Lord Surfer ... RISE!

Just saw the trailer from Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and while the trailer itself was kinda cool - instead of an a montage of brief scenes, we get a high speed chase between the Human Torch and the Silver Surfer - I noticed three distinct problems:

1) The Surfer's eyes have pupils.


('Hmmm,' The Silver Surfer thought, 'Why do I have pupils?')

The Silver Surfer is a strange, mysterious character in the Marvel Comic's universe. By not having pupils, its hard to gauge what he is feeling at times. This of course makes him even more - you got it - mysterious!

Here is what the Silver Surfer should look like:


(No pupils!)

Even these guys below had gotten it right, and they weren't even making a Silver Surfer movie. They made Terminator 2.


(See? It's not so hard.)

This problem can be fixed in a jiffy, as I am sure it will when enough of the fanboy community's complaints scare the big wigs on the right track. A similar thing happened with Mel Gibson during The Passion of the Christ after someone convinced him that Jesus had brown eyes instead of blue ones. The results of the digital re-coloration were kinda creepy, but you get the point. However, the next two problems will take a lot more than simple computer magic to fix.

2) Ioan Gruffud is still playing Mr. Fantastic.



('Hi, I play one of graphic fiction's smartest characters as if he were a bumbling dweeb')

Anyone with a name that starts with IOAN and ends with GRUFFUD should not be allowed any where near a summer tent-pole film like this. I can understand 20th Century Fox's mistake with the first one. They thought, 'Daredevil didn't do so hot, so I guess this comic book movie thing is starting to wind down. Let's cast this 'Fantastic Whatever' business with the cheapest actors we can find.' Well, the first one made plenty of cash, why is this D-list actor STILL in the lead role?

The following is a list of BETTER actors who could have played Mr. Fantastic, and they all would have done a better job than Mr. Gruf-fudd.


Tim Robbins - does Ioan Gruffud have an Oscar?


Peter Weller. Okay, okay, so I'm just being a geeky Robocop fan! I know it would be kinda creepy to see him and Jessica Alba start making out.

Or, if they wanted to engage in some color-blind casting...


Denzel Washington. A lot of people say that the black community strongly supports the first FF film because its director, Tim Story, was African American. While I have never met a single adult person of any color who wholly enjoyed FF1, I am sure the black community would be even more supportive of the series if a fantastic actor like Washington played Mr. Fantastic.

3) The Thing still resembles a lawn cigar. Let me show you an actual still image from the trailer:


('It's clobberin' time!')

While Michael Chicklis loves wearing this suit, believing it's the only way he can truly emote and embody the character, he literally looks like dog crap. How can anyone create a wholly empathetic character under two tons of latex turd? If he wants to wear the suit, let him, only paint the damn thing light blue or green, and then digitize it in post. Bill Nighy did something similar with his Davey Jones character in Pirates 2, and the results were, well, fantastic.

At any rate, you can judge for yourself by clicking the link below and seeing this movie in crystal clear Quicktime - always a consolation prize in the event of a shitty trailer.

GROAN.