Review: Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer
Let me say first that I've never watched the first Fantastic 4
Let me say first that I've never watched the first Fantastic 4 and I've never quite liked the Fantastic 4 either (hence I'm not really familiar with F4 lore). Not even with Jessica Alba as the Invisible Women.
I am however a great fan of the über powerful Silver Surfer and his master,Galactus. And so it is with great hopes and expectations that I caught Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
What's good: Good use of the F4's skills, plot does not try to be complicated
What's bad: Silver Surfer and Galactus, incredibly predictable plot
Rise of the Silver Surfer is like Aliens vs. Predator, it has the license to some incredibly cool characters, and it messes it up by having a mediocre story and less than accurate portrayal of key characters.
The team is back and they face their most fearsome adversary yet.
In Rise of the Silver Surfer, the F4 do battle with their most formidable foe yet, the intergalactic traveling Silver Surfer. The Surfer is in fact a herald of Galactus, an entity that needs to consume entire worlds to survive, and his appearance on Earth is therefore an unwelcome sign. The army thus enlists the F4's help, but even the powers of the F4 are not enough.
This is where Dr Doom comes in. To add some spice to the plot, the army decides to enlist his help as well and so the F4 are forced to cooperate with their arch-enemy. Now, if you are familiar enough with Marvel fare, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what will happen next.
And that is the problem of this show. It is incredibly predictable and hence boring. But that is alright because predictable shows can be still entertaining ones and Rise of the Silver Surfer is still pretty entertaining because the skills of the F4 team are utilized quite adequately in the movie. You'll see Mr Fantastic making good use of his ability to stretch himself like rubber man; the Invisible Woman turning invisible to help the team get out of sticky situations; the Human Torch's flying ability is useful for chasing down the Surfer and as the resident muscle man, the Thing gets his chance to put his immense strength into good use as well.
What's bad about this movie is its portrayal of Silver Surfer and Galactus.
Another great comic character messed up by movie producers.
Silver Surfer is nerfed in the movie. BIG TIME! In the movie, I'm sorry but there are some spoilers here, his powers come from his board...... Since when?!?! The Power Cosmic was gifted to him, not his board. Bloody ridiculous! A quick check on Marvel Database indicates that his powers far exceed any Marvel character and borders closely on being god-like........
I am however a great fan of the über powerful Silver Surfer and his master,Galactus. And so it is with great hopes and expectations that I caught Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
What's good: Good use of the F4's skills, plot does not try to be complicated
What's bad: Silver Surfer and Galactus, incredibly predictable plot
Rise of the Silver Surfer is like Aliens vs. Predator, it has the license to some incredibly cool characters, and it messes it up by having a mediocre story and less than accurate portrayal of key characters.
REVIEW: Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer
WARNING: This review contains plot spoilers about an infuriatingly shitty movie.
Our story, this time around: The oft-delayed wedding of Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards and Sue "Invisible Woman" Storm is interupted by an alien invasion. The invader in question is Silver Surfer (name kinda says it all, and the characters all roll their eyes and groan when it first comes up so you know - as if there were any doubt at this point - exactly what the filmmakers think of the material) a being of tremendous energy who's visits to a planet invariably means it will be destroyed and consumed within eight days by Galactus, a giant sentient storm could from space. The Four are tasked to help stop the threat by a standard-issue big-meanie Army General (Andre "what he HELL am I doing in this?" Braugher) who's also accepted personal help from a surprising source: Doctor Doom.
Oh, yeah... um, Doctor Doom is back. Turned into a block of melted steel at the end of the first film, (don't remember? lucky you) for some reason he was crated up and shipped back to his decrepit-looking ancestral manor in Latveria, where a casual fly-by Silver Surfer for some reason wakes him up. Somehow, despite having been a block of melted steel for a year, he has a henchman hanging around to help him get up on his feet. Where'd he get the henchman? Why does Surfer awaken him? Why send the melted-steel remains of a dangerous criminal back to said criminal's abandoned house? Who knows, the movie doesn't have time to explain. What it DOES have time to do is engineer a scenario by which getting zapped by Surfer turns Doctor Doom back into a normal-looking human. That's right, fans: you're hope of a more "traditional" Doom this time around were all for naught: It's just Julian McMahon hamming it up in a black suit again, only donning his "Doom Armor" look for the final action scene. Hey, why should they start getting it right now?
