I Don't Really Know How To Review The New Fantastic Four Film

What can I say about Fantasic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer? It wasn't too hot, I can tell you that. You can probably guess the entire plotline from the trailers. And all of the jokes and major character beats. So, was anything unexpected?

Yes - here's the list of surprises I encountered while watching the film on Tuesday night.

I attended a 'regional premiere', starting just ahead of the big deal in London. We had live link up via satellite to the red carpet in London where Edith Bowman struggled to hold it all together. The cinema we were in - the Vue in Oxford - did an embarrassingly bad job with the digital projection of these segments, however. The images were in black and white, there was ghosting, all in all, it looked rather dreadful. Which is a crying shame because, while the Vue's projectionists clearly have no idea how to use the digital projector and were too proud to ask for help and get it right before hand, it is typically the one cinema in Oxford that offers the best presentation of the lot.

After over an hour of red carpet interviews that never quite happened the link up announced that we were now about to see the film. The manager of the cinema disagreed, however - there was to be an intermission of fifteen minutes for us to pop to the loo. This was a very good idea, but a better solution would have been to limit the outside broadcast to ten minutes or so in the first place. There wasn't ten minutes worth of actual content, but I think we could have just about stomached it stretching that far. Over an hour? I'm a little surprised that none of the thirty or so people in the audience snapped and killed the rest of us.

And then, the film and the next surprise: according to the BBFC title card, this film is simply called 4 - Rise of the Silver Surfer. No Fantastic. How prophetic.

The plot is pretty straightforward - Reed and Sue are to get married but Reed is distracted with a Surfer-monitoring project. The Surfer is coming to herald Galactus' destruction of us all. Doom starts knocking about again (his first few scenes were the most empty, boring scenes in an empty, boring film - simply there to remind us he existed and grasp at some kind of suspense). The Surfer is incarcerated by the military, Doom gets his board and powers, Sue bonds with the Surfer, they set him free and then there's a chase about for a bit, he gets his board back, tells Galactus to shove off, the end. Basically.

There's plenty of attempts at comedy but I didn't hear a single laugh from the little audience. Not even the kids. Maybe it 'works better' in a full auditorium. Which reminds me: the effects, particularly in an early 'funny' nightclub dance sequence with a CG Reed, were often sub-Ally McBeal. The rubber Surfer suit - seldom seen as it was, and stiff-faced too - looked fairly good, though.

I was surprised by the sequence in which the Surfer is incarcerated. It seemed like political subtext was bubbling up and that wasn't expected - even such ham-brained dumb-fisted attempts at subtextual relevance as this. It adds nothing and will convince no-one, which makes it seem rather sincere. I'm sorry, but this was probably a genuine attempt by Tim Story and writers to 'say something' - and that's the most damning thing I can say about this film, if you think about it.

There are a few action set-pieces and they're just mediocre, really. Like a late 70s Bond film or an 80s Arnold film that had nought to do with Cameron. The trailer that showed the Johnny/Surfer chase looked to be a bit choppy, and I was surprised to see that, actually, many of the cuts in the film were the same as in the trailer, that it hadn't been hacked down for the promo. Skillfully wrought stuff this was not.

Ultimately, this was an exercise in lowest common-denominator dreck, speckled with the odd attempt to convince the audience that they were watching something slightly more worthwhile than they actually were (only slightly - they don't even set this fake bar very high).

One final surprise: after the screening, my girlfriend claimed to have enjoyed it more than Spider-Man 3 because Spider-Man 3 'took itself too seriously'. There were countless things wrong with that (surprising) statement, not least that actually, she spent the entire Fantastic Four 2 rolling her eyes, tutting and mocking it with the odd funny comment. During Spidey, she laughed and didn't offer any snarky put downs at all. She must have just been trying to make a point.

Beverly Hills Cop 4

ComingSoon had Lorenza di Bonaventura over for a cuppa and a nice chat, and between bicies, he revealed plans for a fourth Beverly Hills Cop film.

The first Cop was initially intended to be a Sylvester Stallone vehicle and just days before shooting, Stallone was out and Murphy was in. The changes were many and sometimes massive - though not always entirely necessary. Downgrading the love interest to a friend to avoid interracial romance was probably not a good idea, in the grand scheme of things - I doubt it even had much of an impact on the box office which was, of course, the motivation.

If I can trust my memory, Beverly Hills Cop 2 is truly woeful, even for an 80's-spun sequel. The consensus is that 3 is the worst of all, but I certainly don't remember it that way. 3 might be utterly redundant, occasionally a little desperate and, overall, insultingly formulaic but you can level every one of those claims at 2, too. At least 3 winks at the audience a little (which is a love-it-or-hate thing, I suppose), and it does seem much more attuned to Eddie Murphy's stage personality. Indeed, 2 seemed more like a Stallone film than the first did - and I wonder if some of the supporting cast are in place to acknowledge this, somehow.

A fourth Beverly Hills Cop could be a very good idea. Things have changed enough that there's new things to say, a new world to portray, and some old attitudes that won't go away and still need attention. The script would need to be founded on some realistic ideas of where Axel Foley would be these days, and how his life would have shaken out, but the appeal of Eddie Murphy in the first place could be recaptured if Eddie plays along and allows Axel to be a realistic, three-dimensional character and not bent out of shape by fear or ego (where the character in the first film was compromised by the producers and studio - pre-empting racism on the part of the audience - the threat this time could be Murphy himself).

