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This is the Power Cosmic edition, meaning the two-disc special edition release.
The Main Characters
--The Fantastic Four are Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis). They got powers after being exposed to cosmic rays and have the power to stretch, turn invisible, turn to flame, and super-strength, respectively.
--The Silver Surfer (voiced by Laurence Fishburne) is the herald of Galactus, a being who can consume worlds.
The Setting
The majority of the film takes place in New York City, like most Marvel movies.
The Film (1:31:47)
Reed and Sue are getting ready for a wedding but it seems there is always something that gets in the way. This time, a mysterious extra terrestrial flies to Earth and causes major disruptions, including reviving Dr. Doom. The wedding is interrupted as this Silver Surfer flies into Manhattan, and Torch follows. What follows is the FF team up with the government, and also team up with Doom to stop the Surfer from calling Galactus, a planet-eating being (looking like a cosmic cloud) from destroying the Earth. Of course, Doom can’t be trusted and is the Surfer as evil as we think?
Movie Review
I didn’t catch this one in the theaters, and I am not sad I missed it. This movie lacks much of the charm of the first, the carefree family atmosphere that the FF possessed. True, the lines were corny, but there was an inherent charm to it, an campiness that made the Adam West Batman series fun. This one seemed to lack that same feel. From the crazy subplots and scenes that were worthless (Johnny’s power switching, Reed’s bachelor party, to name a few) in lieu of anything worthwhile. Doom is the main baddie, again, and it completely spits in the face of the original Kirby/Lee masterpiece. There were just too many dangling plot lines, things that went unexplained, and it just wasn’t as fun as the first film. I really wish they stayed more true to the comic book here. They could’ve combined the best elements of FF #’s 48-50 and 55 and made just a kick-ass film. The first act opens with the FF seeing the Watcher trying to throw off the Surfer with the rocks and fire in the sky and general panic. The Surfer arrives at the end of Act One and early into Act II we have Galactus show up. The FF must fight Galactus and his robots but have Surfer repent and help the FF cause Galactus to retreat. The third act features Doom steal Surfer’s powers and the FF fighting Doom one last time. That could cover about 2 hours, and been a hell of a lot better than what we have here. This also featured another Marvel sequel where the actress’ hair looked a lot worse than in the first, as Alba’s hair looked too blonde, and looked much better in the first (Spider-Man was the other film). Still, this wasn’t completely terrible, but it lacked a certain something that the original did, and is a pale comparison to the two Marvel movies released in 2008.
DVD Features
A) Extras
---Disc One---
1) Director Commentary
The director was Tim Story, and he flies solo on this commentary. Tim, in all his honesty, had a lot of ideas of things that he wanted explained in the movie (the unstable molecules for one) that went unexplained, and I think hurt the movie a bit. He talks about a deleted scene between Alicia and Ben which may introduce the Puppet Master. Tim talks about his comic book influences on the movie (including Ultimate Extinction, and Kirby’s stuff). Fishburne originally wanted to voice Galactus, but the character was never intended to be like in the comic. The power switch was Ari’s idea, and Tim was originally against it. Tim says that he knew there was going to be a Silver Surfer movie and that affected ways of what he did with Galactus and all. He says that he doesn’t think Galactus was destroyed at the end. This was a fairly decent and entertaining commentary, as he kept things moving while working solo.
2) Crew Commentary
Producer Avi Arad, Writer Don Payne and Film Editors Peter S. Eliot and William Hoy recorded this commentary. Avi says including the Surfer made this exciting for everyone involved. I hate commentaries like this, where there are three people on it and they recorded it separately. That leads to a lot of break in the flow of the commentary, and they can’t even respond to all the comments. I much prefer the Story commentary. They mention how Silver Surfer outgrew the FF themselves and became the main selling point of the film, so more of him was added. They mention the Silver Surfer film and that they want to do the origin there, which is another problem with this film, it was a vehicle to make another film. They should focus on the story and the plot of the original before they can think sequel or spin-off. They talk about Sue’s sacrifice, and that Surfer’s eyes shouldn’t have opened in the epilogue. Like the movie, this commentary was generally uninteresting and all over the place.
---Disc Two---
1) Extended & Deleted Scenes (9:45)
You get the option to have commentary on all these scenes by Tim Story. The commentary just tells us why scenes weren’t in the film.
---A) Full Main Title (3:59)
This is the full main title sequence. It’s in black & white, like some of the other deleted scenes. It isn’t much different from before, though it’s like watching King Kong since you can’t detect the colors.
---B) Fantastic Store (1:10)
Johnny is at the FF store, and hears the Thing backpack is outselling everything, including his figure.
---C) Wedding Montage (2:02)
This is Reed and Johnny helping Reed with his wedding, from getting rings, to getting cakes (and basically bumbling everything).
---D) Reed Gets Crushed Ring (1:10)
At the wedding, Reed gets a crushed ring because Ben had squeezed it too much before.
---E) Doom Builds Arm Band & Covers Up His Mask (1:24)
This is just like it says.
