>>REVIEW
FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER
STARRING Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis and Ioan Gruffudd
DIRECTED BY Tim Story
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How many more happy meals need to be sold? Action figures stand in untouched rows on toy-store shelves. Nascar and KFC logos suffocate press junkets where stars try to connect their film with whatever product by any means necessary. Welcome to the zenith of the summer blockbuster season. From this point on, we shuffle into theatres out of habit or nostalgic duty, barely able to drag ourselves into Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Though an improvement on the abysmal first outing, the Fantastic Four go through the motions in a Saturday morning conceived in a Korean animation sweatshop masquerading as a much better movie.
At least the film opens well. A mysterious cosmic phenomenon sweeps over the planet with environmental consequences straight out of Revelations. Rivers freeze, the Sphinx in Egypt becomes covered in ice, and mammoth holes appear across the planet. Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four have become the world’s most beloved couple in the media since their last adventure. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) prepare for an ultra posh wedding, while Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) milks his reputation as the Human Torch for pootie-tang and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) just kinds of stands around looking all rocky. Then the Silver Surfer shows up. The Human Torch gets infected with the ability to change powers with anybody else on the team. Doom makes a half-hearted appearance. Minor explosions. Rescue attempt. Flying car. Giant cloud of dust attempts to eat planet.
The screenplay reads more like a list of demands producers tried to wedge into the original framework of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s classic Galactus comic. Screenwriters Don Payne and Mark Frost broadly sketch out scenes with stilted dialogue borrowed from an ’80s high school drama, before hurrying along to the next story beat. Though considering the movie includes a breakdancing scene with the Stretchy Mr. Fantastic and a bizarre wedding involving only the Fantastic Four’s closest Japanese friends, the hurried pacing is a blessing in disguise. None of this is helped by Tim Story’s perfunctory direction, lending the movie a cheap TV-movie feel. Gadgets look like they were pilfered from a discount sale at Ikea and sets explode in brick-shaped Styrofoam. Fortunately, the Silver Surfer, standing on his board like a chrome messiah, brings a bit of dignity to the film. The Surfer has a hypnotic presence onscreen and shames the rest of the movie for its plodding attempt to entertain.
Still, the character of the Surfer can be attributed to the crackling inventiveness of Kirby and Lee. Outside of the Surfer, very little of their original zest appears in the film. It’s as if the people involved were embarrassed by the source material, attempting to smooth out cosmic wonder with the regular summer blockbuster machinations. |
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