7:49:00 AM | 
Posted by
Anonymous |
Posted by
Anonymous |
Recently the superhero genre has experienced a huge renaissance, thanks to franchise reboots of comic fan favorites like Sam Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy and the Nolan Batman films. Marvel studios has been behind some other fairly successful blockbusters of late, giving us franchises like X-Men, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. But stuck in the midst of all these Marvel successes is the abysmal Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007, Tim Story) which pretty much sucks all the fun out of a potentially thrilling comic universe.
To start, the cast for this film was sub-par to say the least. From the wooden Jessica Alba to the mostly unknown Ioan Gruffudd to the overbearing Chris Evans, this patched together group will never be mistaken for Oscar fare. And if that weren’t bad enough, this movie offers almost zero story; the plot that is put forth is diluted
and downright confusing. The first nearly 40 minutes is just complete fluff, as we’re introduced to the main four(Thing played by Michael Chiklis, Human Torch played by Evans, Alba as the Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic played by Gruffudd) prancing around making jokes even 5 year old children would find immature while the Silver Surfer(voiced by Laurence Fishburne) flies across the worlds’ skies, freezing everything in its path…how or why he’s doing this, is never completely explained. Eventually we find out that this mysterious Silver Surfer is trying to end the world, so of course the completely cliche-ridden, inept government comes to the Fantastic Four for help in tracking down and stopping him.
These sorts of movies are meant to be fun; but this thing was just a chore to sit through. Its budget was over $130,000,000, yet somehow the special effects left a lot to be desired, as most of the CGI and computer graphics seemed bland and dated. The writing really lacked the inherent sense of fun that typically comes with the Marvel universe and mostly relied on cheap ploys and petty uses of the gang’s superpowers to try and pry cheesy laughs out of the audience; which hardly ever worked at all. Even at the movie’s most serious moments, it never lost its over-the-top, comic tone and so we could never take what’s happening on the screen seriously. This thing had more cheesy one-liners than any Arnold movie, which wouldn’t be such a terrible thing if the lines had been delivered with any sense of timing or wit.
Ultimately, this movie didn’t know which direction it wanted to take. It was far too childish to entertain any grown adults, yet way too vague and confusing to capture kids’ attention. But most importantly, it was just plain pointless and boring. I only hope that future superhero films use this as a barometer on how not to do it.
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