Between wild promises of countless curious projects, Tarantino has expressed interest in making a Beverly Hills Cop sequel, and he'd be a wonderful choice. Murphy is about to collaborate with Brett Ratner - let's hope that doesn't prove to be a preface to a Cop team-up. Michael Bay would be a bad idea too, I think, as would Tim Story - even thought they seem like possible 'fanboy' choices. Some might even suggest Kevin Smith, but that idea positively reeks of development hell and those ever decreasing Fletch Won circles of struggle, delay and, ultimately, abandonment.

Add your ideas in the comments, if you wish, but I certainly wouldn't be offended by any of the following contenders: Ron Shelton, James Foley (no relation), Joseph Ruben, Robert Townsend, John Landis (again), John Dahl. Some of these may have patchy resumes, but they've shown, somewhere along the line that they can do it, and that they've a suitable outlook for Cop. What's more - they're not wildly unlikely choices for the jump-start episode of a long stagnant franchise. More immediately, though, there's going to have to be a script...

Movie Minesweeper - The Hob Nobs Edition

- Speed Demon is coming up fast. The shoot will take place this summer, Stan Winston is producing and the plot involves an 'underworld enforcer' being chased in the dessert by the titular monster.

- MovieWeb are suggesting that John Cusack won't be reteaming with Savage Steve Holland, but his long-boiling Cosmic Banditos is still on the burner.

- Not only is Wings of the Honneamise coming to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, the Blu-Ray disc will come packaged with a standard DVD edition of the film too. Brilliant.

- Tim Story has been put in charge of the film adaptation of The Losers. According to Variety, the original comic was "was published by DC Comics imprint Vertigo in the 1970s. Strip was revived several years." Not only did Vertigo not exist in the 70s, that second sentence is frighteningly like something I'd write. But we got the general shape of things, right?

- Vadim Perelman is remaking Failan, a Korean mob drama.

- Tea Leoni has signed to join Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear in Ghost Town. Two ou of three 'aint bad (certainly better than the one out of two we were up to yesterday).

- Dreamworks have shelled out for Colin Trevorrow's spec script, Tester.

- There's to be a ficitonalised film based upon A J Jacobs' book The Year of Living Biblically, an account of how Jacobs spent one entire year following the bible absolutely literally - both Old Testament and New. Sounds like Dave Gorman going on a mission to rankle fundamentalists. TV director Julian Farino is to direct, possibly after sorting out What Happens in Vegas with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher.

- A month or so ago, I ran a poster for Major Movie Star, a Jessica Simpson vehicle. The film now has a director (that's right - a poster before pretty much anything else, possibly including a screenplay) and the rather amusing news is that this director will be Steve Miner. Sean McNamara, obviously, was too busy making a film about toys somewhere else and didn't have a spare lunch hour to put in his typical amount of 'effort'.

- Martin Campbell's Unstoppable could be very good - if he keeps his Bond second unit on board.

- Slamdance have put out the call for entries for their short film competition. They've got lots more going on too...

- Midway have coughed up their sponsorship money for the New York Asian Film Festival, after a little arm twisting.

- Wired have listed 10 reasons they believe free pornography doesn't threaten the adult industry. Does any of this apply to the non-porn movie world?

Direct Download Link For New Fantasttic Four/Silver Surfer Promo From MySpace

Download the new Four/Surfer ad now.

Direct Download Link For New Fantastic Four/Silver Surfer Trailer Thing

Download it now.

Hang Five

Here are some pictures of The Silver Surfer doing his thing (which is, I suppose, silver surfing). Looks like his best movie is still Crimson Tide.

[EDIT: These pics appear to have originated at SuperheroHype. They have lots more, too. If I'd have realised I simply wouldn't have bothered.... I tell you, there's nothing as boring as uploading a bunch of pics only to find out they came from another site]

Direct Download Links For Hi-Def Fantastic Four/Silver Surfer Trailer

Apple have the Rise of the Silver Surfer trailer in low, medium, high res versions of normal-vision, as well as in Hi-Def glory 1080p. 720p, 480p.

New Fantastic Four 2 Stills - First Look At Galactus?

Still trying to track down the 'secret origin' of these Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer stills - including our 'first look' at Galctus as a pinkish cloud - but thanks to WireMush for sending them over. Where d'you get them, WireMush? And aren't they awful?

[EDIT: The pics - well, apart from the cloud - originated on the film's MySpace page]

[EDIT: There were two pics of Dr. Doom here but Fox got heavy and they had to be pulled. Hopefully you had a chance to see/save them before they were yanked. If anybody knows where they are now, please leave a comment. For the curious, they were rather Vader-ish]

[EDIT: And now, sadly, they've all had to go. I think that film ick subscribers would have seen them in time, either on their RSS or via the daily e-mail. My apologies to the rest of you - they simply had to go before I got some people in serious trouble. But, of course, there's plenty more scoopy goodness where that came from...]

Fantastic?

Stupidly Hi-Res Fantastic Four And Silver Surfer Character Posters

This film is going to be awful. Enjoy these stupidly hi-res posters. 'Thanks' to Mike for using them to clog up my e-mail inbox.

Taxi 4 Poster

This poster for Taxi 4 confirms just how big a franchise this is in France. Getting Tim Story to direct the American remake of part 1 was a serious mistake. Somebody more capable - not necessarily talented, just capable - could have started off a nice string of tentpoles.

The above poster came from Kino Express. Click upon it for a much better, bigger look.