Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Still Pretty Fantastic, June 28, 2007
Of all the sequels we've been fed this summer, I have to admit that "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" best meets its expectations. While other major sequels ("Spidey 3" and "Pirates 3") take a decidedly darker tone, "Surfer" kicks up the fun a notch. This should be expected since the previous film and the comic that it is based on is a lot more lighthearted and family-oriented than other films and books of this genre. In "Surfer," director Tim Story isn't tied down to an origin story. He is given free reign of the action in the film and does not let anybody down. All of the original core actors (Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis) have returned (including good ol' Doom, Julian McMahon). The newest addition to this film is the Silver Surfer, the galactic herald of Galactus, a cloud-like being that consumes planets to stay alive. I won't go into comic geek mode, but just know that Galactus is not a cloud in the comics. I do think that the handling of the character in the film, however, is perfect.
When the Surfer arrives on Earth, an Army general (played wonderfully by the underappreciated Andre Braugher) demands that Reed Richards create a sensor to track him and find out what he's doing on Earth. The only problem is that Richards is helping Sue Storm plan their oft-cancelled wedding, Ben Grimm is heating up his relationship with Alicia and Johnny Storm is trying to get sponsorships and girls. It all leads up to the return of Victor Von Doom who gladly offers to assist the military in figuring out what the Surfer is all about.
From there, we are given a healthy dose of light comedy and action in the form of a bickering/normal family trying to battle an old foe and figure out if the new guy is a friend or foe. The special effects, especially those involving the Surfer and Johnny, are wonderful. The only effects miscue that I noticed was with Mr. Fantastic which, honestly, is passable due to the fast-paced and well plotted storyline. Scientific terms fly all over this movie in a fun fashion. Mr. Fantastic steps it up a notch and shows that his confidence is growing. Ben and Johnny are still at each other's throats and Sue is just trying to prevent them from killing each other. It's a fun family-oriented film for the most part.
**Spoiler**
However, there is one part in the film where Dr. Doom has his way with a few military men. One of them is turned into ash. This part of the film made me think that perhaps the MPAA should have edged this flick up to a PG-13 rating. Other than that particular part of the film, everything else is fairly PG-oriented. There's one brief implied nudity scene with Alba. There's also a little bit of strong language but the characters who attract the most attention from kids, Thing and Torch, have very few curse words to throw around. I'm just throwing this bit of info in for parents still pondering on whether or not to take their child to this film. If they're under eight, you might want to preview this film before taking the kiddoes.
**End Spoilers**
Overall, "Rise of the Silver Surfer" is the best sequel of the summer. Is it better than the original film? Only slightly. Is it better than the first two "Spider-man" flicks? Probably not, but this is sort of like comparing apples to oranges. Just rest assured that by viewing "Surfer," you'll be getting an action-packed, fairly family-friendly comic book flick. The interaction between the fantastic foursome alone is worth the price of a movie ticket or, in a few months, a DVD. Highly recommended, especially to families with children who love comics and action film fans.
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14 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
Jessica Alba has a very bad hair day, gets some truly ridiculous dialogue., June 19, 2007
As a child, I was a Fantastic Four fan for about three or four years. Some of the best stories were in the first seven years or so in the life of this comic book, and so I caught just the tail end of all of that. I gave up on the Fantastic Four as the stories got more repetitive and inane, and especially after Jack Kirby's art style mutated, increasingly portraying all of his characters with large square jaws and muscular shoulders, including the women. This looked great on the guys, but made the women look like East German swimmers on steroids. Another of Kirby's unfortunate changes in drawing styles was to give the women huge rinds of awful, unnatural looking hair. Among its many advantages over DC comics, Marvel at that time had some truly gorgeous looking women in its stable (Crystal! Gwen Stacy!), and who can deny that this was one of the reasons that adolescent boys used to read comics? The changes in Jack Kirby's artwork kind of ruined that aspect of Marvel comics for me.
And so, still on this topic of gorgeous looking women, Jessica Alba managed to really shine in the first Fantastic Four movie. Imagine my surprise then when Jessica Alba shows up in the very first scene of this new movie looking like she has been sketched by Jack Kirby, with this thick rind of the most unnatural looking orange colored hair you can imagine. This continued through much of the movie, with only a few scenes where she actually looked good. Her blue contacts were very dark blue this time - since real blue eyes are always light blue or grey blue, but never dark blue, this made her look more like a character out of the "Dune" novels - you know, the dark blue eyes of long term exposure to melange.
OK, so we know that Jessica Alba isn't a real blonde. We know she doesn't have real blue eyes. We know that she's not a melange spice addict. Somehow or another, though, whoever did her hair and make-up in the first Fantastic Four movie managed to get her blonde hair and blue eyes to come out just right, whereas in this movie, Jessica Alba looks AWFUL. Somebody should consult the makers of the movie "Legally Blonde" about how different lighting and different hair colorings affect the look of blonde hair on people who aren't natural blondes.
As for the rest of the movie, yeah, it was OK. The Silver Surfer character was very, very well done, the best part of this movie. Turning Galactus from a giant humanoid god with a ridiculous looking helmet (sort of resembling a bishop's miter with wings/spikes sticking out from the sides) into a giant cloud was a good idea.
Dr. Doom redux was OK. But, how the heck did he manage to bring in all of his Dr. Doom gear when he walks into the secure chamber with General Hagar to steal the Surfboard?
Whoever wrote the nonsensical dialogue between Reed Richards and Sue Storm should be fired. Some of the sight gags with Mr. Fantastic getting crushed like Silly Putty (especially by Sue Storm) were quite funny. The open cockpit jet that the Fantastic Four used was highly unrealistic - if the thing is traveling several hundred miles per hour, the wind speed on the faces of the occupants would have been enough to cause some serious deformation of their facial features.
All in all, a moderately entertaining movie, marred by an uglified Jessica Alba and some bad dialogue writing.
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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
FANTASTIC PICTURE AND SOUND!!!, October 5, 2007
First, the negative reviews below need checking out. The one saying that half of the players won't play it is bogus. It has been determined only two models of Blu-ray players haven't been able to play the movie, not half! Second, the one from Wiggins is obviously a HD-DVD fanatic. Check out his other reviews and you will see he only knocks the two recent Blu-ray titles but gives glowing reviews to anything HD-DVD. It is obvious he doesn't have FF or Day After Tomorrow, that he is just rehashing news to scare away anyone from buying anything Blu-ray. Very immature.
I played the FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer movie last night and it is gorgeous. The story isn't that great, but did we buy Hi-Def for story? No, the visuals make up the story. And, wow, the clarity of the images is something to see, definitely one of the best to come out on Blu-ray. Breathtaking at times in the depth. There is a DTS track, too, which sound phenomenal! Together, audio and video, make a powerful experience.
As to the extras, many of them are also in 1080p, and there are a lot of them. I admit the two games moved a little bit slow, but otherwise okat. (They are nothing special, anyway. One that runs slow is a trivia game, no big deal. The other is a strategy game but you don't do anyting but pick planets in the game.) All the other extras work perfectly. I am sure a firmware uprade will correct the slowness of the games (and HD-DVD fans are jumping all over this, forgetting, however, the HD-DVD machines they have have had to go through firmware upgrade after upgrade after upgrade) (Let he who is without upgrades cast the first stone).
Loading time for the disc is a bit longer than Pirates of the Caribbean, but that's fine, I am in no hurry.
All in all, I would recommended seeing this title.
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