The Power Comic

Somewhat-Fantastic Four rise again in affable "Silver Surfer."  (Film Review)

by Michael Sean McGowan

The Upside: Funnier; better scripted than the original.

The Downside: Still has the sense of a pile of rocks.

    Someone I know described Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer as "three movies in one."  Okay, for a moment let's not ponder how a ninety-two minute tryst that's thinner than the paper stock its namesakes were printed on just barely classifies as one movie and take the statement at face value.  You can say it's the story of a really pissed-off cloud, a romance between two superheroes who really shouldn't have children together ("Timmy!  Stop hitting Sally with that force field!"), and the Earth coming under attack by the love spawn of Tommy Zahn and the Oscars statuette.  You can say all this, or you can take as minimal satisfaction that this sequel and above-par update on Marvel's 2005 critical piñata takes the term "guilty pleasure" and manages to strain a little more of the guilt out but still wears a proud geek badge as a happy little time-waster for those in an undemanding mood.

     Silver Surfer feels like a tighter, leaner beast than the original, which at times resembled a story treatment stretched out to feature length.  It drops back in on its titular quad, four scientists who were given helpfully random superpowers by a mega dose of cosmic radiation (That's right, kids- stand in front of the microwave all you want- it may make you able to fly!).  Now older and apparently none too much wiser given that they're being billed by the city of New York for property damaged during their heroic escapades, the four are thrown into an interplanetary tizzy when Earth gets invaded by the Silver Surfer, a flying hood ornament who acts as a "herald" for a planet-chomping entity known as "Galactus" and speaks in the kind of deadened, philosophical intone that only Laurence Fishburne can do so well.  All of this is happening on the eve of the wedding of the Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba) and the stretchy Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd), an act of matrimony that for those coming in well above the bar of the film's PG rating is likely to produce uncomfortable speculations about the honeymoon (insert your own Mr. Fantastic/Viagra joke here).  So, yes, there is a bit going on here- but don't mistake it for Citizen Kane, don't even mistake it for Spider-Man.  Fantastic Four can't and won't work on any level except as simplistic fodder designed to put a smile on your face and send you out the door.

    The change in pitch is noticeable- director Tim Story still holds on tight to the notion that what he's really making is a comedy with really keen special effects, but gone is about 80% of the first film's moldy cheesiness.  Not that what's in its place elevates to any degree, but pinch-hitting screenwriter Don Payne knows how to blend kinesis and comedy- he's a Simpsons vet and the principal pen behind the superhero spoof My Super Ex-Girlfriend, still on my short list as one of the most underrated movies from last summer.  Having cleared its obligatory hurdles of having to explain the heck out of everything, Silver Surfer gets a little more freedom to breathe while still keeping its lifeboats afloat with fair doses of self-deprecating humor (not one to shun the spotlight, "Human Torch" Johnny Storm gets his costume quilted with sponsor logos a la NASCAR).

    There are people who didn't like the first Fantastic Four and many of them likely won't care for this one too much, but Silver Surfer hits a ticklish sweet spot between somber overburden and over-preened jack-assery that this rapidly expanding universe of comic book adaptations seems to oscillate between.  And don't think this will please everyone.  Besides the nose-in-the-air philistines who are too busy waiting for A Mighty Heart to give it the time of day, Silver's going to run into trouble with the extreme fanboy crowd seeing that Story and Payne take a few licks to Fantastic Four tradition- yes, Galactus is a giant cloud, which in retrospect is a far better idea than having this film climax with a Ghostbusters moment when the Earth is attacked by a hundred-foot dude wearing a get-up you can't find outside Toys R Us.

  Sure, nowhere will you find the dark and serious musings of Batman Begins, but it's always been to the credit of Story that the folksy comedian bend he showed with Babershop radiates through and while Fantastic Four hardly has too many synapses firing at once, it takes its sluggardness with a kind of laid-back ease.  In other words, Silver Surfer doesn't try to bat us over the heads with CGI-rendered "cool" like the phony Ghost Rider.  You'll find superhero movies much better than Fantastic Four, but you'll hardly find them more unassuming. 

    Not much has changed with the cast- it's still fun to see The Shield's Michael Chiklis walk around in a polyurethane rock suit and as the all-brains-but-no-sense Reed Richards Gruffudd at one point gets to deliver a speech that'll have legions of nerds throwing up their Babylon 5 lunch boxes as a call to arms.  Alarmingly, though, Alba, no great shakes the first time around, seems even more (take your pick: constipated or neutered) here, her personality turning invisible long before the rest of her.  And I can't even begin to describe how disheartening it is to see  Andre Braugher, he of five years on NBC's Homicide: Life on the Streets, slumming it out as the Evil Military Person, occasionally looking like he's wondering if an Emmy should have bought him a little more access than to baby-sit the elementary school crowd.  Still, the same dynamics are in play- Chiklis, Evans, Gruffudd, and Alba, even at varying pitches, at least act like they're enjoying this gig.  Last week saw Ocean's 13, another movie with another ensemble who seemed to be having a lot of fun, but decided that the audience wasn't invited.  The only really sour note is Julian McMahon as the unfortunately-named Victor Von Doom, a role throwback that's noticeably shoehorned in embodied in an actor who likes like he can't believe he got a call to come back and participate in this stuff.

    In some ways, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is representative of the kind of brain rot many decry when the weather gets warm.  But I can't help it, like it's predecessor, there's something just too sweetly innocent and eager-to-please about these movies for me not to want to wrap them up in a bow.  I'll take this kind of fun dum-dum parade over the calculated and cynical excess of At World's End any day of the week.  After all, isn't that what summer is supposed to be about... the guilty pleasure that's high on the pleasure?  Saving the world by blissfully killing one brain cell at a time?

    Flame on, guys, flame on.  B

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