(A Non-Spoiler Review)
Riding the crest of a wave of sneak preview tickets that flowed through the Kansas City Metro area recently, the gang surfed into a local AMC Theatre this evening to catch an early glimpse of the Silver one himself. Oh yeah, and that gang of superheroes, too.
One of the best ways to see films is before everyone else gets to see them, and to see them for free. It is icing on the cake when the film turns out to be one that you would have happily paid for. Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is one of those films.
In my opinion there are two ways to do a comic book movie and to do it well. Number one is to play it serious, ala Spiderman 1, Spiderman 2, and Batman Begins. The second is to play up the fun angle. Not campy, not slapstick, just pure comic book fun. That is not to say that the first way doesn’t contain humor. Far from it. However, the overall tone of the movie is one that is meant to be taken seriously. Rise of the Silver Surfer, like the first Fantastic Four film, falls joyfully into the second category.
I’ll lay my soul bare here and confess that, comic book fan that I am, I have only a cursory knowledge of the Fantastic Four. I know enough to enjoy the films and to not be confused by what is happening, and yet I am not emotionally involved enough to be put off by whatever the writer and director choose to do with the characters…within reason, of course. And that is why I find the Fantastic Four films to be so refreshing. The only prejudice I take into the film is that I love comic books. Rise of the Silver Surfer reaffirms the fact that while comics can be a medium used to create great depth and resonance, there remains the nostalgic roots of the idea that comics can and should be fun.
With Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Tim Story crafts a family friendly, entertaining romp of a film without resorting to camp humor and without dumbing down the comic book angle to pander to those who disdain the art form. With a cast of 4 superheroes, carry-over characters from the first film, and 3 villians, Story could have made the same mistakes that I feel Raimi made with Spiderman 3. The film could have been ridiculously long in order to load down each character with screen time and an overabundance of villians could have weighed the plot down. Instead each of the fantastic foursome gets ample screen time and not one moment feels like it was tacked on to somehow make everyone have equal time. In addition to that, the villains are featured in such a way to make them mysterious, intriguing, and interesting without having to give us a life history on each one. Story keeps the plot moving forward with a nice balance of action and character development without either being heavy-handed.
The cast is great and the main characters seem to have developed an even more natural rapport with this second film. Everyone had nice moments of humor as well as more serious dialogue and the chemistry was…fantastic! I would be remiss in my fanboy duties if neglected to point out the obvious, and that is that Jessica Alba is quite lovely in this film.
She has a very glamorous look in the movie that makes her stand out. But really, how hard could it be to stand out when you are featured in the same scenes with a giant rock? 😉
The special effects in Rise were, to overuse an obvious choice, fantastic. The opening scene as well as the other scenes in outer space are just incredible. My sci-fi self was drooling heavily. The superpowers special effects were also well done. The piece de resistance was the Silver Surfer. The effects crew did such an outstanding job crafting the digital aspects of the character and Doug Jones (the best ‘in a suit of some kind’ actor working today) did an equally amazing job in the surfer outfit.
If you go to Rise of the Silver Surfer expecting some deep existential experience, you are going to the wrong film. However, if you can appreciate the time in your life when superheroes made you giddy with excitement (and hopefully that time continues on today), when good triumphed over evil, and when all was right with the world, then you will not be disappointed with this second Fantastic Four offering.
A Reminder: As you see the film this weekend (and it should be seen in the theatre opening weekend), make sure announce to everyone reading if your comments contain potential spoilers by writing the word SPOILERS in capital letters before you comments. Your fellow movie goers will be most pleased.
Ed Note: If you were expecting a Friday Favorite today, I’m sorry to disappoint. Moviegoing interfered with those plans. If you haven’t read and left your two cents on last week’s FF, Jason Walker, please check it out, he is great.
This looks like so much fun. I was supposed to go see it tomorrow night, but my film person is busy. I was quite disappointed. Great, non-spoiler, review. Michael Chicklas(?) was my favorite character in the first one, hope he is in this one too.
He is, Pat, he’s got some great lines.
This is one of the summer movies I want to see.
For a very nice review from someone who had many problems with the film, check out author Stuart Clark’s review of Rise of the Silver Surfer here. I would wait until after seeing the movie if you know little about the storyline for this film though. He doesn’t really spoil anything, per se, but I personally enjoyed going in completely ignorant of what most of the film was about.
I’m taking my dad (for Father’s Day) tomorrow night. Can’t wait.
I only hope I can get past the awful job they did with Alba’s blue contacts and even worse hair job.
With the great job they do with Thing, you’d think they do better with simpler things…
Me and my nitpicking.
Carl,
Thanks for the comment both here and on my site. Just to confirm, I did enjoy the movie – it’s completely harmless fun and the effects are amazing. Taken in the vain that it’s intended, it’s an enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half. Just don’t expect too much from it. That’s all.
I thought her hair was great in the film, Angela. The eyes are a bit disconcerting, but I just take it in stride…they were trying to do something for the character.
That’s a fun way to spend Father’s Day, Angela. You have a cool dad!
(Sorta a little spoiler warning, here.)
I don’t know, Carl. Usually you and I have similar opinions on movies, but I’m not sure about this one. “The Coming of Galactus” is one of the greatest comic stories ever told, and I feared from the beginning that this movie could never do it justice. And I’ve heard elsewhere that the final segment of the movie is liable to cause any lover of the comics to throw his or her popcorn at the screen in disgust. Galactus is a CLOUD?!!!!! WTF is up with THAT?!!!
Ugh.
I will see it, though, just for the Silver Surfer. I have heard he is the one redeemable part of the experience. The character is cool enough to warrant his own movie, and I love Doug Jones. I’ll have to get back to you on the rest of it. I hope I am pleasantly surprised, but I remain wary.
