THE SILVER SURFER (1998) **1/2 The thinking man's comic book superhero. Or, alternately, a horrible failure to realize even the entertainment levels of a comic book, due largely to a strange and perverse preoccupation with vocabulary words, elevated ideals and archetypal philosophical constructs, as presented through the lens of awkwardly obscurant syntax and a pre-emptive filter through which only glints of substance can be gleaned, and that by reflection. I'd go with the first one, but I'm not entirely without sympathy for either view. But is the Surfer, that acolyte of peace whose dalliance in situational ethics drives him towards a Zen Manicheanism via brainwashing, can even he prevail against impossibility and his own mind? Why is he so desperate to get to the library? Can it be that his girlfriend is the universal librarian? Why doesn't his surfboard have a fin? How could we hope to answer, we who have never surfed a volcano, never engaged in dialogue with a mountain (save, in some cases, those passing moments in the service of hallucinogens), never shredded an interstellar vortex? If those questions aren't of obvious and compelling interest, might you be persuaded to consider the extraordinary wealth of unnecessary plot complications and attendant plethora of loose ends? Do you think that any of this might be because it's edited down from 10 hours of tv episodes (which got cancelled on a cliffhanger, but fear not--the Surfer still surfs!)? Kids, listen for the big words and ask your parents what they mean. It will be fun, the unencumbered edifice of the ego is hardly sacrosanct.
back to Brilliant Observations on 1776 Films home
go back home, or send me email
no more reviews! I want to buy your novel!