TNMC

I can't say that I was a big fan of the previous Fantastic Four movie but despite that I was still fairly gung ho to see the sequel.  The reason?  Very simply, I always dug the Silver Surfer/Galactus story. The bad news on that is that Galactus is never really shown in the movie.  Instead of the familiar giant with the funky headgear, we get a giant dust cloud with the occasional hinted shape of Galactus, but that's it.  Phooey.

That last paragraph is of course completely useless to anyone not actually familiar with the Fantastic Four comic.  The rest of you know what I'm talking about, so nothing further needs to be said.  The uninformed get the following recap of the story.  In the movie, the Fantastic Four have become wildly famous for their adventures and hideously rich on Reed Richards' inventions and Johnny Storm's relentless marketing of their images.  Life is good.  Reed and Sue are preparing to get married in a blitz of publicity that would make Paris Hilton jealous.  Unfortunately, the festivities are interrupted by the appearance of a visitor from space.  Streaking into the atmosphere, wreaking havoc in his wake is the Silver Surfer.  The name is appropriate, as he looks chromed head to toe and rides a surfboard.  Johnny Storm (aka The Human Torch) gives chase in the movie's single best sequence, a magnificent pursuit that ranges from New York City to DC and into the upper atmosphere, where Johnny flames out.  Great stuff.

Sadly, most of the movie doesn't match up.  Like the first movie, Rise of the Silver Surfer (Why rise exactly?  He arrives already powerful and from the sky, neither of which indicates rising.) is a special effects extravaganza where characters are secondary to the action.  What passes for character development is skin deep at best and included at regular intervals, as if someone involved wrote a note insisting that such stuff be included every ten minutes or so to keep those snotty critics happy.  As a result of such haphazard efforts, it becomes difficult to ever really care what happens to these characters.  As a comic book reader from way back, I easily recognized the important beats in these characters' lives but that's all they are, just a quick beat on the way to the next flashy effects sequence.

The cast is a fairly uneven one.  As in the previous film, Ioan Gruffud and Jessica Alba are much too pretty and light weight to give their characters any real gravity.  They don't really have much chemistry together, which just aggravates things.  Also, and this is real nitpicking, Alba just looks odd as a blue-eyed blond.  It just doesn't match her complexion.  Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis on the other hand are well matched to their characters and bring them credibly to life.  Sadly, these two are treated as the less important members of the team and thus get less screen time.  Similarly, it's sad to see the talented Kerry Washington getting so little to do with what should be an interesting character.  Julian McMahon returns as Victor von Doom.  Thankfully, the part is far better written than in the first movie and McMahon redeems himself a bit with the stronger material.  Comic fans howled with indignation at the first movie reducing one of Marvel's greatest villains to a whiny brat.  This time he is much closer to the megalomaniac we love to hate.

As for the special effects, they are top notch.  The Surfer in particular stands out as a gracefully rendered creation.  Things are pretty much always better when he's aroound.

The DVD which arrives tomorrow is a well stocked double disc package.  The first disc is the movie with a pair of commentary tracks.  One features director Tim Story and the other a variety of crew like the producer Ari Avad and the writer.  Disc two includes deleted scenes and a host of documentaries.  One is a lengthy talk about the origin of the Silver Surfer in the comics and the evolution of the character over the years.  The major writers for the character all chime in with their take on the Surfer.  The rest of the docs are about the making of the movie.  If you are like me and fascinated with how movies are made, this is a very nice batch of material.  One long documentary follows the director around through pre-production, shooting and post production.  It offers no commentary on what is happening, instead just following along and observing how it all comes together.  There are also docs about make-up, the Surfer and the Fantasti-Car.

So the movie is merely okay, with a few great effects sequences.  The DVD is well loaded with material and particularly of interest to people with a real interest in film making.

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