Post by slapshot63 on Jun 18, 2007 11:43:40 GMT -5
I saw the original Fantastic Four for the first time back when it premiered on HBO in late 2006. I wasn’t particularly impressed by it, but it was a fun movie. It certainly wasn’t in the same leagues as Spider-Man 2, Batman Begins or Superman, but it was an entertaining time waster. Fast forward to 2007 and we now have Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer. It still isn’t anywhere near the aforementioned films, but it’s a vast improvement over the laughably dim-witted original, though it still lacks any major high-stakes excitement or surprises. In fact, it's still not very good at all. But at least it's not aggressively stupid!
The original didn’t have much action, and since it’s a superhero movie, that wasn’t really a good thing. Unfortunately, the same thing is the case here. All the “action sequences” are essentially the same. Stuff falls, the “Four” work together, something bad happens that looks like they’ll fail, Johnny spits out a one liner, they struggle some more and then eventually right the situation. Sorry, yawn. Into this mildly interesting realm of vague tension comes something slightly more dire: THE WORLD IS GOING TO BE DESTROYED! But don't worry, not yet. In a few days.
There are some actual laughs in Rise of the Silver Surfer, mostly situational, as the superheroes deal with using their powers in an ordinary world. The Spider-Man films, in particular, have shown how to mix the comic and dramatic in a superhero story, and it goes a long way toward making your audience feel connected to your characters. So now that the humor angle is covered, what this franchise needs is to figure out how to raise the stakes and be deeply serious when deep seriousness is called for. Despite the fate of the world being threatened, nothing in the film ever feels tense or important. There are no epic battles, no real life-or-death scenarios.
What really curdles the film is the return of Doctor Doom, played once again with supreme mediocrity by McMahon. Through the actor's interpretation, Doom is a sleepy scoundrel; a villain more interested in his close-up than the hurt he wants to lay on the Four. It's a terrible performance from a terrible actor in a needless role from a needless movie. Who needs Galactus when you've got Julian McMahon trying to express menace? Any planet would willingly die to be spared another scene of his dreadful pea-shooter intimidation.
The Surfer himself is really the best thing about the movie. A liquid metal being with sweeping moves on his board of energy, the Surfer is an impressive looking creation, and succeeds as a convincing mystery for our superheroes to solve. However, once Mr. Surfer opens his mouth, the script can't exactly back up the visuals. Sold as a hopeless romantic who's locked in slavery by a dangerous whirly cloud-like thing called Galactus, the Surfer's character arc doesn't quite hold the weight the effects promise. Surfing down the face of a building or opening bottomless holes in the Earth? Yes! Lamenting the loss of his loved one and trading therapy sessions with Sue? No!
The effects themselves are underwhelming to say the least. Scratch that, they look downright bad. The Silver Surfer and Galactus (more on him/it in a second) are really the only things in the movie that look remotely convincing. The Fantastic Four’s powers look laughable because they look so blatantly fake. There has been much fuss over Galactus’ look, and yes, it’s true, he is a cloud in the movie. Well, that’s all we see of him anyways. What we see of Galactus is a ferocious, swirling maelstrom of gas and debris that is so vast that it casts a shadow (a suspiciously horned shadow, actually...) over the face of Saturn. That's Saturn the GIGANTIC PLANET, folks. When we actually go into the cloud near the end of the movie, you can all but see the actual Galactus that we all know. There is an obvious outline of his iconic head and there is definitely something mechanical inside that cloud. Yes, you COULD show a 200-foot-tall man with purple antlers floating over Manhattan...but in perfect, human detail, it wouldn't look iconic. It would look hokey, and stupid. It would be very difficult to make that work. I know most of the fanboys are complaining, but I guarantee that if they gave us purple suited Galactus, 99.9 percent of the fans would be complaining, "Galactus looks so fake!!!!!" Of course he does. He's a ridiculous-looking character, away from the comic page. Regardless of your stance on the matter, Galactus looked fucking awesome in the movie! The cloud was huge and I really enjoyed it, even IF is isn’t the classic look of Galactus. The cloud formation worked in the movie, and I guess that’s all that matters,
Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer still isn’t really a good movie. It has lots of problems and Tim Story is a pretty bad director (let’s get someone else in for FF3), but it was entertaining. This was the kind of movie that, despite its problems, left me with a smile on my face. I was able to look past the blemishes this movie had and enjoy it for what it was. So while this series still has a long way to go, its good to see that it’s improving.
Links:
IMDB Page
