FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER: An Invisible Kick in the Nuts

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) – Directed by Tim Story – Starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Andre Braugher, Kerry Washington, Doug Jones, Laurence Fishburne, Beau Garrett, Brian Posehn, and Stan Lee.

FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER is not the worst superhero movie ever made, but it may very well be the dumbest.

The sinkhole that drags this film down is the Invisible Woman, but it would be terribly unfair to lay the blame solely at the feet of Jessica Alba. Don’t misunderstand me, she’s absolutely horrific in much of this film, but neither the script nor the director have put Alba in a position to succeed. RISE’s conception of Invisible Woman is of a nervous, bitchy, whiny, indecisive, overly emotional little girl playing grown up, and they cake so much make-up onto her face and hair that she ends up looking less realistic than the Thing.

The Invisible Woman is a completely tedious and dreadful character that’s largely defined by negative qualities. Her and Reed are on attempt #4 to get married. The idea that these two keep trying to get married and keep having things come up to stop the vows from being taken is a good one, but instead of the film treating it with a knowing wink acknowledging the history of wedding interruptions in comic book history, it’s made Sue twitchy, uptight, and questioning not only her marriage to Reed but their entire existence as superheroes.

How long have you been kicking around the Anxiety, hearing me talk about superhero movies? Because if it’s more than a week you know what’s coming:

I HAVE LITTLE INTEREST IN SUPERHERO STORIES ABOUT SUPERHEROES WHO DO NOT WANT TO BE SUPERHEROES.

Honestly, if that’s the story you want to tell, then why tell it? It’s one thing if someone like Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) temporarily wants out because his superpower has hugely negative consequences, but even then I get tired of it real quick. Do you know what superhero never existed? Mister Mopey Pants. Or Sister Mopey Pants. Do you know why?

Because who the f*ck wants to read about a superhero who’s depressed every month? (Wait. Wasn’t that Spawn during his “sit in the alley” years? Maybe there is a reason these stupid stories keep getting told and that reason is that I’m out of touch.) RISE even includes the freaking SILVER SURFER, who’s not exactly know for bringing the happy fun time with him. Honestly, what were the creative people thinking? We’ve got a somber cosmic visitor so let’s make one of our main characters be all “I don’t think I want to do this anymore.” It’s nonsense, even if we didn’t go through this plot with Ben, Reed, and Sue the first time around.

Apparently, Sue wanting to get married manifests a new superpower that makes everyone else stupid. This power has a particular effect on director Tim Story’s narrative, which tells us right up front that this is attempt #4, but then has everyone act like this is attempt #1. Johnny (Chris Evans) tries to get Reed to agree to a bachelor party (said party consisting of Reed, Johnny, and Ben), and right before the wedding, Sue is pouting to Alicia Masters (Kerry Washington) about this marriage not feeling right and how they’ll never be normal. Sue is a bit uncomfortable about their celebrity status, yet still decides to hold their wedding in the middle of freaking New York City. Reed agrees to go out with Johnny and Ben, and of course Johnny sets Reed up with two hotties who are all over him.

Reed has made such a big deal about how he would only agree to a bachelor party as long as there were no “exotic dancers” that I’m pretty sure these women are escorts.

They’re all over him, he eventually loosens up and has some fun, and then Sue shows up with General Hager (Andre Braugher) to look all angry at Reed for having fun. I mean, it’s a bachelor party. What did she expect? She revels in telling Reed later on that she’s not actually mad at him because her bachelorette party was super crazy, but we don’t get to see that.

Probably because Sue’s only friend is Alicia and-

Right. That brings this up – who the hell are all these people at their wedding? They’re just nameless people from Wedding Central Casting. Why does Sue need to have this big, fancy public wedding if no one there acts like they even know these people. It’s particularly funny at the end of the movie when Reed and Sue try to get married again. Attempt #5 comes in Japan and, I swear, their wedding is full of guests from Wedding Central Casting in Japanese costumes. Who are these people? Did Ben and Johnny walk around Japan and collect random people?

Or are these more of Johnny’s escorts paid to act like a wedding party?

What adds to the general dreariness of the film is that Johnny has a run-in with the Silver Surfer and as a result, his powers are on the fritz. Basically, if you touch Johnny, your powers and his exchange bodies. Why? This subplot actually takes the most enjoyable character and wraps him in a wet blanket for much of the film. It’s tedious to watch and the payoff of having Johnny go all Super Skrull at the end of the movie when he combines all of the FF’s powers into his body isn’t worth it, as cool as it is to look at. (And why everyone touching at once sends all their powers into Johnny is … yes, something better not thought about.)

