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Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Dir: Tim Story Starring: Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans In 2004, Trey Parker and Matt Stone made Team America: World Police, a satirical take on the notion that it is America’s job to sort out the world’s problems, a notion put forward by many Hollywood films. Whether it was intended to or not, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is one of those films. When the London Eye is collapsing into the Thames, it is the American military alongside the Fantastic Four as opposed to the UK military. The case is the same when the four travel to Germany and it is only in Japan that they are met by emergency services of the country they are actually in (and they arrive once the crisis is over). Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer reunites us with Mr. Fantastic (Gruffudd), Miss Invisible (Alba), The Human Torch (Evans) and The Thing (Chiklis) for a sequel in which a silver surfer seems to be taking energy from the earth to feed the Galactus, a planet-eating force that is on course for earth. The Fantastic Four must deal with the problem amidst the media circus of Richards and Storm’s impending marriage.
The sequel goes a lot deeper into the characters than the first. After initial worries that he didn’t want to reprise his role, Chiklis makes a welcome return as The Thing and is, by far, the best part of the movie. Alba and Gruffudd support well while Chris Evans continues to make it clear that he has the potential to be a major star. The CGI is visually stunning and helps the film dramatically but it can’t mask what is an all-to-predictable plot. The film is full of improbabilities that cannot be explained. Getting to London from America in seconds via a helicopter, and the US military acting as the world’s military are just two of the problems. Perhaps the biggest problem of all is that there is more to come from the franchise (including a Silver Surfer spinoff). The movie will please children and fans of the comics but will do nothing more than that.
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Credit
must me given to director Tim Story for keeping the film as
close to the comic book as possible with little additions such
as The Thing’s eyebrows. Even the film’s name was picked after
consultation with die hard fans of the comics.
