Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Marvel Comics Movie Review)

Plot
The Fantastic Four battles the enigmatic Silver Surfer, a villain who travels the earth preparing it for total destruction.

Jason’s Thoughts
I couldn’t help but feel a bit of deja vu while watching Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. It had the same cast, including Dr. Doom, the same cheesy dialog, the same advertising, and it still felt like it was marketed towards a young demographic. The only aspect that seemed to have changed was the Fantastic Four origin story was replaced by the Silver Surfer.

This movie has its moments, and there is a lot more going on in terms of action, but when it was all said and done, I had a feeling of being let down. The ending is what did it for me, where it seemed that the Fantastic Four took a backseat to the Silver Surfer during the battle with Galactus, or what was supposed to be Galactus. Again, the cloud form of the main villain, who only appeared in the final moments of the film, was another let down.

The special effects on everything else not Galactus was top notch. The Silver Surfer was well done (although a bit creepy with Laurence Fishburne providing the voice), and I especially thought the scenes with Johnny Storm changing his powers were well done, as were the chase scenes with the Surfer and the Human Torch.

While the ending was a bit of a let down, I still have to think that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was just a little bit better than the first one. The origins were over and we got a lot more action, plus a new character in the mix with the Silver Surfer. I still believe that Julian McMahon was still miscast as Dr. Doom, but his time in the film was short, thus making it a bit more bearable.

It doesn’t surprise me that the Fantastic Four movie series will be going through a reboot soon. The pieces seemed to be there, but some questionable decisions and writing flaws seemed to drag this movie and its predecessor down. Special effects cannot make a movie great, and that is the one thing that this movie series seemed to have an abundance of.  It helped make the movies a bit more entertaining, but they don’t make me want to watch them again and again.

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