‘Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer’
“Fantastic Four” was a movie that did not impress most people. It was corny, pointless, and the only people that did a good job was Johnny “The Human Torch” and Doc Doom. That is why we were hoping that the sequel would be much better. The trailers had us convinced, but what about the movie?
For the sequel, “The Rise of the Silver Surfer,” a new team of writers attempt depth this time around and end up with a movie that, while occasionally funny, is still nonetheless mind-numbingly silly. As the action begins, Egypt is blanketed in snow. Water off the coast of Japan has solidified. Meanwhile, the celebrity-obsessed world is focused on the wedding of Reed Richards, ’Mr Fantastic’ and Sue Storm ‘Invisible Girl’. Their nuptials have been postponed four times because the bride and groom, along with Sue’s impulsive, egotistical brother Johnny ’The Human Torch’ and Ben Grimm ’The Thing’ have had to save the world.
The quartet is soon dealing with paparazzi who literally crash the wedding as well as a mysterious figure that Mr. Fantastic dubs “The Silver Surfer” after Johnny’s description of an encounter with the creature. Fans of the comic book will be happy to know that the origins of the Silver Surfer are faithfully retold. And we do mean retold. Radd tells us he surfs from planet to planet, heralding the apocalypse in exchange for his own home planet being spared.
The Surfer works for a cosmic force he calls Galactus. From what we can tell, he doesn’t seem to think about his job all that much. It’s as if destroying planets is on par with pushing paper at the DMV. And yet it is in his hands that the Earth’s salvation or destruction is placed. His boss Galactus is less of a god than he is sort of like a giant Dyson vacuum with a planet’s gravitational pull. After the Surfer tags a planet, Galactus shows up on the eighth day to consume and destroy it.
What doesn’t make sense are the actions of the U.S. military in the film. Our fantastic foursome are given full background checks and yet the intelligence data on Victor Von Doom is about quite flawed. At times silly and then serious, this “Fantastic Four” is the cinematic equivalent of multiple personality disorder.
As the Human Torch/ Johnny, Evans again stands out with some of the best lines and material. His character thinks nothing of auctioning off exclusive photos of his sister’s wedding and selling ad space on his uniform, and at one point he even hesitates to “flame on” because he’s wearing a designer suit. Johnny might be flashy, loud and shallow, but at least he embraces his quirks.