Review of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) by Mark L — 18 Jun 2017

The Fantastic Four is one of the coolest, most recognizable superhero teams in existence, so choosing the group for a series of movies seems like a no-brainer, right? All they'd need to do is bring in a decent cast including a couple young stars and make sure the effects look anything but cheesy. The first Fantastic Four (2005) - detailing the group's (along with the villain's) origin - was a little slow, as origin stories can be. The action looked good, and Chris Evans entertained as Johnny Storm/the Human Torch.

The movie showed us the franchise's potential and made money, so they were given another shot.

Two years later, we get the aforementioned sequel. It ends up being what I can only describe as a 93-minute mess of story arc mashups. They hadn't quite closed the book on Doctor Doom. They decided to add the Silver Surfer and Galactus to the fray. Kerry Washington's Alicia Masters had her story squeezed into the first film and she just kind of hung around in this one. The Fantasticar showed up, but definitely should've been redesigned. Oh, and there's a wedding.

Many fans, myself included, were more than excited to see the Silver Surfer's film incarnation, prior to its release. We did not get what we had hoped for. He was... silver. Cool. He was voiced by Laurence Fishburne for some reason? The board is the source of his power, and taking it renders him powerless. Umm, ok. He flew around mixing up the heroes' abilities and giving Doom even more strength, mistakenly. What? They never clearly state what the Surfer is capable of so they just make him able to do everything, whether it be on purpose or by accident. Apparently, no one cared to understand how the Silver Surfer works. The big fight ends with a game of intergalactic chicken, more or less. It was infuriating.