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This is Why Real Surfers Get Stoned
By bukkhead | November 2, 2007
FILM REVIEW: ‘FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER’
Written by Don Payne and Mark Frost
Directed by Tim Story
Rated PG
92 mins.
You wanna like Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, because it’s based on a comic book, and it cost 130 million to make, and it has Jessica Alba in it. But then, other comic book adaptations weren’t this bad. And what the heck did they spend all of that money on. And why is it necessary to give Jessica the worse dye job in the history of hair, and make-up so poorly done she ends up looking like a plastic doll? The questions pound at you, and if you’re lucky, you get a touch of indigestion from the popcorn and have something else to think about once the movie’s over.
Plot synopsis? Sure, okay: there’s this thing that eats planets and Earth is next. The FF have to fight it, and fight their own struggles with being famous superheroes. There you go. If you want nuance, read the comics themselves.
Actually, simplistic plots are fine, if there’s something good hanging on them. Like character development? No, what passes for development in this film is Jessica Alba being mad, and then understanding, and then mad, and then understanding. There’s no reason for this flip-flop, except that it makes the script writing easier, I guess. So how about dialogue? Sorry, no. I have to believe that translating this one into Chinese and back into English would make the dialogue less cheesy and predictable, somehow.
Everything in this movie is predictable. Everything. Every line, every movement. Uh oh, something is going to go wrong at the wedding scene. Uh oh, Jonny Storm will have difficulty tangling with the Surfer. Uh oh, it’s Victor Von Doom. Hollywood has finally decided that script writing is a job for interns, each of whom has read the manual on how to program a script-editing application to include ever plot-twist cliché from the last 25 years of film.
Directing, as well, is something you can do via cell phone and PDA, apparently. Someone should send a note to Tim Story: special effects are no longer special, and you need to be in charge of those too. And if you were involved, then, quite using them as a crutch. Effects should be used to convince, not to impress. Nothing in this movie was impressive, and nothing was convincing.
And talk about sloppy- there were some many factual errors, suspension of disbelief involves devolving to a second-grade education. Ostensibly this movie is aimed at comic book fans: these are the guys who live to find errors like this. It’s almost as if you were trying to make them mad.
Most satisfying moment? Stan Lee’s cameo. Otherwise, this film fails because it won’t even use the assets it has. 130 million, like I said. Julian McMahon is a much better actor than this. Give him a scalpel—hell, give him Alyssa Milano to play with again. Jessica Alba? Even Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez knew enough to put her on a table in a strip club and make her dance.
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