The Fair to Middling Four

Rating: 5/10 (14 October 2007)

The Fantastic Four return for more superhero silliness in yet another big-budget FX-laden movie from Marvel, which sees Sue Storm and Reed Richards preparing to tie the knot. But with a mysterious metallic dude known as The Silver Surfer, zipping around the world on his shiny surfboard making huge holes in the Earth (preparing it for consumption by Galactus, a planet-eating alien being), successfully making it down the aisle is more difficult than they had imagined.
More tongue in cheek than many of today's crop of superhero films (The X-Men and Spiderman trilogies, Superman Returns), the Fantastic Four movies have the potential to be huge fun. But Rise of the Silver Surfer still manages to be a rather disappointing effort thanks to its lacklustre script which delivers little in the way of genuine excitement.
For starters, far too much of the film's (rather short) running time is spent concentrating on the impending nuptials of Sue and Reed, rather than delivering impressive action set-pieces, and, since The Silver Surfer isn't out to directly hurt or attack the foursome, at no point do we feel like they are in any particular danger. In fact, the metallic menace cannot really even be considered a 'baddie' since all he is doing is preparing a snack for his boss (who looks nothing like his comic incarnationthe movie Galactus is a nothing but a swirling cloud).
The cast are distinctly average, each playing their character with plenty of enthusiasm but very little depth. At least Ioan Gruffudd and Chris Evans look the part; Michael Chiklis as The Thing, however, looks rather rubbery, whilst Jessica Alba is the least convincing due to the fact that a Latino actress with blonde hair and blue contacts just looks daft.
As for the much heralded Silver Surfer, he is no more impressive than the T-1000 from Terminator 2 which James Cameron gave us over fifteen years ago. So much for advances in technology.
As a mindless piece of popcorn entertainment, Rise of the Silver Surfer is just about passable; as a big-budget summer blockbuster, it falls a long way short.