Craptastic

Rating: 3/10 (13 June 2007)

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer continues Marvel's losing streak of crappy movies (Daredevil, Electra, Ghost Rider, anyone?). This latest monstrosity seems to indicate that Marvel lucked out in landing Sam Raimi and Bryan Singer to helm their Spider-man and X-Men franchises but otherwise are as clueless as any of the suits in Hollywood as to how to adapt their characters to the big screen.
Mistake one was hiring Tim Story. Although he did succeed in finally bringing the Fantastic Four to the screen after years of false starts, he also interpreted the material as a situation comedy featuring a bickering family who just happen to be superheroes instead of a group of superheroes who eventually become a family.
Thus, he wastes screen time on the endless bickering between Sue Storm and Reed Richards over their umteenth postponed wedding. Sorry, but Jessica Alba and Iowan Gruffyd are not exactly Hepburn and Tracy. He also wastes his special effects budget on a corny sub-plot in which Johnny's encounter with the Surfer results in their switching powers (which of course means that Jessica Alba gets naked but, too bad, this movie is rated PG).
By making time for all this sitcom material, Story shortchanges the main story regarding the Silver Surfer and his mission on Earth. The Surfer just seems to fly around wreaking havoc but basically doing nothing to prepare the way for the coming of Galactus, Then when he's interrogated he reveals that his board is a homing device that will draw Galactus, and he really doesn't need to do anything else. Duh.
The reportedly increased budget (the movie is said to have cost $130 million) doesn't show on the screen. The Thing, in particular, looks awful and unbelievable. He also gets little to do apart from grumble in the background and dab his teary li'l eyes at yet another Sue-Reed wedding attempt. The bulk of the FX budget seems to have gone to realizing the Silver Surfer, which admittedly looks impressive.
The film also wants to harp on a "we are family"-type theme, but then what happens during the big climax? Instead of fighting as a team, Johnny absorbs the powers of the rest of his teammates and fights Dr. Doom alone. Double duh.
Still, Michael Chiklis as The Thing and Chris Evans as the Human Torch do succeed in engendering some good will as they successfully embody their characters. But the film is a failure on virtually every other level, and another black-eye for Marvel.