"What the successful Marvel superhero movies did right was that they weren’t written for 13 year olds. FANTASTIC FOUR is so juvenile it’s pathetic." That's what I said about the first film. The second film is even more lazy and depressing. No obvious pun is left untouched. No forced plot point is left un-crammed. In its ridiculous attempt to be hip, the film is groan inducing. More problematic is that all the silliness drains every ounce of tension from this dud, making the experience feel like a flimsy four-hour ordeal.
As we begin, Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd, KING ARTHUR) and Susan Storm (Jessica Alba, THE EYE) are planning their wedding, which has hit bumps in previous attempts due to paparazzi interference. A strange cosmic disturbance is being recorded in space and General Hager (Andre Braugher, THE MIST) wants Reed to build a machine to track it. But it's right before his wedding, so it's an internal struggle between his impending nuptials and saving the world. Well, Reed secretly builds the device and during the service his PDA goes wild — the disturbance has arrived in the form of the Silver Surfer (Doug Jones, HELLBOY - voiced by Laurence Fishburne). The alien, who rides on a cosmic board that is the source of his power, is the herald of Galactus, an entity that devours worlds. As Reed, Susan, Johnny (Chris Evans, CELLULAR) and Ben (Michael Chiklis, TV's THE SHIELD) prepare for the fight, General Hager seeks help from the reborn Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon, TV's CHARMED).
More so than the original, F4 2 is coupled together from spare sitcom clichés. Reed as the work obsessed scientist versus the marriage obsessed Susan is painful, but making it worse it that screenwriters Don Payne and Mark Frost don't even go with it. Reed secretly makes the machine, but it means nothing to his relationship or the plot. If Susan turns out to be so understanding then it's not a problem and does nothing to build tension. Second sloppy writing example is the fusion of Dr. Doom into the story. Didn't he try to take over the world in the first film? So why does the military trust him more than the Fantastic Four? Payne and Frost's answer to this question is Reed was the nerd in high school and Hager was the quarterback. With the depth of the material so shallow, it's amazing to see the actors drown in this crap. This is where I avoid harping on the miscasting of Alba as Susan Storm. It was bad in the first film and just as awkward in the second.
Outside of BLADE: TRINITY, this is the worst of the Marvel superhero films. The studio should be less worried about erasing the memory of Ang Lee's HULK from fans' minds as they should be from wiping the slate clean from the screen rendition of the first superhero family. Constantin Film has long owned the film rights to the franchise. In 1992, with the fear of losing those rights, they hired Roger Corman to make a super-low-budget version just so they wouldn't lose the license. The trailer for that film exists online. Finally with a huge budget, they still have a D-grade script. They should release the Cormin film on DVD, at least that seems to have some cheesy charm. RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER sinks faster than giant rock in a tank of water, but I'm sure they'll try to stretch another sequel out of this franchise, which will extinguish the flames of goodwill from the fans leaving only an invisible audience.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
