'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' - Still Not Totally Fantastic
By: Tim - aurora - Dunn

As a kid the one comic that I always had to have was 'The Fantastic Four'. I was the kind that had a huge stack which included the first couple dozen issues, and had them all memorized. Back then comic trading and collecting was much different and much cheaper. When I first heard F4 was being made into a movie a few years back I was totally stoked. Sadly when opening day came I found myself wondering if this were a classic case of childhood memories got magnified to legendary status. I like so many others were deeply disappointed at the lack of decent story, lack of action, and for a CG guy it was a pretty poor VFX showing. Sure Johnny as the Torch was not to bad but the rest suffered. So here we are again with a sequel and this time we add in The Silver Surfer, a legend on his own which happened to mingle story lines with the F4 gang. We were promised more action and better effects. Well I'll admit that there is more, but better is a bizarre concept in this movie.

'The Fantastic Four - The Rise of the Silver Surfer' starts off watching Galactus destroying a planet and it opens up the strange world of half good/half bad effects but I'll talk a lot more about the effects later. After Galactus is finished eating that world the Silver Surfer is off to find a new meal for his master which just happens to be Earth. As he arrives the seas around Japan solidify (horrible effects there) it snows two inches in Egypt and giant craters start appearing round the world. Worse yet Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards, is spending more time playing with his toys then getting ready for the wedding of the century, attempt four mind you. Somewhere between the first movie and this one we were spared three other movies. As Reed and Sue squabble over wedding details and commitments Johnny and Ben are still busy bashing each other and showing off to adoring fans.

Naturally the military has major interest in the events happening around the world and strike off to all but demand that Reed identify and nullify the cause of the tragedies slowly destroying the earth. While Reed tells the General sorry no can do I'm getting married, in the down-low he is working behind Sues back on building a special detector to track the mysterious anomaly. Finally wedding day dawns and as the ceremony starts beep, beep goes Reeds PDA linked to the new tracking system. Minutes later the Silver Surfer appears and the wedding is left in shambles. Sue and Ben try to save the guests from the wake left from the Silver Surfers appearance and Johnny blazes off to figure out what the heck that streak was. At this point we have only seen the Surfer as a meteorite-like streak its not until Johnny chases it through a building and he re-emerges on the other side do you get our first look at the Surfer. Of course we have all seen this scene a half a million times already but in context its still pretty cool to see.

Johnny continues the chase only to get caught by the Surfer and dragged to the outer limits of the atmosphere with flames extinguished and finally dropped to Earth. The encounter with the Surfer has caused Johnny to have power problems, both with controlling them at first and with the ability to switch powers with his friends. Another side effect to the presence of the Surfer is that he somehow has awaken Dr. Victor Doom from what we thought was death, but he nobody stays dead in comic book land. Dr. Doom is also curious about the new visitor and seeks him out thinking he has finally found an evil friend to join up with. But when the Surfer sends him flying Victor does the only thing he would do, seek to take his powers for himself.

Meanwhile Reed and the military find a pattern to the crater appearances and is off to the location of the next appearance of the crater creator which is to be in London. When the Surfer strikes, disaster prevails and the team is left scrambling to save lives, but bumbling power switching Johnny kinda makes a mess of things. When all is said and done the Thames is drained and the General is blaming the fiasco on the F4 team.

The General does the only thing he can think of, sorry this guy does not think all that much as Reed points out, and brings Dr. Doom and the Fantastic Four together to find a way to stop the Surfer. Eventually as a plan plays out Sue encounters the Surfer and his history is slightly retold as Sue reminds the Surfer of who he once was, Norrin Radd, a man in love who seeks to save his world and girl friend from Galactus by becoming His herald. As things play out Dr. Doom does what he does best, the Surfer is dismounted (sans help from the Watchers, grumble, grumble) one of the team is permanently out of action and Galactus is at the door and opening it quickly.

So that's a quick overview of thankfully, a rather short movie (if only Spiderman 3 took cue and was only 90 minutes long too. It would have been a pretty dang good movie if that were the case.) Thankfully Tim Story was wise, strange word to use for this movie but..., and kept this story short, on track and built off what could possibly make it work. It took the campy comic book approach and played on the concept that its not going to be a major blockbuster so lets make it family friendly as a good ole popcorn sit back and enjoy movie wherein they can get a lot of little kids in to enjoy the show (more on that later too.) Again its Johnnys character that keeps this movie moving along in some sort of style and consistency, which is strange since its supposed to be Reed and Sue's wedding. But hey at least someone in the movie stood out a little.

But the thing that really makes this movie something worth not walking out on is the Silver Surfer himself. He is what this movie is about and they use him in nice healthy doses throughout the movie. Some of the best effects in this movie are built around him and again wisely so. True, there are a few semi-decent scenes with the F4 team, I particularly liked Reed at his bachelor party and Johnny off to save the world scenes. So I guess now is time to get into the weird state of effects in this movie.

