'F4 - Rise of The Silver Surfer' review

Rating: *** out of ****

There is a clever scene in Wes Craven’s ‘Scream 2’ that has a classroom of characters sitting, debating sequels and whether many hold up to their successors. It’s a funny little scene with some well thought dialogue. In it, they debunk that ‘Aliens’ is not better than Ridley Scott’s first film, that ‘T2’ is not better than ‘The Terminator’, but they all agree that ‘The Godfather: Part II’ is better than the first. I agree with the first point and disagree with the second two.

Tim Story's ‘Fantastic Four – Rise of The Silver Surfer’ may not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as ‘Aliens’, ‘T2’ or ‘The Godfather’, but it is a sequel that overshadows its predecessor quite significantly. I would have listed the first ‘Fantastic Four’ with my top ten worst films of the year, had I compiled said list that year. The second may not make my ‘best of’ list, but it won’t make the worst either.

‘F4 – ROTSS’ picks up some time after the first film. We see the current adventures of The Fantastic Four, comprised of Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic, who can stretch his body out ‘till next week), Sue Storm (The Invisible Woman, self-explanatory), Johnny Storm (The Human Storm, who can spontaneously combust as well as fly), and Ben Grimm (The Thing, who is literally a walking hunk of granite). In the last film, the team developed super-powers by being exposed to ‘cosmic radiation’, and all they could say is ‘cool!’ This time around, we’re on the eve of Reed and Sue’s wedding, which is on its fifth attempt –superheroes have busy lives and can’t always fit a wedding in to their schedules. Meanwhile, the Earth is experiencing mystifying activities that take shape in the forms of snow in Egypt, massive blackouts and craters large enough to suck in a city. The Human Torch discovers in an impressive chase sequence that the cause of these activities is a figure known as The Silver Surfer. The surfer is paving the way for Galactus, a giant being that comes in the form of a storm and devours planets. Now, the Fantastic Four must team up with the US Government as well as their nemesis Dr. Doom – making an obligatory return from the first film – to capture the surfer and save the Earth.

While the sequel plays with the same cartoonish logic and humor as its predecessor, the fresh elements in this chapter elevate the movie. In this day, where more people care that Paris Hilton goes to jail than what’s happening with the war, the obsession over a superhero’s wedding is played off as a witty satire on our celebrity obsessed culture. I also enjoy the way the Fantastic Four deal with authority and government figures. They aren’t rogue heroes above the law. They collaborate with the military, and thusly the military seeks their help. You’d never see Batman or Spiderman do that. There are also deeper elements within the group of heroes. There is a subplot where Reed and Sue contemplate leaving to lead ‘normal’ lives, leaving Ben and Johnny to contemplate the future of the team. It was curious to me why Sue complained so much about being in the public eye, when she could make herself invisible.

The high point of the film is the title character. The surfer – played by Doug Jones and voiced by Lawrence Fishburne - excels the story. He has an element of mystery and wisdom to him and contains powers that make Reed Richards look like Stretch Armstrong. His action sequences are more exciting than all others are, and when he brings Galactus to Earth, it involves some breathtaking visuals of the planet literally being swallowed in a storm. I would like to have known a bit more about him though. Alas, we’re given just as much as we need to know in order to empathize with him, but without a look at his home world or knowing how he came to work for Galactus’, we really can’t care or hate the character as much as it feels we’re supposed to.

The major hindrance on the picture though is the rehash of Dr. Doom. His lackluster return feels tacked on as a shameless ‘guess-who’s-back’ motive and lowers the bar for the film. He was not required in any fashion and that puts a damper on an otherwise fine climactic battle. The writers would have been well advised to wait and bring him back in the third installment.

Still, ‘Fantastic Four – Rise of The Silver Surfer’ is a pleasant surprise given my disdain for the first installment. After a summer of mostly letdowns, it was nice to sit back, let go and actually feel that inner child in me excited about what was happening on screen. When the surfer skids down the side of a building, shattered glass flying like mists of water, all I could say was, ‘cool!’