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

Time: 92 Minutes
Age Rating: Contains low level violence.
Cast:
Ioan Gruffudd as Dr. Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic
Jessica Alba as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman
Chris Evans as Johnny Storm/Human Torch
Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm/The Thing
Doug Jones as Norrin Radd/Silver Surfer
Laurence Fishburne as the voice of the Silver Surfer
Julian McMahon as Dr. Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom
Kerry Washington as Alicia Masters
Beau Garrett as Captain Frankie Raye
Vanessa Minnillo as Julie Angel
Andre Braugher as General Hager
Director: Tim Story

Reed (Ioan Gruffudd), Susan (Jessica Alba), Johnny (Chris Evans) and Ben (Michael Chiklis) face an intergalactic messenger who has arrived to prepare Earth for its destruction. While the enigmatic being wreaks havoc around the world, the heroic quartet must also contend with the unexpected return of their enemy, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon).

Fantastic Four was not a hit critically so it was a surprise that a couple years later a sequel would come out. When it comes to this movie as a sequel, some see it as an improvement, others see it as a step down, I’m personally in the latter category. Not only did the sequel not improve many of the aspects, it made even more mistakes. The first half is borderline atrocious and the second half is mildly enjoyable but still not good. I’m surprised that they managed to make a worse Fantastic Four movie since the original.

The first half of the movie is absolutely terrible. It focuses on uninteresting aspects, especially around the wedding of Reed and Sue. This first half could pretty much be titled First World Superhero Problems: The Motion Picture or Keeping up with the Fantastics. This sequence was so uninteresting and annoying, it was such a pain to sit through. It’s difficult to care about the characters, which makes it worse. Also the very cheesy moments in the first film, there’s more of that here. There is a dance scene involving Reed Richards and it is worse than the dancing scene in Spiderman 3. I will say that the second half of the movie is better, still not good though. The second half has a lot more action (the action in this movie being okay). However there are still a lot of aspects of this film which are terrible. Galactus is a cloud (which really isn’t accurate to the comics at all). To make matters worse, both the Silver Surfer and Galactus aren’t really the main villains in the final act, it’s Doctor Doom again.

The acting is about as good/bad as the previous movie. Ioan Gruffudd is fine but unmemorable and boring, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis were some of the best parts of the film and Jessica Alba was…. yet again Jessica Alba (still the biggest miscasting I’ve seen in a comic book movie). In all fairness, Julian McMahon as Victor von Doom is actually pretty good casting. The writing was bad for the character and from what I can tell, is nothing like the comic book character. The best part of the film is the Silver Surfer with Doug Jones playing him and Laurence Fishburne providing the voice. It’s not accurate to the comics but he definitely made an impression in the movie.

The special effects of Rise of the Silver Surfer aren’t as bad as the effects in the previous movie but they still aren’t good either. The fire effects and shield effects for Johnny Storm and Sue Storm were good enough. Reed Richards’s stretch ability were better than in the previous movie. The Silver Surfer visual effects were pretty good. As I said, the last half of the movie is better and is more enjoyable as it has a lot more action and it is entertaining enough to watch, even if it isn’t great. The music is fine.

I know that Fant4stic gets a lot more criticism but I find Rise of the Silver Surfer to be the worst Fantastic Four movie. This is a sequel, and Fox and Tim Story should’ve learned from the previous movie. This film made many of the main mistakes that the first film made. What we get instead was a film with an awful first half surrounding a wedding and was just completely annoying, the second half while enjoyable wasn’t anything special. Overall this movie was just terrible, and is for me the worst Fantastic Four movie.

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Fantastic Four (2005)

Time: 106 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
Jessica Alba as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman
Chris Evans as Johnny Storm/Human Torch
Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm/The Thing
Julian McMahon as Dr. Victor von Doom/Doctor Doom
Kerry Washington as Alicia Masters
Director: Tim Story

Four astronauts have their lives changed forever, when they end up being hit by a cloud of cosmic radiation. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) now has the ability to stretch his body like elastic. Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) is now the invisible woman. Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) becomes the human touch and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) becomes the ‘Thing’, a man made out of rock. But there is one problem. The journey’s sponsor, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) has also been affected and with full power, is a dangerous force which needs to be stopped, before it’s too late.

After hearing about how bad the latest Fantastic Four movie was, I decided to check out the first attempt at a Fantastic Four movie. Fantastic Four came out in a time when superhero movies were trying to be good with Batman Begins, X-Men and Spiderman, so naturally this wasn’t appreciated upon its release. While I don’t think it’s a horrible movie, Fantastic Four is not by any means a good movie. It has two dimensional characters, not much of the Fantastic Four doing anything and the cheesy tone which really worked against the movie.