RISE is a very simple film that almost seems designed for children. Characters have little complexity and everything happens because the story needs it to happen, not because it makes any kind of sense.

The relationship between Ben and Johnny is still the best part of this franchise, and Chiklis and Evans do everything that’s asked of them. As bad as RISE is, they are enjoyable to watch – at least until Johnny gets all emotional with Frankie Raye (Beau Garrett) about her needing to trust them or else the world is going to get destroyed.

I mean, honestly, you’re the freaking Fantastic Four and there’s an army officer holding a gun on you and YOU STOP IN YOUR TRACKS TO ASK PERMISSION EVEN THOUGH THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END?

Speaking of being destroyed – when RISE was released, people lost their bananas over the fact that Galactus is a big storm cloud instead of, you know, Galactus. I’m sure I complained about it, too, but now … it’s really not a big deal. (It’s amazing how the greatness of the whole Avengers cinematic franchise has mellowed many of us.) In fact, I think it’s a pretty cool visual idea and when this big cosmic cloud is about to consume the Earth, it feels like a major threat.

There’s a good movie in here somewhere, but I have never wanted Jessica Alba on-screen less than I do in RISE. Ioan Gruffudd isn’t much better as Reed, and there’s nothing Andre Braugher can do with the simplistic General Hager. RISE is the kind of movie where the end of the world is coming and people like Hager and Reed are still fighting battles begun in high school.

Doug Jones and Laurence Fishburne team up to give the Surfer more decency and intelligence than anyone else around them, although the whole idea that Surfer is willing to save the Earth because Sue reminds him of someone … ugh.

Is RISE better than Story’s first FF film?

Sure.

Maybe.

I don’t care.

I’m glad we never got a third FF film if it was going to be of this quality. I’d rather have seen a MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE movie with Ben and Johnny on a road trip. Given what Chiklis and Evans have brought to these past two films, that would have been a fun movie to watch.

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY: I Can’t Smile Without You

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) – Directed by Guillermo del Toro – Starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Jeffrey Tambor, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, John Hurt, and Seth MacFarlane.

It is easy to get lost in the visual splendor that is HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY, because there are few films that look this gorgeous. What makes THE GOLDEN ARMY the rarest of cinematic treats is that I cannot think of any movie off the top of my head that so wonderfully blends two unique visual styles from two unique visual giants together so seamlessly and sumptuously.

Unlike the first HELLBOY and Sin City, which always strike me as Guillermo del Toro and Robert Rodriguez doing their best to bring Mike Mignola’s and Frank Miller’s comics to life, or 300 and Watchmen, where Zack Snyder’s visual style overwhelms Miller’s and Dave Gibbons’ respective styles, THE GOLDEN ARMY takes Mignola’s characters, runs them through del Toro’s universe, and both visions stay strong.

THE GOLDEN ARMY puts a smile on my face from start to finish. The film opens at Christmastime in 1955, where a pre-teen Hellboy begs his adopted father Trevor Bruttenholm (John Hurt) to tell him a story before bed, and after a bit of hemming and hawing, he relates the story of an ancient war between humans and magical creatures. The magical creatures create the Golden Army, an unstoppable force but King Balor is horrified by what he’s done, and so forges a truce with humans. His son, Prince Nuada, is not a fan of this political move, and so he goes into exile. This whole sequence is modeled to look like the coolest Tool video ever made, as it looks like its all done with wooden puppets.

Cut to the present and things have advanced since the original HELLBOY film. Hellboy and Liz (Ron Perlman and Selma Blair) are living together inside the BPRD facility in New Jersey but Liz is feeling like she needs some space. Which is complicated by the fact that she’s pregnant. She’s not telling Hellboy because she doesn’t even realize it until after Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) senses it and tells her.

Wisely, del Toro makes the camaraderie between Hellboy, Liz, and Abe is the centerpiece of the film. While they all clearly respect and love one another, there’s all of these dual partnerships that exclude the third: Liz and Abe know Liz is pregnant but Hellboy doesn’t, Liz and Hellboy are romantically involved but Abe has no one, and Hellboy and Abe are best buddies while Liz doesn’t have a female friend anywhere. The best scene that displays this is Hellboy and Abe getting drunk together as they commiserate about women.

Abe is completely inexperienced with the opposite sex and Hellboy acts like the expert he very much is not. It’s great acting from Perlman and Jones, and when they combine to sing Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Live Without You” and get drunk on Tecate Light, they create some genuine movie magic. The song properly serves as the emotional core of the film, as our three leads all face decisions about just what they’d do without their most cherished loved one. I don’t like to tell you what to think, but if you can watch this scene and not have a smile break out across your face and don’t join in with the sing-a-long, well … you’re probably in need of your heart growing three sizes someday.