2) Family Bonds: The Making of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (46:18)
This is separated into two parts, Pre-Production (18:08), and Production (28:10). The whole thing starts with a meeting by the production crew about the script of the film. They talk about the availability of Julian McMahon as well. They then scout some locations, show some cool Silver Surfer wire work, decisions on Doom’s mask and hair and make-up tests (with Chris and Jessica having fun with their power switch). They go into production, and they show the bar scene first (Reed’s bachelor party). They show Tim seeing the Fantasticar for the first time, and he’s impressed. Doug Jones is seen as the Surfer stand-in, and he looks cool, and the crew filming on a huge glacier for the Doom/Surfer scene. They have a great bit with Stan talking to Chris Evans about his work in FF1 and it was just really cool. Stan is introduced to everyone, and its awesome they honor him like this. He seems very humble. They show the scene with the bear (to which one of the crew jokes about a new FF movie, the WWFF: Smackdown). Michael is impressed he will be near the bear, and imitates Borat. They are on the last sequence on the film, and on the last day, and Jessica jokes with Tim that the next movie Sue will be preggers, something that happened to Jessica shortly afterwards. Of course it starts snowing and they are in a pickle, finally getting to film at around 3:00am. This was actually a lot of fun to watch, a highlight of sorts of the whole process of making FF2.
3) Interactive Fantasticar
This was nothing more than a series of paintings of the Fantasicar at different angles.
4) Featurettes
---A) The Fantasticar: State of the Art (10:37)
This is all about the Fantasticar, which first appeared in FF #3. It was based on a Manta Ray, or Sting Ray. They talking about making the Fantasticar, going from model to the life-size model. Nothing terribly interesting.
---B) The Power Cosmic (15:10)
The guys who worked on the film went to WETA to put the Silver Surfer in the film. This deals really with the CGI of the film. It doesn’t add too much to other CGI Effects featurettes seen on other DVD’s. They said that probably 5-600 digital artists working on this film all told.
---C) Sentinel of the Spaceways: Comic Book Origins of the Silver Surfer (38:40)
Now the best part of these DVD special features, an in-depth look at the comic book history of the main character. Stan says he loved doing lectures at colleges, especially the Q&A section. He got more questions about the Surfer than anyone else, and the philosophy of the Surfer. Surfer was really Stan’s baby. Stan loved writing the character. Surfer was a bit hit with the college kids. Stan talks about his great character Galactus, and when Stan got the artwork, he saw the Silver Surfer, a herald for Galactus since he was so powerful. It was Jack Kirby who originally put him in there. This was Stan’s mouthpiece, his Christ figure in the Marvel Universe. They talk about the evolution of the Surfer through the years, and its another well-done look at the Surfer through the years in the funny pages, as well as crossing over to popular culture (as in Joe Satriani’s “Surfing With The Alien,” CD which is awesome) as told by the men who worked on him (Stan Lee, who had great things to say about John Buscema’s art on the book and saying his work with Moebius was his best Surfer story, Ron Marz, Steve Englehart, Ron Lim, and Jim Starlin). Stan is awesome here, as he said he didn’t want anyone to write the stories, and even after letting him go he couldn’t read other people’s work on the Surfer.
---D) Character Design with Spectral Motion (11:32)
They talk about the Thing suit evolving from the first film, making it a much more fluid costume and a little brighter and crisper. They show Chiklis becoming the Thing, and putting the costume on him. He jokes about being in the costume and how much fun it is to be put in it every day. Chiklis says it takes about 2 hours a day to put it on. He’s in good spirits about it. Chiklis shows his voice is not digitally augmented in any way.
---E) Scoring the Fantastic (4:38)
This is a very brief look at the composers of the film, and what went into the score.
5) Still Galleries
I don’t like these kinds of galleries where you have to scroll through yourself. I would rather it be like a presentation of the photos that you could pause or fast-forward if need be. I didn’t go through these to be honest.
---A) Behind the Scenes
---B) Characters
---C) Concept Art
6) Trailers
These are just the trailers. I have seen all the movies here except Deck The Halls, and even some episodes of Dark Angel. Futurama I reviewed already, so check the DVD review page for it!
---A) Theatrical Trailer A (1:38)
---B) Theatrical Trailer B (2:05)
---C) Fantastic Four (2:26)
---D) X-Men (2:01)
---E) X-Men United (1:43)
---F) X-Men: The Last Stand (1:35)
---G) Dark Angel (1:03)
---H) Deck The Halls (2:26)
Funny story, my wife was at the View when Danny DeVito was promoting this movie, and Danny was piss drunk at the time, making a complete ass of himself.
---I) Futurama: Bender’s Big Score Sneak Peek! (2:04)
B) Audio/Video
You get both Widescreen and Fullscreen versions of the film, and the audio is Dolby Surround 5.1. Both versions served their purpose.
C) Packaging / Liner Notes
Since this is the Power Cosmic Edition, you get a nice slipcase, and that’s it.
D) Easter Eggs
None
Overall Review
Two previews to start: The Simpsons and Live Free or Die Hard, which combine to clocks in at 1:50. This was a weird DVD collection. The movie itself definitely had its pitfalls but it was at least enjoyable to sit through for 90 minutes. Maybe it was the comic book fan in me that didn’t like the way it was done and I think if I never read the comic I may have appreciated it more. It was a good vehicle to introduce Surfer. Anyway, the movie had its shortcomings for me, but the second disc of extras were just amazing. You have the good look at the comic book origins of Surfer, a nice 50-minute look at pre-production and production itself. That alone is about 90 minutes. Everything else is icing on the cake. The other featurettes were nothing earth-shattering, but they were good for a once-through. So it’s an interesting Catch-22 here, where I didn’t like the movie but I liked the DVD. It is a good DVD and we’ll go mildly recommended.
Overall Rating
7.5
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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