Some other things it has time for: A second act dominated by the sub-sitcom antics of the Four hanging around the house. An irritatingly sexist subplot about Sue being depressed over how superheroing is interfering with her wedding planning (seriously, what the hell? In the next movie will they have her cheesed off at The Mole Man for causing her to burn a meatloaf? Giving the Inhumans a peice of her mind for trampling her daffodils?) A nauseating product-placement joke for "Dodge." A pathetic attempt at political subtext where the big-meanie Army Guys are slobbering at the chance to put Silver Surfer through some Abu-Ghraib-style interrogation (ooooh, edgy! Sure you guys don't wanna throw some Paris Hilton jokes in there too, since you're so clever and trendy?) And Tim Story's unquestionable peice-de-resistance of bastardization: Mr. Fantastic tearin' up the floor in a rubber-limbeddance sequence. Jazz Club Scene from "Spider-Man 3..." you are forgiven. You are sooooooooo friggin' forgiven.
SECONDARY WARNING: Yes, I said shitty. This is a negative review. However, I saw it at a public midnight showing and have the ticket stub to prove it, so sorry 20th Century Fox - you're PROBABLY not gonna be able to track me down and get me fired from my job, which is apparently what you do to people who give you're shitty movies the shitty reviews they deserve. Lemme add my voice to Mr. McWeeney's... http://www.aintitcool.com/?q=node/32968 ...and agree wholeheartedly that you can go fuck yourselves.There, that's out of the way. Hey, if you're a fan, that's a BIG reason you're reading an early blog review, no? We were all hoping, we all read the rumors, we all continued hoping. They couldn't REALLY do it, could they? Granted, we'd already borne witness to director Tim Story and company making a shambling mockery of Doctor Doom, one of comics' greatest antagonists, in the last movie, but even they wouldn't do this. Even men guilty of "Taxi" could not be filled with such a black-hole in place of a soul it would take to put to film one of the all-time defining story arcs from the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby age and with it one of the most landmark-important "big idea" concept-characters EVER... and then completely drain it of all that made it great.
Oh, and the title character? He's a wooden bore. It's a nifty-enough effect, and the image of a silver humanoid alien flying around on a surfboard retains the pop-art coolness that Jack Kirby imbued it with initially, but as a character? He's a wash, right down to the one-note Lawrence Fishburne voicover. And they want to build a whole MOVIE off of hi This could easily end up being the worst film of the entire summer, a dissapointment even when compared to the original and the lowered expectations it invites. It looks dull, plays safe, and is afraid to offer anything remotely cool or unique. If there's a mistake that can be made, it makes it: It spends an entire movie building up the arrival of a "big bad" that turns out to be a giant dust cloud. Given a bad guy who can either be A.) an armored fiend in a flowing cloak or B.) a douchebag in a suit, it goes with B for 90% of the film. It hands most of the screentime to bad "comedy" skits. It hands two HUGE dramatic scenes entirely to Jessica Alba, who I doubt could believably emote if you executed a loved one in front of her and said "try to look like some form of unhappy
But that's exactly what they've done. "Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer" takes one of the most iconic elements - not only of the Fantastic Four, but of the entire Marvel Comics canon - and reduces it to the dullest, most-dissapointing, most generic, most anti-climactic form it could possibly take. Congratulations, Mr. Story and friends: You have given Movie Geeks a reference-of-loathing worthy of replacing "nipples on the batsuit." Be proud.
SECONDARY WARNING: Yes, I said shitty. This is a negative review. However, I saw it at a public midnight showing and have the ticket stub to prove it, so sorry 20th Century Fox - you're PROBABLY not gonna be able to track me down and get me fired from my job, which is apparently what you do to people who give you're shitty movies the shitty reviews they deserve. Lemme add my voice to Mr. McWeeney's... http://www.aintitcool.com/?q=node/32968 ...and agree wholeheartedly that you can go fuck yourselves.There, that's out of the way. Hey, if you're a fan, that's a BIG reason you're reading an early blog review, no? We were all hoping, we all read the rumors, we all continued hoping. They couldn't REALLY do it, could they? Granted, we'd already borne witness to director Tim Story and company making a shambling mockery of Doctor Doom, one of comics' greatest antagonists, in the last movie, but even they wouldn't do this. Even men guilty of "Taxi" could not be filled with such a black-hole in place of a soul it would take to put to film one of the all-time defining story arcs from the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby age and with it one of the most landmark-important "big idea" concept-characters EVER... and then completely drain it of all that made it great.