The film uses these third wheel pieces to create some tension in the narrative to work alongside the main narrative, which is the return of Prince Nuada (Luke Goss). Nuada wants to reclaim the three pieces of the magical crown that control the Golden Army, so he steals the human’s piece at an auction and then kills his dad. This gives him two pieces and his twin sister Nuala (Anna Walton), who goes into hiding until she runs into Abe and Hellboy, who bring her under BPRD protection.

The narrative is solid, and the visuals are every bit as great. There’s gorgeous sets everywhere, including the Troll’s Market, the magical beings lair beneath a bridge, and the underground city where the Golden Army waits. What’s really impressive is that these sets are rundown and kinda ugly and del Toro and his crew manage to make them look totally amazing. Part of this comes from contrasting the dull settings with bright and colorful characters, but there’s also the sheer awesomeness of the designs, which trump their conditions.

Abe ends up falling in love with Nuala, which Nuada uses to his advantage when he breaks into BPRD. It’s a quick romance, but then it’s not like they have room to stretch out Abe and Nuala’s courtship. Instead, both Abe and Nuala’s loneliness helps to create their mutual attraction, and they come off as two young people falling in love for the first time.

I was a little disappointed to see that Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) was back being a bit of an administrative prick, but the scene where he complains to Abe about Hellboy hating him is well constructed (there’s all sorts of chaos going on behind them and they just carry on a normal chat) and his anger at Hellboy wanting to let the world know of his existence is well-founded. Manning and Hellboy’s inability to get along, and Hellboy’s decision to definitively out his existence to the public during an investigation into Nuada’s destruction of the auction, forces Washington to send in Johann Strauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane and no, Strauss does not sound like Brian or Peter or Ted), a gaseous entity living inside what looks like an old diver’s suit. Strauss is a bit regimented, but he eventually joins along with our three leads to disobey orders and go after Nuada directly.

During this final sequence, Liz chooses to save Hellboy even though it means the eventual destruction of the world, and Abe does the same, giving Nuada the final piece of the magical crown that allows the Prince to raise the army out of its slumber. The final battle against the Golden Army is pretty darn great (and the largeness of the golden robots at the end of the film contrasts nicely with the battle against the small tooth fairies near the start of the film), and the army is made of what looks like large, fat, golden steampunk robots that can self-repair themselves. Del Toro uses color as well as any non-animation director working right now, and his color palette is continually changing but always rich, and making this final battle against golden robots with red energy works beautifully.

The film tries to generate some traction with the idea that Hellboy is seduced by Nuada’s urging to join the magical creatures against the humans, but it doesn’t really work, with one exception – when Hellboy kills the giant green Elemental (a gorgeously rendered creature), you feel his confusion and pain over his duty conflicting with what he feels is right. Not that it’s okay that the Elemental is flailing about the city, but the Elemental didn’t choose to be there – Nuada put him there, and Hellboy is rightly conflicted over killed the last of its kind. That scene works, but Nuada’s clumsy attempts at seduction don’t because we know that Hellboy’s heart could never seek the destruction of one side over the other.

Genocidal maniacs don’t love Barry Manilow AND Tecate Light. Fact.

Well. Probably.

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY is a rich, gorgeous, fun cinematic achievement. Ron Perlman, Doug Jones, Guillermo del Toro, and all the crew who contributed to the look of the film turn in high quality work, and together they produce a really fantastic movie. Now, if only they could get a third film made …

HELLBOY: There Are Things That Go Bump in the Night

Hellboy (2004) – Directed by Guillermo del Toro – Starring Ron Perlman, Rupert Evans, Doug Jones, Selma Blair, Karel Roden, Ladislav Beran, John Hurt, Bridget Hodson, and Jeffrey Tambor.

During yesterday’s review of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, I lamented the fact that as much as I loved the movie, I didn’t really enjoy watching it anymore. As important as that film was in the development of the cinematic superhero genre and as much as I celebrated the movie, we’ve seen so many origin stories at this point (not to mention the origin of Spider-Man told and re-told countless times across all sorts of media), that the movie doesn’t do a whole lot for me anymore.

Such is not the case with Guillermo del Toro’s HELLBOY, which still stands as something fresh, unique, and unlike anything else. Visually, nothing comes close to the look of HELLBOY, as del Toro, Rick Baker, Mike Mignola, and the rest of the production staff use a rich, saturated palette and Lovecraftian monsters to deliver a film that still looks and feels completely amazing.

HELLBOY opens in Scotland in 1944 with the United States military stopping a Nazi plot to bring the Ogdru Jahad to Earth. The military, led by their young occult adviser Trevor Bruttenholm stop Grigori Rasputin (Karel Roden) and his top assassin Karl Ruprecht Kroenen (Ladislav Beran), but not before a red-skinned boy with a honking big right hand and a tail comes through.

