Better than the first one, but little else than simple summer entertainment

Rating: 7/10 (20 August 2007)

Given the first Fantastic Four's box-office success (despite a storm of negative reviews), a sequel was almost mandatory. And with a trailer that promised lots of action and, most of all, the screen debut of fan-favorite Silver Surfer, one may be forgiven for expecting the second installment to be much better than its predecessor. The truth? 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer is nowhere near the levels of Spider-Man, X-Men or even Hulk, but it does slightly improve on the original, the result being a passable, rather entertaining summer actioner.
At first, though, it seems like we're slipping back into the first film's mediocrity: after a pretty good opening sequence (showing Galactus, here depicted differently than in the comics, as he destroys a planet), the movie cuts to Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm's (Jessica Alba) wedding arrangements, during which the FF's leader throws out some gibberish about their imminent union being more important than sub-molecular problems (huh?). His fiancée's reaction? "That's the most romantic thing you have ever said to me!".
Thankfully, that dull moment is immediately forgotten, as we move on to the actual wedding ceremony (featuring one of Stan Lee's best cameos: he plays a rejected guest, in reference to a similar scene in the original comic-book issue), which is abruptly interrupted by a mysterious force that is causing climactic changes all around the world (cue an amusing joke about global warming). This force, it turns out, is actually the Surfer (physically portrayed by Doug Jones, voiced by Laurence Fishburne), a herald who looks for planets the aforementioned Galactus can feed on. His presence implies that the Four have got only one week to come up with a solution to Earth's problems, and on top of that they have to deal with the return of Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), who was revived by the Surfer's actions.
In terms of plotting, this film has a more interesting script than the first installment: having introduced the characters in the previous movie, Don Payne and Mark Frost can focus on defining them a little better (something that was missing last time) in order to properly integrate their different personalities into the story. Largely, they succeed: the best characters are still the Human Torch (Chris Evans, cocky, self-absorbed and funny) and the Thing (Michael Chiklis, ranging between amusing and eager to fight), but Reed and Sue get a better treatment as well, emerging as three-dimensional people instead of underwritten type. Gruffudd, in particular, is more comfortable in his role, as proved by a hilarious disco scene, one of the best examples of how the film manages to replicate the comic's mix of humor and light action (this is a PG feature after all).
Speaking of which, another improvement concerns the action scenes: they may not match the visual inventiveness of other Marvel adaptations, but thanks to the Silver Surfer's presence they are charged with an energy that was unseen in the first movie (the Torch-Surfer duel is even better in the actual film than it was in the trailer). The Surfer himself is also a charismatic addition, although the short running time (92 minutes), combined with the fact that it takes half an hour before he shows up, makes the exploration of his tragic nature a little rushed. Of course, it doesn't help that a lot of time is spent, or rather wasted, on Dr. Doom: McMahon may look more menacing than before (especially at the beginning of the film), but once again he prefers to sideline his own lethal charm and mimic previous Marvel villains (the Green Goblin in the first movie, Magneto in the sequel), reducing a respected and feared character to a half-hearted pantomime; in addition, the bad-guy-becoming-ally gimmick has been used before and much better, namely by Bryan Singer in the superb X2. Another disappointment is Galactus: that he doesn't exactly look like his comic-book counterpart was to be expected; that he doesn't speak once and is used very sparely (little more than five minutes in the entire movie) considerably diminishes the impact of his presence, making the Surfer the only element able to save the film.
Saving a motion picture, however, turns out to be a lot more difficult than saving the world, at least in this case, meaning that, though enjoyable, 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer is a fairly average summer movie. Which is all right compared to the original FF movie, but not considering the higher quality of other blockbusters out there.