Less interesting than its predecessor with a story that isn't explored or developed particularly well

Rating: 4/10 (16 January 2016)

In some ways The Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer got off to a rather bad start when I realised that it opened up with arguably the two dullest members of the Fantastic Four getting married. I wish I could say that I was wrong and that I was being unnecessarily harsh, but sadly this second film in the franchise never really worked for me;
After I watch a film I'll usually look at its rating and see what the critics thought of the film that I've watched and I must admit to being somewhat surprised that the critics generally gave this film 'positive' feedback and many said that it was more fun and less boring than the first film. Well maybe I watched a different film because I actually thought it was more boring, less fun and less interesting than the first film...
Starting the film with the approaching wedding of arguably the two dullest characters in the franchise didn't give the film the best of starts as far as I was concerned, but to then drag this aspect out for about a third of the running time meant that the film started to get on my wick. Even when the film does get going it never really caught my interest mainly because I felt that the story wasn't explored or developed properly - little is really learnt about the Silver Surfer or his cause (other than helping some other worldly being to destroy planets across the universe). The writers never really attempt to explain a lot of what is happening in this film which wouldn't be as much of a problem if the film had a sense of fun to distract from the poor storytelling, but because it doesn't the weak story stands out all the more. I also thought that the idea of The Fantastic Four temporarily switching powers could potentially have been interesting, but here it seemed to be played more for laughs and ultimately went nowhere and had little impact on the story.
The only thing that I actually liked about this film was Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans as The Thing and The Human Torch respectively. Their camaraderie did give the film some lift and both Chiklis and Evans were every bit as good as they were in the first film. It's a shame really that many other plot elements are so weak.
I'm somewhat surprised that this film has a similar rating to the first film as to me there are pretty much worlds apart in terms of quality. Whereas the first film offered the viewer an interesting exploration of normal people getting superpowers following exposure to radiation coupled with heart, amusing banter and a fairly well developed villain. The sequel offers a poorly developed and uninteresting story, a dull antagonist that offers no real menace, a silly use of superpowers and to top it all off it also offers one of the weakest ending to a film that I've ever seen. Those looking for silly special effects will be well-catered for me, but if you're like me and value content over style then this sequel is one I suggest you avoid.