Oh, and the title character? He's a wooden bore. It's a nifty-enough effect, and the image of a silver humanoid alien flying around on a surfboard retains the pop-art coolness that Jack Kirby imbued it with initially, but as a character? He's a wash, right down to the one-note Lawrence Fishburne voicover. And they want to build a whole MOVIE off of hi This could easily end up being the worst film of the entire summer, a dissapointment even when compared to the original and the lowered expectations it invites. It looks dull, plays safe, and is afraid to offer anything remotely cool or unique. If there's a mistake that can be made, it makes it: It spends an entire movie building up the arrival of a "big bad" that turns out to be a giant dust cloud. Given a bad guy who can either be A.) an armored fiend in a flowing cloak or B.) a douchebag in a suit, it goes with B for 90% of the film. It hands most of the screentime to bad "comedy" skits. It hands two HUGE dramatic scenes entirely to Jessica Alba, who I doubt could believably emote if you executed a loved one in front of her and said "try to look like some form of unhappy
But that's exactly what they've done. "Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer" takes one of the most iconic elements - not only of the Fantastic Four, but of the entire Marvel Comics canon - and reduces it to the dullest, most-dissapointing, most generic, most anti-climactic form it could possibly take. Congratulations, Mr. Story and friends: You have given Movie Geeks a reference-of-loathing worthy of replacing "nipples on the batsuit." Be proud.
The team is back and they face their most fearsome adversary yet.In Rise of the Silver Surfer, the F4 do battle with their most formidable foe yet, the intergalactic traveling Silver Surfer. The Surfer is in fact a herald of Galactus, an entity that needs to consume entire worlds to survive, and his appearance on Earth is therefore an unwelcome sign. The army thus enlists the F4's help, but even the powers of the F4 are not enough.
This is where Dr Doom comes in. To add some spice to the plot, the army decides to enlist his help as well and so the F4 are forced to cooperate with their arch-enemy. Now, if you are familiar enough with Marvel fare, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what will happen next.
And that is the problem of this show. It is incredibly predictable and hence boring. But that is alright because predictable shows can be still entertaining ones and Rise of the Silver Surfer is still pretty entertaining because the skills of the F4 team are utilized quite adequately in the movie. You'll see Mr Fantastic making good use of his ability to stretch himself like rubber man; the Invisible Woman turning invisible to help the team get out of sticky situations; the Human Torch's flying ability is useful for chasing down the Surfer and as the resident muscle man, the Thing gets his chance to put his immense strength into good use as well.
What's bad about this movie is its portrayal of Silver Surfer and Galactus.
Another great comic character messed up by movie producers.Silver Surfer is nerfed in the movie. BIG TIME! In the movie, I'm sorry but there are some spoilers here, his powers come from his board...... Since when?!?! The Power Cosmic was gifted to him, not his board. Bloody ridiculous! A quick check on Marvel Database indicates that his powers far exceed any Marvel character and borders closely on being god-like........
Editors Note;As apposed to the whimpy,whinnie dick was into Marvel Comics for years
Maybe that's is why the Surfer was nerfed. The director/producers/story people or what not, could not come up with a plausible way for the F4 to defeat the Surfer.
Isn't that sad?
But wait, the worse is yet to come. Galactus, the helmet wearing giant that we're familiar with, is portrayed as a swirling mess of black cloud. I really don't know what to say to that... You know there is something horribly when they fail to get the look of someone as prominent as Galactus right.
Maybe that's is why the Surfer was nerfed. The director/producers/story people or what not, could not come up with a plausible way for the F4 to defeat the Surfer.
Isn't that sad?
But wait, the worse is yet to come. Galactus, the helmet wearing giant that we're familiar with, is portrayed as a swirling mess of black cloud. I really don't know what to say to that... You know there is something horribly when they fail to get the look of someone as prominent as Galactus right.
Editors Note:Thats because the producers and director of the Fantastic Four film,knew this big,planet eating gay bastard,would laughed off the scene,if anything clse the purple roman armored fairy,with a big trash can head,with hockey sticks showed up.
This is Galactus.
Galactus looks something like this in the movie..... WTF IS THIS?! THIS IS NOT GALACTUS!My advice to fans of the Silver Surfer and Galactus is to give this movie a miss. Avoid it like the plague; watching it will guarantee feelings of disappointment, I assure you. If you want more Silver Surfer action, go play him on Marvel Ultimate Alliance or go read his comics, do anything but don't watch this.
To everyone else, you could go see this, but don't expect too much.
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