Rise of Silver Surfer - but No Galactus ?

Rating: 5/10 (24 January 2008)

Loosely based on FF issues 48, 49, 50 (Coming of Galactus), and issues 57,58,59, 60 (Doom steals Surfer's powers), this movie while done better than the first one, still misses the mark.
It's clear that these guys don't get it about what makes FF one of the best super heroes ever to come out of comics. Unlike Sam Reimy's Spiderman where evidence that Reimy gets what makes Spiderman so cool, or Brian Singer's X-Men where his fleshing out of the characters are so perfect, these guys just have the characters doing cartwheels all the time and never get into the plot or the characters, or the timing of action that makes FF so interesting.
The suspense and trauma of coming of Galactus and the Surfer in the original comic is nowhere to be found. I don't think Ioan Gruffudd would have been able to act out the stressed out Reed Richards in trying to devise a way to stop the landing of the Surfer on earth. Coming of the Surfer, his powers, and his eventual capture is so run of the mill Hollywood science fiction plot that, it doesn't have to be a Fantastic Four movie. And no Galactus on this epic episode ? What's the excuse ? Not enough time ? Well TV animation from decades ago was able to pull it off in 30 minutes, and this movie is over 90 minutes. Get rid of the phony capture and Doom stealing the surfer's power plot. That was from another story. Here the same mistake of patch work of just flashy story tidbits from different episodes like they did on the first installment is evident.
Too many unnecessary scenes, and not tight enough plot makes this movie ineffective in communicating the power of the characters. I don't think the actors could carry the weight of FF characters either ( which was doubted for James Marsden when he was cast for the X-Men but was later shown that he was the "Cyclops" ).
Better than the first, but no cigars.