Review: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

(NOTE: The following review was originally written for a movie review website to which I used to contribute an essay or two a month for about a year.)

In a summer sardine-packed with sequels, one of the least anticipated of the bunch is Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. This is understandable. The previous film, based on the famous comic book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, was underwhelming, to say the least. It had decent action sequences and nice special effects, but the humor was labored, the romantic chemistry between the leads (Ioan Gruffud as Mr. Fantastic and Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman) was almost nonexistent, and the story of how they (along with Chris Evans as the Human Torch and Michael Chiklis as the Thing) became the Fantastic Four took up about half the movie (Lee and Kirby dashed it off in about five pages).

This time around, though, director Tim Story and screenwriters Don Payne and Mark Frost get to the action a bit sooner. A meteor/comet/whatever starts zooming around our fair little planet, causing havoc wherever it goes: In Japan, a bay turned solid; in Egypt, there’s snow on the Sphinx; and in the mythical country of Latveria, the Fantastic Four’s old foe, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), is revived after being assumed dead at the end of the last movie.

Normally, this would be something the Fantastic Four would be all over, but they’re kind of distracted right now, what with Reed (Gruffud) and Sue (Alba) trying to get to their oft-postponed nuptials, Ben (Chiklis) is getting cuddly with his blind girlfriend, Alicia (Kerry Washington), and Johnny (Evans) is compensating for his loneliness by dating one supermodel after another and arranging endorsement deals for the team. (His idea for the new team uniform looks like something out of NASCAR.)

When a tight-ass general (Andre Braugher) shows up (at Reed’s bachelor party, no less—rude, man), the team is thrown into conflict: Sue wants a “normal” life for their family, Reed wants what Sue wants, and Johnny and Ben don’t want to be cast adrift. All the personal stuff gets left off to the side when the big ball of light turns out to be the Silver Surfer, a cosmic-powered being who searched out suitable planets for his master, Galactus, to feed on. Next on the menu? Earth.

The movie really takes off (pun intended) when the Surfer is on screen. He’s one of the coolest characters Lee and Kirby ever created, and he’s wonderfully realized here, even with two actors playing him (body by Doug Jones, voice by Laurence Fishburne), coming off as an immensely powerful, graceful and conflicted creature who doesn’t want to fight the Fantastic Four (though he does a fair job of kicking their asses) or wreck our world but doesn’t have much choice.

The Surfer is just great to look at, and he gives this sequel something the original movie lacked: a sense of wonder. Amazing things were taken in stride in that first film. Here, eyes widen and jaws drop, and rightfully so, for the end of the world may well be nigh, whether it’s Galactus eating our planet or Doctor Doom making off with the Surfer’s board (and thus his power) for his own evil purposes.

Rise of the Silver Surfer retains the strengths of the previous film, like the dysfunctional-family dynamic of the team and exciting action sequences, this time played out on a global (and ultimately cosmic) scale. Unfortunately, the weaknesses of the previous film come along as well, like the lack of fizz in the romance between Reed and Sue (they seem to be getting married only because everyone expects them to) and the flat comedy.

Still, Chiklis once again comes through with a good performance (even though he’s buried under foam rubber most of the time) that gets across the Thing’s angst—the other members of the team can at least pretend to be “normal,” but what’s a guy who looks like a dried lake bed supposed to do? Evans also hits the right notes as the Torch, alternating between being a dick of a little brother and being a hurt little boy afraid of winding up alone. McMahon isn’t given much to do (he’s either under Doc Doom’s mask or makeup that makes him look a lot like Emperor Palpatine much of the time), but he makes the most of the few scenes he has where his face is actually visible.

Rise of the Silver Surfer is an improvement on the original Fantastic Four, and in a summer of bloated, lumbering sequels (yeah, Pirates of the Caribbean and Spider-Man, I’m lookin’ at you), it’s refreshing to have one come in at a tight hour and a half. Maybe by the third time around, Story and crew will get it all right. That this film makes me hope there will even be a third Fantastic Four is a pleasant surprise.