‘Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer’ Is a Good Sequel, Damn It!

Marvel’s “First Family” has never received a cinematic adaptation worthy of the characters’ storied history on the pages. The infamous low-budget Roger Corman film from 1994 was produced purely to ensure that Constantin Film could retain the rights, and was still never officially released. There are high hopes for the upcoming MCU reboot, which is set to star Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn. That anticipation was heightened by the announcement that Julia Garner would be playing Silver Surfer. Nonetheless, it’s hard not to feel like Fantastic Four is a cursed franchise.

The Fantastic Four film that finally did hit theaters in 2005 by director Tim Story was a big disappointment, and distinctly out of touch compared to the recent advances in Marvel adaptations such as Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films and Bryan Singer’s X-Men saga. Marvel’s pro-science team of heroes trotted through a melodramatic rom-com that focused more on celebrity culture than it did action, intrigue, or science fiction. Worst of all, Fantastic Four was painfully dull. Most of the 106 minutes are spent explaining how each of the heroes’ powers work through awkward comedy beats, only uniting them for an underwhelming final set piece where the comically silly Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon) is dispatched in a matter of minutes. The 2007 sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer debuted to disappointing box office returns and critical reception halted plans for a third installment and spin-off. Although the reception was nearly identical, Rise of the Silver Surferis a lot better than you remember.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

The Fantastic Four learn that they aren’t the only super-powered beings in the universe when they square off against the powerful Silver Surfer and the planet-eating Galactus.

Release Date

June 13, 2007

Runtime

92 Minutes

Writers

Don Payne , Mark Frost , John Turman , Stan Lee , Jack Kirby

Tagline

RISE

Website

‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’ Leans Into Its Strengths

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer benefits from having a much tighter and more focused story compared to its predecessor. The characters that worked were given more pivotal roles, and the gleeful comic idiocy was a vast improvement over the dull love story that dominated the first film. While certainly not the definitive depiction of the beloved characters, Rise of the Silver Surfer is a legitimate example of the filmmaker and studio attempting to rectify their past mistakes. Even the most venomous critics of the first film tended to agree that Chris Evans’s Johnny Storm and Michael Chiklis’s Ben Grimm had elevated the material. Evans was simply having a blast chewing the scenery as a literal hothead, and Chiklis brought a surprising sensitivity to The Thing despite the ridiculous makeup. Rise of the Silver Surfer benefits from giving both characters beefed-up roles. Johnny takes center stage in the early action encounters with the Silver Surfer, which temporarily grants him the ability to transfer his powers. While goofy, these scenes retain the fun banter between the characters that was central to Jack Kirby’s original books.

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Chiklis continues to deliver a great performance as Ben Grimm. He had been put in an unfortunate position in the first film, as his attempts to explore the reality of Grimm’s body’s distortion were done in earnest. Unfortunately, Chiklis was weighed down by the terrible makeup and forced altercations with Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba). In Rise of the Silver Surfer, Grimm is mostly now a joke machine, taking pictures with smiling kids and leaning into his public persona. Chiklis seemed to realize that his dramatic prowess was better saved for the final season of The Shield, and both he and Evans revel in the fun of being superheroes. Still, Grimm’s hoisting of the London Eye makes for a genuine moment of heroism where he earns the popularity that he’s had so much fun basking in.

Gruffudd does a much better job at fleshing out Reed’s internal turmoil than he did in the film’s predecessor. Rather than depicting Reed as a lovesick heartthrob, he shows a genuine passion for developing geeky tech, and the surprise reveal of the Fantasticar was a fun twist that the film’s marketing had kept secret, a rarity for pre-MCU Marvel films. Reed also steps up as the team leader with more dominance, squaring off against Andre Braugher’s General Hager and his militaristic approach to the galactic threat.

The Silver Surfer Raises the Stakes

The Silver Surfer is by far the best part of the film. Laurence Fishburne’s booming voice fits the character’s isolated nature. Doug Jones delivers his typically excellent performance capture work as the slick, austere alien creature forced to wreak destruction by Galactus. 2007’s visual effects certainly pale in comparison to today’s visuals, but the design of the Surfer is comic-accurate, and more importantly, he adds actual world-ending stakes. The first film’s Victor Von Doom was simply a petty romantic rival to Reed.

Doom is far better utilized in the sequel, as Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was unafraid to deal with the character’s inherent campiness. The notion of Doom as a purely evil villain is what separates him from other Fantastic Four villains. When he does show back up, the idea that the U.S. Government would actually team up with the crazed scientist that just tried to destroy a city wearing a Party City facemask is ridiculous children’s logic lifted straight from the panels of the original comics. Stan Lee’s initial concept of Doom was a power-hungry perfectionist intent on ruling the world, and like Chiklis, McMahon leans more into campiness this time around. When he ends up betraying Hager and attempts to steal the Surfer’s board, it’s essentially played for laughs.

‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’ Has Better Action

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer benefits from stronger action sequences that reflect the franchise’s comic book origins. The first film didn’t unite the Fantastic Four themselves until the closing sequence, but by the time of Rise of the Silver Surfer, they’d grown into their team dynamic. After a fun opening where Surfer’s devastation wreaks havoc on Reed and Sue’s wedding, the presence of the Surfer gives a more consistent threat compared to the laborious time dedicated to explaining Doom’s backstory. The New York showdown in the first film was a lot of standing around, but in Rise of the Silver Surfer, they’re able to zip around and use their powers more creatively. At this point, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is the best Fantastic Four movie to date. That’s no high bar to cross considering the rocky road to production the franchise has suffered from, but the film embraces a cartoonish absurdity absent from the origin stories.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is available to watch on Disney+ in the U.S.

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