What Should be a Run Turns into a Sprint

Rating: 3/10 (12 July 2007)

I was admittedly not optimistic when I heard that the runtime of the new Fantastic Four movie is a mere 92 minutes. The inclusion of the Silver Surfer means that Galactus, the omnipotent planet eater, will also appear. Their story is long and complicated, with a hoard of powers, rules, subtleties and motivations. It would probably take a three-hour movie to cover the arc without rushing. Even a two-hour affair would have to make cuts, but at ninety minutes there is no hope for an adequate treatment. Galactus is nearly omitted from the movie, and Marvel Comics fans expecting to see the most powerful being in the universe will be resoundingly disappointed.
I took part in a play called 15-minute Hamlet as a drama student in High School. While "Rise of the Silver Surfer" is not so extreme, it races to finish itself as if running for the pole at a NASCAR event. Some James Bond fans dislike "Tomorrow Never Dies" because, they assert, it moves too quickly, yet it is a two hour movie. I slammed "Total Recall," for over killing its premise to the point of boredom, but even that film is 113 minutes long. High velocity is fine for the Silver Surfer, but his movie should be deliberate, not supersonic, to justly tell its story.
As Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Susan Storm (Jessica Alba) prepare for their wedding, several meteors slam into Earth creating environmental anomalies such as frozen lakes and power outages. In marches General Hager (Andre Brauger) who begrudgingly asks Richards for help. Reed soon ascertains that the Silver Surfer (Doug Jones, voiced by Laurence Fishburne) is responsible and he and his team endeavor to find him and solve the mystery.
The situation complicates when Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch (Chris Evans), has his molecules disrupted by touching the Surfer. Then there is the matter is Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), the all-metal villain from the first film. A diligent workman is shown chiseling his petrified body. The Fantastic Four defeated him by rapidly heating then cooling his body, so cracking of his inner parts is the problem, not a hard layer. What a circular saw can do for that problem is a question the movie prefers not to answer. General Hager also recruits Doom, but Reed's warning that Doom is not trustworthy is soon proved right.
There are more dramas, including Reed and Sue questioning their future plans. The one and only problem with the film is its minimal treatment of all its content. Neither the plot nor the conflicts contain any inherent errors, and just ten more minutes of movie would help them greatly. Despite Galactus' near omission, enough material exists to cover another half hour.
The acting is sadly not as inspired as it was in the first film, where the chemistry among the leads made the whole operation work; only Kerry Washington is as good as before. Alba, Evans and Chiklis are all comfortable in their roles, but lack the same gusto I saw in 2005. The Surfer barely speaks; Fishburne could have recorded his voiceovers on his lunch break.
The minor roles, however, are horrendous. I hated Andre Braugher in "Frequency" and hate him here too. He has one acting approach: frown, droop his cheeks, and say his lines with no expression or dynamic. His army colleagues are equally boring. One of Hager's top aides is Johnny's latest target for flirting, but their chemistry is so cold it could freeze Han Solo all over again. "Fantastic Four" was filled with clever uses of the teams' powers, but the new movie is bereft of such ideas, except when Johnny beats up Doom in the climax. "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" does not treat itself with enough respect to rank higher than a four out of ten.