And I can see exactly why we would disagree though Wayne, because again, I am not invested in this comic AT ALL. I knew almost nothing about FF before the first movie and after seeing the first movie, which I thought was entertaining enough, and I knew nothing about Silver Surfer or Galactus other than the bare outlines of who they were.
This is a movie I won’t argue about because I can certainly see why fans wouldn’t or won’t like it. Now Pirates 3…I’ll argue about. This one? It really is all about what a person expects to get from the movie. If you expect something deeply rooted in the comic book history then I’m sure you’ll be extremely disappointed. If you expect a fun superhero movie, you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. And honestly, this is one of the movies that I feel it is perfectly okay to not like if a person is expecting more. I have done no research on Tim Story or the writers of this at all, but if I heard them say in an interview that they sat down to make a comic book movie for their kids it wouldn’t surprise me at all. That is the way I see both FF films and because I had no expectations at all going in I ended up being very pleased with the films being that way.
And I LOVED the Galactus effect, personally. I thought the special effects were well done and I thought the whole idea was quite spooky. Let me know what you think after you see it Wayne.
I had a vague recollection of the Fantastic Four from my childhood–enough that I remembered the characters but without any investment in what they did with them. I did not see the first movie and there were a few elements in the storyline that I couldn’t piece together, but enjoyed it anyway. The special effects were good and didn’t interfere with the film–that is, it wasn’t all about the special effects.
Angela–I did have an issue with the hair. When I first saw her I couldn’t imagine what they had been thinking. They weren’t very consistent about it.
My wife, kids, and I all were lucky enough to see the film last and absoultely loved it. Now we also liked the first one but we all felt this one was even better. I felt the cast really did an even better job feel that the 4 REALLY cared about each other as a family. Doug Jones is amazing as the Surfer. I felt his scenes in costume were even better than the CGI version of him myself. The special effects of this film are incredible. The flame effects are even cooler this time with Johnny. The humor is so fun in this movie, too. Lots of laugh out loud moments. Also the girl who plays Ben’s girlfiend in this movie is wonderful.
SPOILER BELOW
Now I have read some FF comics and I know of Galactus so I understand what Wayne is talking about with him being a cloud instead of version we’ve seen in the comics. I’m torn though that a giant Galactus like being would have come off too goofy and the cloud version is really awesome. I know that goofy is hard to believe in a comic book movie but keep and open mind and let us know what you think after you’ve seen the flick. I was happy with it but that’s just me and the FF has never been one of my favorite comics so this change doesn’t both me as much. Now if they mess say the Stardust movie for this August I’ll be really pissed because I love that comic so much.
I was talking to Jeff a bit ago and realized that I am probably coming off as unsympathetic to my comic book loving brethren, (and the comic book loving girls as well). That is not my intention. If I had been a big FF fan I probably would have had much different expectations going into these films, and I certainly wouldn’t be shy about complaining if one of my favorite comic book characters was treated in a way that I felt was unworthy. Heck, that is the majority of the reason I was so disappointed with Spidey 3.
Why do I always get caught up in these hair discussions on my blog? I really liked the hair STYLE, but I have to agree with what Jeff was saying to me on the phone, that the color wasn’t great. Alba is much better with a more ‘natural’ darker color. But Sue Storm is blonde like that and they chose Alba for the part so there is no way anyone would forgive them not having the hair color match the character. I guess I should give myself credit for thinking about this at all. I could have went all guyish and said, “What, Jessica Alba had hair in that movie?” 🙂
SPOILER
I don’t think Galactus would have worked onscreen in his comic book form. It just would have came off way too silly and made the whole film campy. And if you can allow yourself to get past that one change I think you’ll agree that the effect itself is freaking cool.
I really enjoyed the movie. Never read the comic but I thought the characters were fun and the movie didn’t take itself too seriously.
P.S.
There was something odd about Alba’s look in the movie. Her coloring just didn’t look right. Maybe the hair made her look washed out or something?
I think she was just too tan, not so much washed out. Maybe I should call her up and have her come over so I can do make a more informed decision about the hair and skin tone. 😉
whatever…
“Whatever”?!?!?….after all, it is Father’s Day weekend. 😉
As I said in my review i didn’t like this at all. And although I didn’t love the first one, I did enjoy it for what it was, light-hearted mindless entertainment. I just didn’t find anything entertaining about this. And totally agree with all the complaints about Alba’s hair. it looked weird. Reminded me of X-Men’s Storm, also v. bad hair 🙂
ok – so because of your review here, i consented to seeing this fill and it was just as you said – fun, awesome, exciting and definitely worth seeing on the big screen. i am glad that we have not seen the end of the surfer, he was really well done. It especially entertains me how much Chris Evans reminds me of my brother (who’s a stuntman in Die Hard 4.0, btw). thanks again for the great review – so that’s another 2+ hours of enjoyment that i am indebted to you, carl v. 😉
p.s. Alba’s blue eyes bothered me quite a bit as did the bleach blondeness, couldn’t they find (or use) a better wig?
SPOILER:
However I right there with you carl v., on the Galactus’s cloud effect, i thought it was great
Whew, at the beginning of your first comment I was sure you were going to hate it and that I was to blame! 😉
I’m not sure why they didn’t do her hair the same color as the first movie. And the eyes were a bit much.
That is cool about your brother, you need to post that in my Die Hard review post!!!
Later reply, but finally a review I agree with. God it pisses me off when people complain because they expected something dark. WTF.
I thought Jessica looked fine, it worked okay.
I don’t care what anyone says. Galactus being a cloud is 100% RETARDED, period.
Galactus being a giant robot hovering in space in a live action film is every bit as retarded Spideym. If not more so. But, to each his own.