Movie Review: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

I have to start off by saying that I’m not a huge Fantastic Four fan and hence my review could be partially biased. Having said that, let’s get into the gory details of this movie . . .

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer starts off with our heroes finally settled in with their powers and facing a new problem — how to cope being a major celebrity. That’s right, their biggest worry is now how do you deal with the media spotlight. On another front, Sue Storm (Jessica Alba, “Sin City”) and Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffud) are having marriage jitters. The entire first half of the movie is overflowing with these boring, little conundrums. Mother of God, who the fuck cares? I paid for an over-the-top action movie, not some Lifetime, made for television shit.

The second half of the movie introduces us to the Silver Surfer. He’s an interplanetary immortal who randomly roams the universe visiting various planets along the way. What we later find out is there is nothing random to his excursions. He really goes to these planets to prepare them for the destruction by Galactus. Obviously, Earth is next on the list (otherwise this movie wouldn’t have been made). Suffice it to say, the Fantastic Four unravel the mystery of the Silver Surfer and convince him to save Earth instead. I’m not going to go into much detail about how they do it since, quite frankly, I had lost interest in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer by this time. Here’s what I will tell you though, there’s nothing of particular worth for the highlight reels. Standard action film sequences and outcomes.

As I said earlier in this review, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is everything but a super-hero sci-fi/action film. And aside from the extremely slow start, I was wholly dismayed by the use (or should I say lack of use) of the Silver Surfer. He has more of a “if you blink you’ll miss it” role as opposed to being a real nemesis to the Fantastic Four. So much more could have been done with this character. Hell, Doctor Doom from the original “Fantastic Four” was more interesting and he wasn’t interesting.

Another huge letdown for me, and it was the biggest, was Jessica Alba. It pains me to say it but she looked terrible. It seemed as if someone injected massive amounts of fat right in her lips before she got in front of the camera. It also appears that she’s lost a bit of weight which gave me the impression of a scrawny Nicole Richie. My final blow, is she looks so much better with her natural hair color. Blonde, just exacerbated the issues. I’ll hold off, for the moment, from cutting her completely from my fantasies though!

On the more positive side (yes there is one) the graphics were awesome. It is the only portion of the movie that lived up to my expectations. That alone however, is not enough of a reason to shell out your cash to see this movie. You deserve better. I can emphatically say, “there is absolutely nothing fantastic about Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.”