Rise of Surfer, Fall of Man (or What the ... ?)
Written: Jun 15 '07
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Silver Surfer and Human Torch are very cool! Some good special effects.
Cons: Desecration of Pop Culture Icons!
The Bottom Line: Forget the film! Watch the trailer (best parts of the film) and then visit your local comic book store and ask them to recommend a good FF graphic novel!
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| BobLeep1's Full Review: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer |
Desecrated. That's the first word that comes to mind as I attempt to describe what Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has done to the 45 year old pop culture icons, the Fantastic Four. So, so, sad.
The best thing I could say about the first FF movie was that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I had high hopes that the second time around, now that they had made some money, they'd give it a better shot. Lesson learned: Don't put your faith in Hollywood!
Upfront (and as you can probably guess), I'm as big of a movie nerd as I am a comic book geek. In other words, I'm one of those guys that actually takes movies like this seriously and I expect the director, actors, producers and everyone involved to take the film as seriously as I do. What the heck, they're even being paid for it!
It's movies like this that give people who love comics a bad name. The uninformed will leave the theater asking themselves how anyone could be "into" this (insert fecal matter here). It's embarrassing! Pick up a comic book and read it will you? The FF comics and this film have almost nothing in common!
Silly movies about superheroes running around in tights don't HAVE to be bad (i.e. Superman, Batman, Spider-man). "Barbershop" director Tim Story has simply made a very (VERY) bad film here and should probably stick to what he knows, uhh... barbershops I guess. The acting is uninspired, the writing is horrible, and the special effects run from pretty darn good (if you've seen the trailer then you've seen the best of it) to terrible to just too dark to tell.
With the right direction, script, and effort, Jessica Alba could actually do a decent job as the Invisible Woman. Unfortunately, none of that happened here. She is so bad I found myself wishing she spent more time invisible, and considering how easy she is to look at, that's pretty bad.
Julian McMahon does an okay job as Dr. Doom, but (not his fault) the Doom character in the films is not the character from the comics. Imagine Indiana Jones remade as a Russian taxidermist and that's how far the film's Doom is from the comic's Doom. I could live with that if it worked, but it doesn't.
Ioan Gruffudd (Mr. Fantastic) and Michael Chiklis (The Thing) are adequate for their roles, there problems (again) lie in poor writing, direction, and special effects. Anyone looking for the Thing to perform some kind of heroic feat of strength will have to settle for him growling at a bear. Yes, really!
There is not much good to be said about this movie, but the Silver Surfer (Doug Jones (Abe Sapien from Hellboy)) and the Human Torch (Chris Evans) not only save the world in the film, but save this movie from being a complete and utter disaster. As much as I hated this movie, I have to admit the Surfer WAS pretty cool! But what happened to Galactus? A cloud...? What the...?
The movie studios (and Marvel for that matter - now producing their own films) have learned that they can expend very little effort in regards to producing a product and still manage to make millions in profits. They obviously have no qualms about humiliating their fan base. This does not fair well for the moving going public, and it will all catch up to them eventually. Just don't blame it on the source material (the comics), blame it on yourself. Contrary to Gordon Gekko (Wall Street), greed is NOT good!
Recommended:
No
Movie Mood: None of the Above Viewing Method: Other Film Completeness: Looked complete to me. Worst Part of this Film: Script
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Epinions.com ID: BobLeep1
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Location: Arizona
Reviews written: 138
Trusted by: 10 members
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