not deep much at all, and it's happy that way- 'safe' doesn't necessarily mean terrible this time around

Rating: 5/10 (19 June 2007)

Rise of the Silver Surfer is like a three-part cartoon version put back into live-action on Saturday morning for kids. If I was a kid, I think I might have responded more, if only because I knew there could be some cool toys to get. It's a shallow diversion of an entertainment spectacle, but as far as others out there go- notably the prior installment in the F4 series- it could go a lot worse. This time the stories focused on three points: stopping the total annihilation of the world from Galactus- a super-duper space being that comes on like the biggest hurricane, as a big lumbering marvel of visual fx; the problems of being close together between Reed Richards and Sue Storm, and the rift ego and the good of the group causes among the four; and the Silver Surfer, and his connection invariably to the previous villain Victor Von Doom.
None of this, unlike a Spider-Man or Batman movie, is very psychologically complex or rounded in a kind of perpetually existential comic-book way. But this time it's not exactly dull in seeing how our main heroes interact (even Johnny Storm isn't entirely annoying this time, as there's a little development about his obviously narcissistic edge), and how the media buzz around them encroaches right behind the Surfer and Doom. There's even a very funny bachelor party scene- not too explicit for PG of course- including a drunk joke with the Thing and some guy with an afro. If there are fun enough moments, it doesn't mean the flaws are there, even for one (like myself) who's never read a Silver Surfer comic.
Doug Jones, who plays the Surfer, provides about a tenth of the skill and imagination he brought to his roles in Pan's Labyrinth, but it goes without saying that he's not given a really impressive villain to play. Hardcore fans be damned, this is a very simplistic creation, for the film anyway, where he goes about on his surfboard in T-1000 form (minus the knives). It's also a distraction to hear Surfer's few words spoken by Laurence Fishburne, who provides nothing except a deep-sounding vocal to a practically expressionless radioactive force. Doom, on the other hand, just provides a kind of extension of his egomania from the first film, only this time compounded by a devilish plan that makes no sense ('hey, let me ride on this board to mess around with F4 while the world will soon come to an end, that's smart'). It doesn't help matters that Tim Story, more often than not, is still coasting along as director, offering little by way of visual prowess or much understanding of what rises comic book adaptations to possible great art.
But all this aside, I'm kind of not disappointed with Rise of the Silver Surfer on the whole. Notwithstanding another movie in the franchise that probably won't get any better, it's a reckless fun-house that keeps buoyant spirits and may have the fans of the original comics more pleased than with the first outing. At the least, there's an uproarious moment during a Chinese wedding, and maybe one of Stan Lee's best cameos to date ("It's Stan Lee!"). 5.5/10