What's Your Hurry?

As one of the few folks out there who believe that the first Fantastic Four film (2005) got an unfair shake from critics and some comic book fans--I was very much looking forward to seeing Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer--especially after watching the last trailer. You can imagine my surprise then, upon leaving the cineplex on Friday, I was left feeling disappointed...




As the film opens Reed, (Ioan Gruffudd) Sue (Jessica Alba), Johnny (Chris Evans), and Ben (Michael Chiklis)--known worldwide as The Fantastic Four--are preparing for Reed and Sue's wedding...The celebration is interrupted, however, by the arrival of the Silver Surfer (Doug Jones, voiced by Laurence Fishburne) who is wreaking havoc across the planet. In order to stop the Surfer the quartet must rely on the aid of the evil Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon), before all hope is lost.

Tim Story, who directed the first one, is once again calling the shots. And while the film has some great moments in storytelling like the whole power switcheroo subplot--frankly there's not enough of them. The great character of The Thing is almost reduced to nothing more than comic relief...Dr. Doom has maybe three scenes of dialogue in a part that's once again--underwritten (more on the script in a sec) Reed and Sue may be finally getting married but that's all that there is to their personal arc. There's no real growth here--Mr. Fantastic is still a nerd and Sue is still the nurturer. I wasn't expecting them to reinvent the wheel--I just wanted more meat on the bone.



As if that's not bad enough, Mark Frost and Don Payne's screenplay also under serves its main attraction: The Silver Surfer. His function as intergalactic herald gets whittled down to a few lines of dialogue--That if, I were not aware of the Surfer's full backstory--might have left me scratching my head. A creation like Surfer deserves better

I'm smart enough to know that there are preliminary plans for the Surfer to go solo at some point. But come on--the climax, like the rest of the film, at a mere 95 minutes in total, is very rushed. Don't even get me started on Galactus...

Kerry Washington returns as Alicia all be it briefly--And the great Andre Braugher appears as General Hager who asks the FF to stop the Surfer...



I know the film needed to be edited for pace but jeebus! FF 2 would have benefited by had borrowing some of the excess that made Spider-Man 3 too long and found its way into this film...