"Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" Review

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

* star (out of four)
90 minutes, starts Friday, June 15th


(WARNING: The following review is basically one, big spoiler. If you intend to see this film, and nothing I can say will change your mind, I highly advise that you stop reading now, as I basically plan to give away the entire plot of the movie. If, however, you do not plan to see this film and/or would like to hear a compelling, articulate and, dare I say, extremely humorous take on why you should not, please read on. Batten down the hatches, folks, we got "Aeon Flux" coming here.)

It is human to make mistakes. Admitting them and doing your best to atone for them is what helps us to rise above our frailties and become a better person. As a critic, then, I must admit that I enjoyed the first "Fantastic Four" movie the first time I saw it. Yes, I said it, and I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not sure what came over me. At the time, I guess it seemed like a nice dose of dumb summer fun, and on that level I liked it. I would ascribe this reaction to something in my popcorn except I didn't have any.

Further viewings, alas, made plain my mistake for the dreadful error in judgment that it was. Shallow as the kiddie end of the pool, with characters as thin as a strand of cotton candy, the first "Fantastic Four" movie simply cannot hold weight when compared with other examples of its genre: "Spider-Man." "X-Men." "Batman Begins." "Superman." There is more sophistication and story in any installment of "Batman: The Animated Series" than the original "Fantastic Four" film could ever hope to attain, with the possible exception of the "Critters" episode of "Batman."

But I confess to holding out hope for the sequel, subtitled "Rise of the Silver Surfer." That first trailer looked REALLY cool. Comprised entirely of a chase scene between the Surfer (Doug Jones) and the Human Torch (Chris Evans), it had a sense of awe and wonder that was entirely lacking from the first film. Perhaps, even though the same director and writer and cast were being reunited for this sequel, they found some of the magic they were missing the first time around and had crafted something better, something deeper, something grand.

Then, in the same scene in the movie, the Torch catches up to the Surfer and says, "Can we talk?" And the hope gets flushed down the toilet. Trust me folks, all the grand possibilities in the world mean nothing when confronted by the overwhelming power of the cr*ppy dialogue in this movie. Not to mention the plot. And characters. And...but, wait, let us take this in order, shall we?

The film begins with a shot of a planet being destroyed, followed by credits that fly toward us in space, and if we had tried any harder to make it plain that we were ripping off the Superman title sequence, we'd have actually included the "S" logo. A silver streak flies from the destruction towards Earth, bringing about odd climate changes and water that freezes in place and electricity going out. A news anchor makes it abundantly clear that this is NOT the result of global warming, and since she is a Fox News broadcaster, you can practically hear the glee in her voice.

But, of course, the BIG story they report is the impending wedding of Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), as the nuptials of the heroes have become a world-class media circus. Even though weird events are paralyzing and threatening people all over the globe, Reed makes it clear to Sue that the wedding is the most important thing to him. Reed: "I'm not letting anything get in the way of that, not even the mysterious transformation of matter at the sub-atomic level." Gets you right there, don't it?

Then some military guys show up at the Four's headquarters, accompanied by suitable rum-tummy-tum music, led by General Hager (Andre Braugher), who will certainly go down as one of the least competent military characters ever in motion picture history. He wants the Four to figure out just what the heck is going on with this silver flash, but first they have to fetch Reed from a bachelor party thrown by Johnny and the Thing (Michael Chiklis), in a scene which demonstrates two things: One, that apparently Mr. Fantastic's civilian clothing is as elastic as he is (in which case I wanna meet his tailor), and two, that among Sue's superpowers is the ability to switch between jealous and understanding at lightning speed.

Anyway, Reed is asked to build some kind of tracking device to follow the mysterious figure all over the globe, where, for no apparent reason, it is leaving these huge craters which tunnel down a really long way. Reed says no, because he's getting married, and by gum, his wedding is more important than the world ending. General Hager: (scornfully) "I expected more from you, Richards." Well, I expected more from you, too, Andre, and it looks like we're both gonna be disappointed.

But, oh, never mind, Reed builds the tracking device anyway, without Sue's permission, somehow keeping the giant metal gizmo in plain view in his lab without letting Sue know that he's building it. Wedding day arrives (with suitable jitters from the bride and groom, and a nice cameo by Stan Lee included), but it gets ruined when the Surfer shows up and Johnny has to chase after...but, you've seen the trailer, so you know this. After saving all the wedding guests, Sue slumps down on the stairs in despair, because never mind that a mysterious force is somehow ripping apart the fabric of our civilization and threatening life on Earth as we know it, SHE WANTED TO GET MARRIED, DAMMIT.

Anyway, Johnny survives his encounter with the Surfer, and it turns out that somehow this has left him with the ability to swap powers with his teammates. This leads to a series of "fun" scenes where the characters suddenly find themselves doing each other's shtick, but this is about as significant as if the Ninja Turtles swapped weapons. Meantime, the evil Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon) somehow gets freed by the Surfer's power, and, wearing a hood and looking remarkably like the Emperor from "Star Wars," he goes to meet the Surfer by heading for one of the craters. Okay, so, no one else thought of that? Doom's been on the case five minutes and he knows right where to go. Meantime, the Four are busy building tracking devices and swapping powers. Point for Doom.

Meantime, Reed does some research by punching a few buttons on a computer and determines that every planet the Surfer has ever gone to has been destroyed within eight days (um, is that Earth days or Other-Planet days?). He shows the destruction of each using an extremely high-powered telescope that can give amazingly detailed views of the planets in question, as well as, apparently, the ability to see back in time when the destruction happened. Yeah, f*ck you, Hubble, you been FACED by a gizmo the Fantastic Four apparently have just lying around their workshop. This telescope can also determine that all the life on these other planets was destroyed, as well. So, not only does Reed have a time-traveling super telescope, but he's proven that there is life on other planets. Shouldn't he have, like, 40 Nobel Prizes by this point?

But the military, unimpressed by their amazing gizmos and superpowers, can only see failure in how the Four have handled the situation, so they do the logical thing: Recruit Dr. Doom. Yes, the super villain who tried to destroy the Four and half of New York in the last film, and who by this point has magically stopped needing an elaborate makeup job. Doom and the Four agree to work together to stop the threat. Johnny: "Think Reed's right about this end-of-the-world stuff?" Thing: "He's never been wrong about this kind of thing before."

So we decide that the Surfer's board is the source of all his power, and if you separate him from the board, he is then, uh, powerless. They prove this by using some other gizmo they invent (which General Hager scoffs at when he's told it will take three hours to complete) to dislodge the Surfer from the board, but not until after the Surfer dodges a whole missile array, and not until after he's had a heart-to-heart with Sue, who suddenly finds him sympathetic. Well, can you blame her? The Surfer speaks in the voice of Lawrence Fishburne. How can anyone who sounds like Lawrence Fishburne be evil, I ask you? Well, okay, Ike Turner.

Anyway, the military captures the Surfer, and come to the only logical conclusion one can come to when you've captured an other-worldly creature that has amazing powers and knowledge of the cosmos at his command: TORTURE HIM MERCILESSLY. Well, this is a Fox film, maybe Jack Bauer is rubbing off on the rest of the company. Sue sneaks in to hear some more of that sweet, sweet Fishburne voice, and is told that the Surfer is merely the harbinger - the REAL planet-destroying bad-*ss, Galactus, is on his way. The Surfer just does his bidding because he doesn't want his own planet to get destroyed, too. Why a planet-eating entity needs a guy on a surfboard to wreak havoc ahead of him is left unexplained. I guess those huge craters make the planet more devour-able, or easier to grab, like bowling ball holes.

Meantime, even though Doom really didn't DO anything, per se, General Hager keeps his end of the bargain by allowing Doom to test the Surfer's board. Yes, we're LETTING THE SUPERVILLAIN IN THE SAME ROOM WITH THE SINGLE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON IN THE UNIVERSE. In the grand annals of dumb ideas, this has to rank in the top five or so. And, hey, go figure, within a minute Doom has taken control of the board and killed Hager. The Four spring the Surfer and chase after Doom in the new Fantasticar, which, for no explicable reason outside of product placement dollars, has a Dodge logo on the front. Johnny: "Hemi?" Reed: "Of course." Me: (incredulous laughter)

The final battle takes the heroes to a street in Japan, which looks uncannily like a studio backlot, where Sue gets mortally wounded when she tries to save the Surfer, and then Johnny somehow takes the powers of ALL FOUR members of the group at once to stop Doom. How we got from "Power Swapping" to "I Can Hold All of Your Powers at Once" is a mystery that's best left unsolved, methinks. The Four successfully get the Surfer back on his board, and after magically healing Sue (Post-Resurrection Dialogue - Sue: "Hi." Reed: "Hi." Sue: "What'd I miss?"), the Surfer, who has learned the value of life or something, heads off to stop Galactus, who looks uncannily in form and action like a giant anus made out of clouds. The Surfer blows himself up to kill Galactus and end the threat to both Earth and his own world. Apparently it had never occurred to the Surfer that if he'd done that, say, 10 planets ago, it would have accomplished the same thing.

Reed and Sue then successfully complete their marriage and head off to save Venice from sinking into the sea, but not before stopping to make the "4" logo in the clouds with their wicked cool Fantasticar, which I actually think got destroyed during the final battle just a scene ago, but we're just picking nits now, aren't we?

A quick glance at the movie listings reveal that the following films are still playing in theatres this weekend: "Spider-Man 3." "Waitress." "Ocean's 13." "Knocked Up." "28 Weeks Later." Heck, some are still showing "Bridge to Terabithia" and "300," if you missed those. There are plenty of good films to see. You have a lot of options. If, however, after reading this far and digesting all my best efforts to dissuade you from doing so, you still feel the need to see "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," that is, of course, entirely your choice. Leaves more good movies for the rest of us.