Fantastic Four: Rise in Stan Lee's Finances

Rating: 4/10 (16 June 2007)

I've just been to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and I have to say I wasn't disappointed. You mustn't mistake my lack of disappointment as a praise of the movie, but instead understand that going in my expectations were so low that a movie sponsored by Orange would have got a sympathetic review.
As might be suggested by the title, there is a new student in the class of poor Marvel movies, the Silver Surfer. Because the Surfer's powers are so extensive his debut appears could not be in a film all of his own due to budget constraints, so he was thrown in with the Fantastic Four. And I'm sure few people will be surprised when the man so subtly named Victor Von Doom reappears and, yes you guessed it, pretends to be good for a while before turning on our heroes.
The cast is largely the same as the original with a few small changes, the most obvious being the added characters of General Hagar and the Silver Surfer. The Sufer's body is played by Doug Jones (Abe Sapien from Hellboy) and his voice by Laurence Fishburne. One might assume Fishburne has misplaced his body as this is the second movie this year in which he appears (or doesn't as the case may be) only as a voice. In terms of acting the original Four seem to have stayed on consistently poor form with the exception of Jessica Alba. This is a surprising turnaround for two reasons. Firstly the amount of Pseudo-Science jargon and unrealistic events increases exponentially with each lingering second. Secondly, she doesn't need to act at all to get the part in this movie or the next.
Speaking of which the film is left open for a sequel (unfortunately for the audience the World did not end during this one) and I would like to suggest the title The Fantastic Four 3: A Steaming Pile of Dog Turd. This movie is more predictable than a fight between Woody Allen and the Ask a Ninja Ninja so I am giving it 4 shiny spacemen out of 10.