The Dodge of superhero movies

Rating: 3/10 (24 November 2015)

Perhaps the dopiest supervillain or superhero depending on the point in the film in the Marvel universe is the ridiculous Silver Surfer. Literally he's a spaceman on a surfboard. One imagines Stan Lee struggling with a looming deadline ahead of a beach vacation and just rolling with whatever the first idea that came to mind. Given a whole movie around this loser concept, the film had an institutional upper limit on quality. Not that it worked hard to overcome the Silver Surfer handicap. The film growns under the weight of extensive product placement for some reason mostly around mediocre products most notably Dodge motor cars (one imagines the Fantastic Four quickly tired of going to the dealer to solve minor quality hiccups with their Dodge Fantasticar). It also struggles with Chris Evans and Michael Chilkris clearly feeling upstaged by their more talented, attractive and necessary members of the foursome so much so they spend a distracting amount of the movie breaking the fourth wall. While o plot, characters, acting and advertising all come in sub optimal, it would be remiss to not notice the smaller, inferior details. Why did Costume Design just recycle the one-piece blue and black unitards from "Stark Treak Next Generation". More importantly, did women have to take the whole thing off in order to pee? The Silver Surfer most remains unresponsive to the hero's questions but he does answer some queries particularly around his romantic interest back home. Does he just not understand the heroes or is it that he finds their dialog not worth of responding to much like most of the audience feels about the script? The film poses many questions, the most of important of which is whether you can get some of your ticket price back. In short, keep in mind that Marvel produces so many superheroes that most won't be that good.