The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - A bit like the ‘Human Torch’

The first big screen outing for the ‘Fantastic Four’ hardly set the Box Office alight.  Therefore a lot of people were actually quite surprised when they were afforded a second attempt.  So... did they get it right the second time around?  Well, sort of.  Like my title states – this film is a bit like one of the Four themselves, i.e. hot and cold.

I always felt the first film only really got going in its dying stages.  Both movies are no more than an hour and a half in length and the first one only really sees the Four coming together to fight their nemesis, Dr Doom, in literally the last ten minutes.  So, I was kind of hoping this one would continue the battle most of the way through.  Sadly, it didn’t.  Everything kind of goes back to how it was before – the four heroes bicker among themselves and then have to use their combined powers to save a cat up a tree (or something – I may have made that one up, but you get the idea).

Now, instead of just Dr Doom, we now have three baddies to contend with.  However, none of them really do muc that’s bad throughout the best part of the movie.  We have the Silver Surfer (voiced a bit by Laurence Fishburne) who just kind of flies about a bit and causes power cuts.  Dr Doom is still on the scene, but after the whole of the first film was spent turning him into Dr Doorm, he promptly drops his iron mask and cape and returns to a guy with slightly effeminate eyebrows (who has borrowed Emperor Palpadine’s lightening fingertip powers).  Finally we have Gallactus (I think that’s how you spell it).  In the comics he’s a giant robot who eats planets.  Now he’s a kind of giant puff of smoke who travels through space squeezing worlds (and you only see him in the last quarter of an hour or so).

So, without – what I would call – ‘real’ villains, do the heroes carry the film?  Again, not really.  Ioan Gruffudd may be a decent enough actor (and look the part of Reed Richards), but he’s not really (action) leading man material.  And, if that wasn’t bad enough, the special effects used to extend his limbs always look a bit ropey.  Jessica Alba looks cute, but does little else, Michael Chiklis is probably the best, utilising his decent ‘Thing’ make-up to add weight to his character while Chris Evans kind of just uses these films as a warm-up for his Captain America superhero outing.

I first saw the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer when it came out in 2006.  I have just watched it again in 2015.  Baring that in mind I’d forgotten enough of it to make it okay for a second viewing.  And, if I was bored and fancied something that wasn’t quite up to the ‘Marvel universe’ movies such as Iron Man, Thor and the Avengers, I’d probably watch both Fantastic Four movies again in another nine years.

Kids will probably like it the most.  It does have a couple of good action scenes that gets your blood pumping, but, like the human torch, just when it heats up, it cools down equally as quickly.
Probably better than the first one, but only just.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights