Superhero Media: Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer

Ok, so this one took so long because my DVD copy of Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer was corrupted and I wanted to finish up some other stuff on Disney+ before I forced myself through this again. Much like the previous film, Rise of the Silver Surfer has an excellent cast, now expanded with Doug Jones, Laurence Fishburne and Andre Braugher, but fails to do anything interesting with the embarrassment of riches available. Unlike the later, and much worse, Fant4stic, the crew of Rise of the Silver Surfer seem to have at least read some FF comics, as elements like the Fantasticar are present, as well as lines lifted directly from classic and newer comics. I don't believe that the cast and crew didn't care about the material, or not want to make a good film, I just think it fell apart with a few poor choices, and no, not just making Galactus a cloud for some reason. 

Actually, Galactus being a cloud is not my major bugbear with Rise of the Silver Surfer; I'll admit that it's dumb, but I can see how a studio ended up there by not wanting to have the giant purple guy on-screen. My take has always been that the cloud is just hiding Galactus' ship, and we get a glimpse in the climax, rather than the cloud actually being Galactus, but that's me. Doom is back, and up to his tricks in attempting to steal the power of the Silver Surfer, one of his more memorable Silver Age jaunts, but most of the story is sidelined for Reed and Sue having wedding jitters, because that's less expensive to film. If the adaptation of Fantastic Four was a television series rather than a motion picture, this approach to the family drama would actually be pretty good, especially with the smaller moments like Ben and Johnny talking about how they want to ride out the end of the world, but here it just reads as padding for the most part. 

All in, Rise of the Silver Surfer was a fun watch, in the same way the Ang Lee Hulk is fun; it's not the best, but there's enough there for me to enjoy that I don't feel my time has been wasted. Sometimes a crummy but fun film is just what you want for a slow afternoon, and, for all its flaws, Rise of the Silver Surfer is at least competently acted and reasonably funny. Doctor Doom may be a pale imitation of the real thing, but he still does Doom things and chews the scenery like a pro. Until we get the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the Fantastic Four, this is likely to be the second best live action film featuring the characters, so my advice is to enjoy it for what it is, rather than waste time pointlessly wishing it was something else. Hell, pop this in halfway through your latest Brooklyn 99 re-watch for a bit of a laugh if that's what it takes. And maybe just bite on a belt or something when the Galactus cloud is on the screen?