The worst part about Fantastic Four is that they don’t do much with their powers. There’s one incident (which was caused by them) which had them save people and then there’s a fight with Doom at the end, that’s it. The rest of the time they are just dicking around with their powers. There’s so many opportunities for the Four to do stuff but they never do much of value. This is also a lighter hearted comic book movie, which I’m not against, Guardians of the Galaxy is one of my favourite Marvel movies. But the jokes are so cheesy and sometimes terrible and works against the film significantly.

The acting wasn’t great and the worst part is that all the characters felt two dimensional. Ioan Gruffudd in this movie was very bland and didn’t leave much of an impression. The worst casting for me though was Jessica Alba as Sue Storm. I think this might be the worst casting in a Marvel movie, even though Alba looks the part, she’s supposed to be playing a scientist, and there’s no moment where she reflected that. Also she and Gruffudd share no chemistry whatsoever, despite there being a ‘romance’. I will say that Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans are actually well suited for their roles and do fine with what they have. From what I hear, Victor Von Doom in this movie is not comic book accurate but he even fails as a villain on his own. He is such a cliché villain and by the end, you are left wondering what Victor’s plan was, the film forgot to give a reason for him to be a villain.

The effects can be pretty goofy, Human Torch’s flames and Invisible Woman’s shields have pretty fake CGI but Reed Richards’ stretch powers is some of the most cringe worthy effects I’ve seen in a superhero movie. To be fair though I don’t know how it’s possible to show it on screen without it being silly. The Thing is shown by using a body suit, which wasn’t the best option. I know that if they went with CGI they would make him look terrible but still, he looks like something out of a B movie.

I can’t say that there isn’t any enjoyment in the movie, when the action is on screen, it is entertaining, if badly done and fake looking. I also don’t hate this movie as much as everyone else but it’s not a good movie either. The effects are terrible, the humour is annoying and there isn’t enough of the Fantastic Four actually doing anything. I’ll have to check out its sequel and the reboot but I hope that they aren’t worse than this film.

Sin City (2005)

Time: 124 Minutes
Age Rating: Graphic violence
Director: Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller
Cast:
Mickey Rourke as Marv
Clive Owen as Dwight
Bruce Willis as Hartigan
Jessica Alba as Nancy Callahan
Benicio Del Toro as Jackie Boy
Brittany Murphy as Shellie
Elijah Wood as Kevin

Three tales of crime adapted from Frank Miller’s popular comics which focuses around Marv (Mickey Rourke), a muscular brute who’s looking for the person responsible for the death of his true love, Goldie; Dwight (Clive Owen), a man fed up with Sin City’s corrupt law enforcement who takes the law into his own hands after a mistake and Hartigan (Bruce Willis), a cop who risks his life to protect a girl (Jessica Alba) from a deformed pedophile.

This is the only comic book movie that has been translated from the graphic novel to the big screen. As someone who read the graphic novels (in preparation for my viewing of the movie) I am blown away at what Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller managed to do with this movie. Robert Rodriguez was the perfect director for this movie, managing to create an film adaptation that every Sin City fan will enjoy.

The first thing you need to know about this film is that it does have an unusual structure. It mostly focuses on three stories and it shows one story at a time but isn’t necessarily placed in chronological order; chronologically they are happening around the same time. Some of the characters like Marv aren’t just in one story, and may make an appearance in another. All of the dialogue and some of the pictures drawn in the graphic novel are in the film. In many ways, this is the first movie based on a source material that didn’t really need to be adapted; it was just put on film. It was like they scanned the pages of the graphic novels onto the big screen. There is also a guest director appearance from Quentin Tarantino, directing a great scene between Clive Owen and Benicio Del Toro.

The actors in this movie successfully embody the characters they play. Sin City has a huge cast; with actors like Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Benicio Del Toro and many others. Like I said earlier, the dialogue from the characters in the graphic novels are the dialogue here, and each actor delivers the lines just as I imagine the characters would. Everyone here is good and all of the actors seem to be the characters, just as if they have been taken from the comics.

One of the best things and stand outs about Sin City is its style. The graphic novels have a black and white “noir” look about it. Not everything is black and white, sometimes some things in the movie actually have colour, such as a red dress or golden hair. The violence in this movie is also stylized – most of the blood seen is white and only in some cases is red. This stylistic approach to a comic book adaptation is a first of its kind. This film can have a lot of engrossing investing moments, especially with some scenes where there isn’t dialogue and it allows viewers to take in the giant scale of the locations. This also means the action is filmed very well, and this fact isn’t surprising as this comes from action director Robert Rodriguez. The score mostly composed by Robert Rodriguez is also great and really adds to the atmosphere.

Anyone who has read the graphic novels will be very satisfied with this movie. This is my favourite movie by Robert Rodriguez and it is hard imagining him outdoing this movie with the upcoming sequel: Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For but I’m still excited to see what he brings to it. As for this movie, the style, the performances, and just the tone and mood make it great. I don’t know if people who haven’t read the comics will like it as much due to the different structure but in my opinion, this film is one of the best comic book ‘adaptations’ that I’ve seen.