We'll start off at the beginning, Galactus destroying a planet. Well the concept of the form of Galactus is pretty good and plays extremely well at the end. But the destruction of the planet itself is at first OK but rapidly degenerates as fast as the planets does. The final explosion scene is well, Jack Kirby is mixed in with this movie and where the heck is the classic Kirby Crackle effect? That effect concept could have made this scene and the end scene SO much better. If not the Kirby Crackle a few thousand more particles surely could have/should have been added. The majority of the effects in this movie are just barely on the up to date level with the current state of CG work. I guess its even harder to enjoy the minimalistic work done (Weta Digital, CafeFX, Giant Killer Robots, The Orphanage and up and rising Hydraulx had a huge part in this movie) after watching the genesis of Sandman in Spiderman3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds Ends.

The effects used for the F4 team are pretty much at the same level we saw two years ago. While not bad, still nothing 'fantastic' about them, especially since we have already been stunned and gotten over Johnny as the Torch. Dr. Doom? Nothing new or exciting there and that is actually a major let down in the end. The appearance of the Watchers to help stop Galactus, oh wait they are not in the movie, so much for some potentially good scenes.

So back to the Surfer we go. Most of the Surfer scenes are all CG and done very nicely, especially the reflection mapping used on him. Well not in the end when he saves..... Watch the 'tarnished' look on him during that scene. Kind a a let down considering the nice reflection map and lighting done in other scenes. One of the biggest disappointments in the movie comes when the Surfer is telling Sue from whence and came. He opens an almost cool viewing window in his belly (can anyone say TeleTubbies, grumble, grumble.) Instead of seeing Norrins home world with some amazing city and Galactus coming to destroy it with Norrin's love wrapped in his arms we end up see the planet dying from the opening scene. In other words the Surfer's history is just told and not shown. At 92 minutes we would have been extremely happy with a couple more minutes 'showing' the Surfers origin.

Next come the effects of the Surfer to the Earth. The first scene we see is the sea solidifying in Japan. Oh wait we don't see it happening, it just does. We know this because a fisherman falls overboard and we next see him standing on one of the worst textured landscapes I have ever scene. This being in the first five minutes of the movie almost made me leave. Yes it was that poorly done. Snow in Egypt, well we see it start but never see the stacked two whole whopping inches. The crater creation scene in London? The water effects and dried Thames compete seriously with the worst textured landscape ever. I guess I choose the sea scene as the worst only because I'm so dang picky on water effects, something I love working on myself.

So what was really good? Well almost nothing, except Galactus. At the end Galactus is strung out through space and stretching forth his claws to eat the Earth and while we still don't get to enjoy a good Kirby Crackle scene the Galactus effects where pretty well done and in the end, along with the Surfer does make this a movie I do somewhat recommend.

Conclusion:

'The Fantastic Four - The Rise of the Silver Surfer' is a comic book made movie and stays in that genera, one which Hollywood has failed over and over to truly amaze us with. Walk into this movie expecting to enjoy the Surfer with a big box of popcorn, a pop and some friends. Go in a good happy mood and last of all do not go in as I did expecting 'Pirates' grade special effects. If you follow those recommendations then you may, just may leave the movie as having a fun ride. If you go in ready for some great effects, the end delivers but all the campy effects leading up to it may leave you almost but not quite as upset as you probably were with the original. Now if you happen to have young kids, especially sons, take them. My showing was full of them and every last one was shouting extremely loudly with excitement at the ending. Ah if only I were that young again!

Ratings:

- For a movie going experience I give it: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
While still not 'fantastic' it was better then the original thanks to the Silver Surfer and Galactus. The story was kept short and tried to stay on track, those not as bad as I was expecting.

- For a technical piece of CG and VFX work I give it: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
I actually think this movie deserves both a rating of 2 for some of the worst textured scenes I've seen in along time as well as a 3 thanks to the Surfer and Galactus at the end. Average it out and you get a movie that's just barely average on the CG scale of today.

Credits:

Cast:
Reed Richards - Ioan Gruffudd
Sue Storm - Jessica Alba
Johnny Storm - Chris Evans
Ben Grimm - Michael Chiklis
Victor Von Doom - Julian McMahon
Alicia Masters - Kerry Washington
General Hager - Andre Braugher
The Silver Surfer (voice) - Laurence Fishburne
The Silver Surfer - Doug Jones
Captain Raye - Beau Garrett
Rejected Wedding Guest - Stan Lee

Director - Tim Story

Writing credits:
Characters - Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
Story - John Turman, Mark Frost
Screenplay - Don Payne, Mark Frost

Executive Producer - Michael Barnathan, Chris Columbus, Kevin Feige, Stan Lee, Mark Radcliffe
Producer - Avi Arad, Bernd Eichinger, Ralph Winter
Co-Producer - Lee Cleary, Ross Fanger
Associate Producer - Stewart Bethune, Allison Calleri

Original Music - John Ottman

Cinematography - Larry Blanford

Visual/Special Effects (alphabetical order)
CafeFX
Custom Film Effects
Digiscope
Film Illusions Inc.
Frantic Films
Hammerhead
Hydraulx
Giant Killer Robots
Lola Visual Effects
London VFX
Pixel Playground
Sandbox
Soho VFX
Spectral Motion, Inc.
The Orphanage
Weta Digital

MPAA:Rated PG for sequences of action violence, some mild language and innuendo.
Runtime: 92 min