Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

June 17, 2007

Rated: PG Runtime: 92 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer picks up about 2 years after the first film and unlike Spidey and the X-Men, F4 are national heroes with tons of endorsements and cash, and everybody knows who they are. The fame associated to the afore mentioned hero-dom makes little things like raising a family or even getting married a media spectacle, and the story in the beginning focuses very heavily on this point; In fact it’s about 30 minutes before we see anything of consequence what so ever… Enter the Silver Surfer and business begins to pick up!

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Reed Richards (Gruffudd) is contacted by the government to build some sort of tracking system that monitors energy signatures that they believe is responsible for creating big honking craters all over the planet. Sue is against this as it will surely ruin her big day… blah blah blah. Sue and Reed’s Wedding day comes along and it’s far from the way they’d envisioned it. The Surfer crashes the party and causes a big mini EMP which kills the city, a helicopter lands on the cake and Johnny ruins a DG tux, It’s all very tragic. I won’t spoil it for anyone when I tell you the trailer you’ve seen where Johnny (Evans) chases the Surfer is not exactly true to the film, so that sequence wasn’t completely ruined by seeing it in advance. So anyway back to it, the Government comes to the Four and asks for their help in determining the next location the Surfer will strike and if possible to stop him, which leads to the overall plot of the movie. Stop the Surfer, save the Day and rid the world of their old buddy Vic once and for all.

The story is OK, and the performances from Chiklis and Evans are pretty good, and if you ignore Alba’s acting and just concentrate on her lower opsiperal protuberance you’ll be fine. Fishburn lending his voice to the Surfer was cool and Seeing McMahon back as Doom made for a nice spin, but overall just an OK movie. The brightest spot of all was the effects, they were absolutely off the charts, factor in that I got to see it in full digital sound and picture made it all the better, but believe me it’s the highlight of this cookie, if you’re over the age of 12. It earned that PG rating honestly.

As far as sequels go it isn’t great but as far as a decent popcorn movie, it fits the bill perfectly. Lots of explosions, Alba in tight spandex, Cool chases, The Surfer, big gaping sink holes and a being that swallows worlds. Now that’s a summer eye candy extravaganza.

Posted by J.C. Edwards | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, Chris Evans, Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Julian McMahon, Michael Chiklis, PG, Theatrical