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A huge improvement over the first film, "Fantastic Four:
Rise of the Silver Surfer" manages to be the perfect mindless
popcorn movie that "Pirates 3" wasn't; director Tim Story
keeps the story short, sweet and to the point. When last
we left our mutant superheroes the Fantastic Four consisting
of Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), Sue Storm (Jessica Alba),
Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis)
had just saved New York from Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon)
in a firestorm that made his metallic magnetic body as solid
as a beam on the Brooklyn Bridge. ***
Reed aka Mr. Fantastic who can stretch his body into
any shape is preparing to marry Sue aka the Invisible Woman
(she can also create force fields). The foursome are frustrated
by the constant attention of the tabloids (all except Johnny
aka the Human Torch who can fly and turn his body into a
pillar of flame. Johnny's looking for endorsement deals).
Reed and Sue's wedding is interrupted by the arrival of
a mysterious object from space that is leaving huge cavities
on the surface of the planet. The Silver Surfer (the body
of Doug Jones and voice of Laurence Fishburne) alters the
planet's climate as he does so. The Fantastic Four are called
back into action by General Hager (Andre Braugher) who dislikes
Reed but must partner with him to discover the Surfer's
intention. It seems the Surfer alters anything he comes
in contact with and that would include Von Doom who is released
from his metallic prison. Von Doom offers his help to the
General forcing Reed to collaborate with his enemy to find
out what the Surfer is up to and stop him. ***
"Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" is a throwback
to the mindlessly entertaining comic book films that arrived
prior to "X-Men" and "Spider-Man". The cast exudes more
confidence here and their characters are better developed
than in the first film where Story and writer Mark Frost
had to cram the origin story for both the Four and Von Doom
into a workable script that was still entertaining. One
fact often overlooked is the fact that "Fantastic Four"
had the challenge of working five prominent characters into
a storyline that worked vs. the other superhero films that
came before it. The script by Don Payne ("My Super Ex-Girlfriend",
"The Simpsons") and Mark Frost ("Twin Peaks", "Storyville")
based on a story by John Turman ("Hulk") and Frost is better
simply because it allows the story to unfold without having
to give us the background on all the characters. The production
design by Kirk M. Petruccelli is much more impressive than
on the first film and they manage to capture the look of
the Silver Surfer that was so impressively rendered by artist
Jack Kirby. ***
The film flies by at a brisk 92 minutes and although
there could have been a bit more character development without
sacrificing the action, Story and his collaborators do a
very good job developing the second installment of the "Fantastic
Four" films. I suspect based on its opening weekend gross
(an impressive $57 million which, while not as large as
"Spider-Man 3", is slightly higher than its predecessor
film and still nothing to sneeze at), we'll probably see
both a third installment for these characters as well as
a spin-off film for the Silver Surfer one of Stan Lee's
most enigmatic and fascinating characters. Packing the story
of the FF, the Surfer and Galactus into a movie that is
less than two hours is quite an accomplishment and the fact
that the story is good with less plot holes than the previous
film is a huge achievement. I'm always in favor of sequels
that improve on the first film in a series without remaking
it and, as such. "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer"
is a fun film that manages to stay true to the spirit of
the original comic book characters and still provide an
hour and a half of diversion.
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