Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Release Date: June 15, 2007

Watch Date: August 10, 2024

“The Fantastic Four meet their greatest challenge yet as the enigmatic, intergalactic herald, The Silver Surfer, comes to Earth to prepare it for destruction.”

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   I think this movie did a lot of things right, there just wasn’t enough build up to it, and that’s probably where the problem of it’s popularity stems from.

   Because here’s the thing, and maybe I’m spoiled by the way Disney ended up structuring the MCU and I’ll admit that, but if you’re going to have a planet destroying force show up, maybe…don’t do that on the second film? Plus, Galactus is a threat that moves through space. They could have very easily had him be a looming threat for a few movies, have them fight the Silver Surfer in his own movie and get him on their side, have another film or two with a villain other than Dr. Doom, or have him come back in his own film. Build up some anticipation. And then fight the giant planet eating space force.

   But no, they kind of blew their load at the first opportunity. And it’s frustrating too because while Galactus is a threat, he’s not really the focus of the movie for most of the movie. The Silver Surfer is. And they don’t even really fight Galactus anyways, The Silver Surfer does. The Fantastic Four simply have another battle with Dr. Doom, who, honestly, I’m not even sure he really fit in this film. I know, I know, the Silver Surfer’s board is an infinite power source, so of course Doom would be attracted to it, but better planning would have had him sit this one out. Like a Loki character if you have to, have him be present, helpful, but set up a threat for a later film.

   But hindsight is 20/20, and you can’t go back and remake these films because Chris Evans can’t be both the Human Torch and Captain America, and if I had to pick one to be, personally, it would be Captain America. Sorry Johnny.

   This film feels like a regular MCU film, at least one of the ones from early on, and it makes sense considering that Iron Man would come out literally the following year. It would have been pretty easy to tie them in together, honestly, but I get it. I do. Chris Evans is meant to be a Captain America, not a Johnny Blaze, and as stated previously, it’s a choice I agree with. However, the rest of the cast did a pretty good job, and it’s too bad they were only a year shy of reaping the MCU reward.

   I like this film, and I don’t know, personally, why it didn’t spawn more sequels other than my theory that it just did an ending point in a story too early in the franchise. I think the cast do a great job, they feel much more comfortable in their characters, there’s an underlying plot of whether or not one can have a normal life and be a celebrity super hero which adds a level of reality to it, the characters have progressed since the last film…I don’t know where it fell flat to most people. If you do, let me know. But if you haven’t given it a try just because it’s from the era of quickly dropped Marvel franchises, I would watch it anyways, you might be surprised and just how familiar of a movie it feels, the proto-Disney MCU.