This opening sequence quickly and gorgeously sets up the film’s plot and provides Hellboy’s origin without dragging us into an elongated sequence about how he was just a boy from another dimension who got sucked through space and time and blah blah blah. It’s a gorgeously shot sequence; del Toro has a really wonderful ability to create a world that is obviously constructed and yet feels completely real, too, because it’s so consistently rendered. I love the treatment of the military here, too. These soldiers have little time for Bruttenholm’s ideas, but when they’re confronted with a reality they can’t ignore – the arrival of Hellboy – they embrace the challenge. There’s something completely heartwarming about seeing all of these military guys exchange doubt and confusion for big smiles and open hearts, and it’s one of the moments that makes me love this film.

Cutting to the present, we get introduced to the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) through new recruit John Myers (Rupert Evans). I really don’t see the need to walk us through this world – hey look, there’s a fish-looking guy in a tank who likes to read, and over here is a big red demon who likes cats – because John doesn’t really add a whole lot to the film that we couldn’t get without him. There’s a weak subplot with John romancing Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) that’s worth having around just for the great scene where Hellboy spies on them from a rooftop, taking love advice from a nine-year old kid, but after that … it doesn’t bring much. I think the film would have been better served killing John around this point in the film than keeping him around.

Rasputin has been resurrected by Kroenen and his Nazi lover Ilsa Haupstein (Bridget Hodson), and he unleashes a bunch of Lovercraft monsters on the populace. Del Toro does a fantastic job setting the action sequences in different, visually appealing places: a museum in the city, an underwater subway sequence, and an underground structure in Rasputin’s mausoleum. What combines them is that they (along with BRPD HQ) are all soaked in different colors. The museum is a rich yellow, the underwater sequence is murky green, the BRPD HQ has Bruttenholm’s (John Hurt) library on one end and Hellboy’s sloppy “apartment” on the other, and there’s plenty of ice and snow in Russia. HELLBOY is one of those films that’s just a visual joy to look at from start to finish.

Ron Perlman is fantastic as the titular character, delivering one of his very best performances. Hellboy is a big, tough dude with a soft heart, and Perlman beautifully walks that line. In battle, he wants to go in alone, while in his personal life, he desperately wants to not be alone – so long as he gets to be with Liz. He might be rough and strange looking, but he’s got that weakness for Baby Ruth candy bars that makes him come off as completely real. When he tries to tell Liz that he understands why she would want to be with Myers instead, and wishes he could do something about his face, all of the personal pain and pathos that we need to see is laid bare before us. Where Raimi’s Spider-Man kept beating us over the head with the melodrama, del Toro deploys it with much greater skill in HELLBOY.

John Hurt, Doug Jones, and Selma Blair are all good, but Jeffrey Tambor steals the show as an FBI agent forced to publicly dismiss all of the reported sightings of Hellboy and disavow any knowledge of the BPRD. Tambor’s Tom Manning is a jerk, but after Kroenen kills Broom (Bruttenholm’s nickname), Manning personally leads the expedition to hunt Kroenen and Rasputin down. And even though his attitude is of the, “let’s tie up loose ends” variety more than revenge, the guy still goes along. When he and Hellboy are forced to help each other defeat Kroenen, Manning finally sees Hellboy for who he is and not what he forces Manning to have to do. There’s no heart-to-heart moment where Manning apologizes, either. These are both men who have difficulty expressing their emotions, and so instead of a thank you, Manning acknowledgment of his own past sins against Hellboy and appreciation for saving his life come in a dismissive, “What are you doing?” as Hellboy tries and fails to light his cigar with a lighter. “You’ve got to use matches,” Manning insists, lighting one for him, “otherwise you lose the flavor.”

Hellboy tries it and nods his appreciation back, and then goes off to hunt more monsters. It’s really good stuff and a clever bit of character development that the film employs.

HELLBOY takes its time to get where it’s going, moving at a steady pace to build to the big CGI climax. Rasputin wants to use Hellboy to open the portal to bring the Ogdru Jahad to Earth and has stolen Liz’s soul to get him to comply. He starts to do it and then stops himself, stops Rasputin, and gets Liz back.

Every time I watch this movie I get sucked back in to the story and the visuals, and taken with the characters. Everyone here has flaws and they’re very real, very understandable flaws. When Abe (Doug Jones) is underwater with the Lovecraft hounds, you can see the fear on his face and in his actions. It’s just a great film to watch, full of great characters to hang out with for a few hours.

I love HELLBOY.