With an AVC transfer at 27mbps, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer looks terrific
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Well, I finally got around to installing the firmware upgrade that we reported would solve the problem of this disc and other Fox titles with BD+ copyright protection not playing in certain Samsung and LG players--among them MY Blu-ray player. And just as Senior Vice President of Corporate & Marketing Communications Steven Feldstein said, with a firmware upgrade this disc plays beautifully.
It takes a little longer to load, but once it does, "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" looks so good that you're willing to forgive the extra seconds and just enjoy the film at hand, which is a big improvement over the first "Fantastic Four" and a fitting tribute to the original Marvel comic-book anti-hero/hero.
When Jack Kirby and Stan Lee introduced the Silver Surfer to Fantastic Four fans in Fantastic Four #48, (March 1966), what a stroke of genius it was!
On the pop charts, the Beach Boys scored in the early Sixties with "Surfin'," "Surfin' Safari," and "Surfin' U.S.A.," while Jan & Dean's "Surf City" topped the charts in 1963. In the movies, "Ride the Wild Surf"(1964) showed Fabian and Shelley Fabares in Hawaii trying to catch a wave, while in 1965 the fifth beach party film starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon was released. By the mid-Sixties, surfing was a bona-fide CRAZE, and with LSD just starting to make the scene, what better comic book character to introduce than a cosmic surfer? No wonder he was so popular with high school and college students. As Brian Wilson and Mike Love wrote, "Catch a wave and you're sittin' on top of the world!"
Except that the view's not so pretty if you're the Silver Surfer, who's really a decent fellow named Norrin Radd-a name obviously derived from the then-popular surfer's expression, "rad" (as in, short for "radical"). Radd was an astronomer on the planet Zenn-La who made a bargain with a cosmic force named Galactus. The all-powerful galactic giant needed to "eat" planets and feed off their energy in order to survive, so to save his own planet, Radd pledged to serve as Galactus' herald, scouting out new worlds for the Voracious One to devour. Naturally, when he comes to Earth, he encounters the Fantastic Four . . . and not only does he find powers who can keep pace with him, but he also finds caring superheroes who help him learn what's important.
While no one will ever compare "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" to "Spider-Man 2" or any of the other superhero benchmarks, it's a Galactus-sized improvement over the first "Fantastic Four" film and a solid entry in the ever-expanding comics-to-film genre. The CGI effects are better, the visual design is stronger, and there's just enough humor to remind us not to take any of this too seriously. It is, after all, a comic book, albeit a cosmic one.
I had three gripes about the first film. For a comic-book adaptation, there wasn't enough action, the tone seemed off, and the stars weren't charismatic enough to make their characters distinctive or real. It was a film that entertained in spite of itself. Well, I was glad to see that there's been progress on all fronts . . . though there's still work to be done for the third installment.
The CGI effects are greatly improved. There were a few continuity problems in the first film, and "Rise of the Silver Surfer" is much more fluid. Some of the effects will make you smile the way you did when you first turned those comic-book pages. Compare the look of the Silver Surfer (voiced by Laurence Fishburne) with the comic-book version--the one that Lee and Kirby gave us in a later origin tale--and the resemblance is uncanny. The effects of the Surfer pooling like mercury or liquifying as he tries to evade the Human Torch (Chris Evans again, as Johnny Storm) are pretty impressive. The Thing (Michael Chiklis) looks more natural this outing, and it's also worth mentioning that there are equally strong moments when Johnny, after an encounter with the Surfer, ends up forcing a power switch every time he touches another member of the Fab Four. There's nothing in these "quick changes" that looks fabricated or herky-jerky. Even in the big scene involving the London Eye, everything is fluid.
As for the action, I suspected that once director Tim Story extricated himself from the initial origin tale that he wouldn't bog down in another one, and that's certainly the case. Story spreads the explanation of the Silver Surfer's origin over the course of the film, and that allows the action to take center stage. The film gets off to a fast start with a tribute to Japanese monster pics by having the Silver Surfer first streak past a Japanese fishing boat, leaving the entire bay suddenly solidified. Flying past the Sphinx at Giza he turns that arid area into a frozen wasteland, and zipping past New York City he conks out all the lights and electronics. So General Hager (Andre Braugher) and his attaches seek out Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd). They want him to devise a tracking device that can pinpoint the source of the cosmic disturbances. But Reed, like "The Absent-Minded Professor," is trying to remember to focus his attention on an upcoming wedding with The Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba again as Sue Storm). He initially turns them down, but then decides to secretly help them.
The wedding provides both comic relief and a way for filmmakers to tell the story of how popular the Fab Four have become on Earth. The other way, which is even more comic, is a running gag about Johnny embracing sponsors and bringing new Fab Four products to the gang's attention. Hardcore FF fans are going to think that Story went a little overboard on the comic elements and the wedding bit, but overall "Rise of the Silver Surfer" seems tonally closer to the comics than the first installment.
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