'Rise of the Silver Surfer' marvelous

The Fantastic Four (F4) sequel “Rise of the Silver Surfer” feels like being at Epcot Center in Florida at one of the space rides. Every scene in the movie aims at creating an experience both kids and adults will marvel at. The movie opens with the Invisible Woman’s (Jessica Alba) powers being transformed into the Human Torch’s (Chris Evans) powers: all her clothes are burnt off and she is left naked in the street. However, because she is invisible you see only her transparent outline.

In the next scene, The Thing (Michael Chiklis) switches powers unknowingly with the Human Torch. Comically, neither man knows how to use the other’s powers, causing a bungled-up series of events. The switch takes place because of cosmic radiation that is bringing destruction to Earth.

Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffud), in his scientifically unscientific way, unites everyone’s powers to take on the Silver Surfer (Doug Jones), a bad guy who’s really good. The Cyborg, a living creature with robotic parts, surfs his way around the galaxy, preparing planets to be destroyed for Galactus. Unknown to the F4, the Silver Surfer is being forced to do this by Galactus, who survives by destroying planets and feeding off their energy, both thermal and organic. Galactus, presumably, is Doctor Doom (Julian McMahon), the arch enemy of the Fantastic Four.

The whole drama could be explained better by a 10-year-old boy who has read the Fantastic Four comics. He could explain all the ins and outs and background story that led to the present catastrophic dilemma: saving the world from Galactus.

The fifth wedding attempt between Reed Richards and Sue Storm is interrupted by the cosmic radiation and appearance of the Silver Surfer. Then, a worldwide search by the army and the Fantastic Four takes them to Greenland, Japan, Egypt and Germany as they work to catch the Silver Surfer and disable him with a transformation chamber.

At this point, the Silver Surfer is interviewed by the Invisible Woman, who finds out that the Silver Surfer is really the ally, not the enemy. The F4 are forced to work against the army and its mission to destroy the Silver Surfer.

With all the computer graphics, it would seem those locations could be formatted into the film; those around-the-world shots are real, though, which was quite impressive. This added millions more to the production cost of this four-hundred-million-dollar movie.

There is a certain sedateness to the entire movie that adults will find a bit dull, but kids need this time to process each big scene so they can relive it with their friends later.

Adults will find it funny that Victor Von Doom and Mr. Fantastic were actually roommates and worked in the same lab together in college. They became enemies when Mr. Fantastic had told Von Doom not to do an experiment and he did it anyway, causing terrible scars to remain on his face. Von Doom recovers with the help of the Silver Surfer and returns with no scars but ready to destroy his arch enemies, the Fantastic Four.

There are some great books that tell the Fantastic Four story in Juvenile Fiction at the library that you parents can page through with your kids before or after seeing the movie. After seeing the movie, if you get angry you can quote Ms. Invisible: “Do you want me to put a force field inside your body and expand it ’til it explodes?”

There will likely be a sequel and the Silver Surfer will be surfing it, undoubtedly to join the Fantastic Four as a bad-boy-turned-good.