing with superhuman strength. Doom himself ends up getting his body reinforced with super strong metal and can absorb electrical power. Reed Richards tries to find a way to make them all normal again when Doom goes insane. Story-wise, this is an origin story, and it’s not actually half-bad. We get introduced to interesting characters with unique personalities. One of the things that drives this movie are the relationships between the characters. The situations can be pretty amusing. But that’s also the problem: Somebody somewhere decided that it would be a good idea to make the Fantastic 4 into a sit-com of sorts. Yeah, the family dynamics generate some laughs, but the whole movie seems centered around that instead of dealing with the real threat: Doom. The fact is is that we really don’t get a whole lot of background into these characters and where come from, especially Dr. Doom.
The acting is okay for the most part, and everybody seems to well-cast. Ioan Gruffudd is well-cast as the awkward yet, intelligent Reed Richards. Michael Chiklis is fantastic(ha,ha!)as Ben. Chris Evans almost steals the show. Given that Evans would later become Captain America, it’s awesome to see him play The Human Torch. The only exception here is Julian McMahon as Doom. I just don’t buy Julian as the villain. He comes across as a mustache-twirling dingbat. The character doesn’t even get the iconic suit until towards the end of the movie, and even then it’s just the mask and the hood, not the armor. Some of the action in the movie, while spectacular, seems strangely accidental. There’s a scene on a bridge where we see Ben Grimm trying to keep a guy from committing suicide, and ends up causing a MASSIVE traffic accident. It’s fun to watch, but it really seems put in there just to showcase what these guys can do. After the whole ordeal, everybody’s cheering the four “superheroes.” It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Then we start seeing Doom start to lose it when he discovers that his board of directors have turned their backs on him and he feels betrayed by Richards. It isn’t until the last 20 minutes of the film that it starts to feel like a superhero movie. You finally have the four go up against Doom in a fairly awesome spectacle. Tim Story isn’t an action director and it shows, even though he does his best.
Rise of the Silver Surfer doesn’t fare much better. After Doom has been defeated, Reed and Sue are gearing up to get married when they get a visit from General Hager, who’s team discovered an unusual object that may have been the catalyst for some of the strange weather patterns that have circled the globe. They discover that this being is an alien who is silver and rides a surfboard earning him the name, Silver Surfer. It turns out that when this guy shows, eight days later, the planet dies. Why? Because of who the Surfer serves: Galactus. The Sufer was introduced in a Fantastic 4comic series, so it makes sense that he would show in a F4 movie. Here’s the problem: Everything here is strung together by a weak string of coincidences. Even Doom himself comes back because of the energy that the Surfer emits. Silver Surfer is a little better than the previous movie in that it doesn’t waste time introducing the main characters. We know who they are, so we can expect some shenanigans. The whole sit-com aspect of the film seems to have been scaled back, and it works. While the first movie felt more like a sit-com, Silver Surfer feels more like a proper superhero movie. Oh, make no mistake, it’s still got some pretty silly stuff, such as when Johnny encounters the Surfer and his molecules are screwed up in such a way that he can switch powers with the others. This does make for some amusing situations.
The casting still works, but they still brought Julian McMahon in as Dr. Doom. I don’t get it, he’s not threatening enough, and last I checked Doom wasn’t able to manipulate electricity like Electro. He’s still the mustache-twirling dingbat that he was the first time around, and they still have him unmasked. WHY?! Part of why Doom was such an iconic character was because of his outfit. It was very intimidating and very practical. There’s a lot more action this time around, and it seems to have improved. Bigger explosions, decent visual effects, and the Surfer himself is spectacular. They got him right. Laurence Fishburne lends his voice to the character giving him a more powerful presence. He actually gets a pretty decent amount of screen time. There’s a problem, though: When you introduce the Silver Surfer, you’ve got to bring in the other guy: Galactus. When I first heard that they were making Rise of the Silver Surfer, I was excited to see if they did Galactus properly. They didn’t. They done f**ked it up. Instead of the enormous humanoid creature from the beginning of time, we get a giant…..cloud. Yep, a giant cloud of mass destruction. That has to be one of the most embarrassing decisions by a film studio. It pissed everyone off, myself included. I don’t consider myself a reader of those particular comics, but I do know that Galactus was NOT a cloud. Also, there’s the subplot of Dr. Doom trying to take control of the Surfer’s board, granting him ultimate power. You would think that with the end of the world merely hours away that he would use that power to help end the threat. Nope. Dr. Doom is selfish and completely single-minded.
So, yeah, these movies definitely have issues, but you know what, they’re not horrible movies. What Silver Surfer did with Galactus is pretty unforgivable, but I still had fun with it. I think Tim Story’s heart was in the right place, but he just wasn’t the right guy to do these movies. You need a director that has experience doing action, and Tim Story doesn’t have that experience. The writing is pretty awful too, despite some pretty funny scenes. While I definitely think these movies are disappointing, I had a much better time with the Fantastic 4 movies than I did with Avengers: Age of Ultron. Yes, you read that right. They didn’t really overstay their welcome. Age of Ultron did. That was a movie that ran out of steam half-way through. I’m not prepared to call these movie good, but they aren’t that bad either. The first film gets a 7/10, and Silver Surfer gets a 7.5/10. Unfortunately, the movies didn’t do well enough to justify a stand-alone Silver Surfer film. That project is currently in development hell, and with the reboot of Fantastic 4 on the way, Silver Surfer’s future remains in doubt.