Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer DVD Review

Credits:

Director: Time Story
Writer: Don Payne and Mark Frost
Based On: The Fantastic Four, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Cast:
Ioan Gruffudd - Reed Richards
Jessica Alba - Sue Storm
Chris Evans - Johnny Storm
Michael Chiklis - Ben Grimm
Julian McMahon - Victor von Doom
Kerry Washington - Alicia Masters
Andre Braugher - General Hager
Laurence Fishburne - The Silver Surfer (voice)
Doug Jones - The Silver Surfer

Story:

Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer retells the classic story as told by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in Fantastic Four #48-50 about an intergalactic planet devouring being that travels the galaxy, looking for planets to sustain his enormous energy consuming appetite. His approach is forewarned by his herald, the Silver Surfer. What unfolds is the tale of how the Fantastic Four battle to save the planet earth from ultimate destruction and the end of human life in the universe.

For a full review of the movie, check out the Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer Review.

Review:

Although I had issues with the movie as can be seen in the above review, I was able to enjoy it. I think I’m finding that I am able to disassociate the source material from the modern reinterpretation. I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but nevertheless, it helps me enjoy these kinds of films better. That isn’t to say the movie didn’t have any issues or flaws, because I think it did. Doom should be tougher and meaner and Galactus was a total letdown, but overall, it was fun. That being said, the special features of the DVD make this purchase a better ride than the actual film. Check it out.

DVD Special Features:

Disc One:

• Commentary by director Tim Story
• Commentary by producer Avi Arad, writer Don Payne and film editors Peter S. Elliot and William Hoy

Disc Two:

• Extended / Deleted Scenes (with optional commentary by director Tim Story)
  
• Family Bonds: The Making of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer documentary
  
• Sentinel of the Spaceways: Comic Book Origins of The Silver Surfer featurette
  
• The FantastiCar: State of the Art featurette
  
• The Power Cosmic special effects featurette
  
• Character Design With Spectral Motion featurette
  
• Scoring the Fantastic featurette
  
• Interactive FantastiCar concept images gallery
  
• Theatrical Trailers
  
• Still Galleries (Behind the Scenes / Characters / Concept Art)

Probably my biggest disappointment with this DVD is the lack of cast commentary. There are only the commentaries by the director and another commentary with the producer and editors. Sure, I’m interested in what director Tim Story and producer Avi Arad have to say, but not having the cast, in my opinion is a big detriment.

The second disc has some pretty good features, the strongest being the “featurette” section. There are five different features of varying length that really go in depth into different aspects of the movie and background. Comic fans will undoubtedly enjoy the comic book origins featurette with Stan Lee and my personal favorite was the character design featurette, which shows the transformation of actor Michael Chiklis into The Thing as well as the evolution of the costume from the first film. They put glue in his mouth! Pretty sweet stuff.

The other ones are fairly standard stuff, with a documentary of pre-production and during production, with both totaling almost an hour of material. You see director Tim Story interacting with the cast and get insight into how the film was made. Look for Tim’s number one fan in the production documentary and see his kid like interaction with the Fantasticar.

Some of the special features are a bit lackluster, with the Interactive Fantasticar being the worst in my opinion. Then there is the picture gallery if that does a lot for you. I’m more interested in how things are done, but that’s me.

In Conclusion:

As always, if you really enjoyed the film, and want it for your collection, surely pick this up. If you want the special features to sway you, I think this DVD has a good set of extra features that make it worth picking up. If you didn’t like the film, but want to see the features, especially the comic origins featurette, than check out the DVD via rental.

For me, I enjoyed the DVD, especially the special features. I really wished it had a cast commentary though, and felt that a couple of the special features were a bit weak. Otherwise, it had some very strong entries that were very interesting to me as a comic book fan.