Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Directed by: Tim Story
Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Kerry Washington, Andre Braugher, Laurence Fishburne, Doug Jones
Running Time: 1h 32min

i'll be the first to admit, i liked the first Fantastic Four film. In fact, i have rewatched it several times as it has been in heavy rotation on the Movie Network, and it actually gets better every time. i can't quite fathom why people (namely, critics) have taken these films so seriously, as though they must hold up a torch (pun intended) to the major comic book adaptations of recent years like Spider-Man, Batman, and X-Men.

Those films should be better than this one, as relatively, the comic books from whence they came are proportionately much better than the characters found in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Which, on a side note, begs me to ask the question, how exactly does the Silver Surfer "rise" in this installment? From where? To what? Or is it referring to the British expression, "to get a rise out of", and therefore, the Silver Surfer gives us some shits and giggles?

A good laugh and some fun action is all one could ask for out of this series, and round two does deliver these to some degree. Evans' Human Torch character still gets all the good lines, and actually takes the super hero genre in a much needed direction; the super hero that embraces the gift and lifestyle change to rock star status. Chiklis still supplies the ugly side of the superhero biz, in more ways than one. And Gruffudd and Alba continue to show zero chemistry and less acting ability as their brethren, yet remain stretchy and sexy enough for us to wish the Fantastic Four truly showed us what a formidable foursome would look like.

As for the introduction of the new character, Fishbourne and Jones team up well to create the voice and body of the Silver Surfer, but i've always thought the concept was more comic book art lesson on the aspects of proportion, rather than a fully fleshed out character. His whole existence as doomsday messenger for the stars is rather silly and non-threatening. Still, the movie does a good job of making him look cool, kind of like a modern day T-2000, but what he adds by way of interesting storytelling is nil.

If, like me, you don't expect much from these four, then you'll be satisfied by this sequel. However, don't expect much and pray they don't make another, unless they go for an NC-17 rating. Now, that's a Marvel production that'd break box office AND test the skills of the CGI department!

Grade: B-