Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

May 10, 2008

Even my three year old liked the first one better than this one.

Oh, he didn’t say it in so many words, but I could tell that he was bored. He was glued to the couch for the first one, but after about 30 minutes into this one he made his way to the computer desk and started banging away on the keyboard. If I hadn’t been stuck on the couch breastfeeding, I would have taken his place.

My husband, on the other hand, liked it. He likes the Silver Surfer and said that they did an ok job with him. I tried to get him to complain about the film, but he wouldn’t bite. I asked if it was faithful to the comics, he said they did alright. Sometimes, he is no fun at all.

The plot was thin, but even more distracting were the seemingly random special effects. One second, the Human Torch is chasing the Silver Surfer around New York – the next thing I know, they’re zipping past the Washington Monument. The Fuck? Google Maps says that the trip is 229 miles, so I guess that means that they just fly really fucking fast. But then, the Surfer flies straight up into the atmosphere and drops him straight down. Johnny land in Egypt. Huh? The earth doesn’t spin that fast, so I’m assuming that the writers are either retarded or think that I am retarded, not sure which one it is. Later they go from Siberia, across the Great Wall of China to Hong Kong for their final confrontation with Dr. Doom. (No Google Map available for this trip.) That’s fine – they have the “fantasticar” AKA the lame-mobile. But after all is said and done, Rex and Sue go to Japan to get married? Does that make any fucking sense at all? If they’re in such a hurry to get married, why didn’t they just stay in China? I also did not understand how the Silver Surfer flying inside the cloud killed it. Huh?

What the fuck happened to Jessica Alba? She looked like she was wearing Miss Piggy’s wig and blue eyeshadow – absolutely ridiculous. If an actress is going to wear a wig instead of bleaching her hair, she should have the good sense to wear a wig with bangs – the hairline net was more obvious than John Travolta’s.

I did laugh out loud at Brian Posehn cast as the priest. I guess Patton Oswalt was too busy to fill the geeky comic cameo spot?

I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news – a Silver Surfer sequel is coming. The good news – it will be directed by Alex Proyas (The Crow and Dark City), so it might not suck. Maybe the Fantastic Four won’t be in the sequel at all – that would be the best news of all!