07.18.07
Lee1990 Movie Review - Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer
Surf’s up dude! Even for a comic book movie, this one pushes the silly meter way to high.
For those not familiar with the comic book or the first movie, the Fantasic Four are four astronauts transformed into mutant heroes by exposure to cosmic rays (which should have transformed them into Fantastic mush, but please just suspend disbelief will ya?). They are:
Benjamin J Grimm - The Thing (a nigh indestructible, super-strong rock skinned behemoth).
Reed Richards - Mr. Fantastic (he can stretch himself to unbelievable lengths and shapes (be his fiancee, the Invisible Woman doesn’t mind that).
Sue Storm - The Invisible Woman (played by the oh-so-easy-on-the-eyes Jessica Alba), who can turn invisible and generate force fields.
Johnny Storm - The Human Torch (who is so immature and annoying that you hope he flashes into ash every time he yells “Flame On !!!”).
Introductions made, the plot is as easy on the brain as Ms. Alba is on the eyes. As Reed Richards and Sue Storm prepare for their own high profile celebrity wedding, (featuring an amusing cameo by comic creator Stan Lee as a gatecrasher being thrown out of his own characters’ wedding) a mysterious force approaches the Earth. Its intentions are unknown, but mysterious power failures as well as enormous, football field sized holes keep appearing wherever it goes.
Annoyed by the interruption to the wedding that a visit by this entity causes, the Human Torch takes off after it as soon as it appears. To his shock when he closes with it, he discovers it appears to be a muscular silver guy in a speedo flying around on a cosmic silver surfboard (this character must have been thought up in the Sixties, and Stan Lee must have been smoking something when he did.)
Exposure to the surfer dude causes the Human Torch to have the ability to swap powers with the other members of his team, causing a few half-amusing moments, and providing a vehicle for Ms. Alba to be relieved of her clothes in a comic manner that preserves the film’s rating.
The plot proceeds along a fairly predictable course to its predictable conclusion. I will not give more away in case anyone still wants to see the movie now that it is fading away in theaters. But take my advice on this one, it’s a renter.
4 of 10.
