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Sight gags, some decent CGI, and Andre Braugher as a cartoon military cut-out all equal a whole lot of nothing going on.
This is a sequel made for the sake of making a sequel. There's no heart to the monster, no real depth. Impressive as the Silver Surfer looked and as great as some of the score sounded, it never lived up to the trailer. The movie is largely wasted on sight gags involving the Fantastic Four trading powers after Johnny Storm's initial encounter with The Silver Surfer. Whether the effects of that are mitigated by the movie's close after he powers up with all four powers to smack down the 11th hour villainy of Dr. Doom (and for all that he's a complete asshat, I still don't get HOW we're supposed to believe that General Hager actually trusted Doom) whose clever scheme was always to get his hands on the Surfer's board.
There's some standard comic book commentary on the viability of living a "normal" life while also being a super hero, a fake out that kills off Sue for all of five seconds, and two wedding sequences, but none of it really rises above affectation. Although I did read a little Fantastic Four in my time, they were never my favorite comic book and the movies (despite the hotness of Jessica Alba and Chris Evans) have yet to do anything to change that. Kerry Washington is WASTED as Ben Grimm's girlfriend, Alicia Masters, acting as a sort of mediator between Grimm and the Torch, and Sue and Reed but without really adding anything to the plot.
Despite Sue's brief one on one with the Surfer where we learn about his mission, his job as herald and his One True Love; the movie is permeated with the sense that there's more backstory. I continually felt that there was something more to know, something about the Surfer and Galactus that just wasn't being addressed. I've never been a Silver Surfer fan, maybe having read one comic a very long time ago, so that's a really bad sign when a non-fan who knows nothing about the franchise gets the feeling that there's something vital missing.
Translating a comic into a movie is really difficult, like with any adaptation there has to be mediation between old and new fans. The Hollywood machine ever in pursuit of a guaranteed dollar has become bloated with remakes and adaptations of previously produced material. Unfortunately, that material is generally suffering for it. Fantastic Four should have been a better movie, but sadly, isn't.
This is a sequel made for the sake of making a sequel. There's no heart to the monster, no real depth. Impressive as the Silver Surfer looked and as great as some of the score sounded, it never lived up to the trailer. The movie is largely wasted on sight gags involving the Fantastic Four trading powers after Johnny Storm's initial encounter with The Silver Surfer. Whether the effects of that are mitigated by the movie's close after he powers up with all four powers to smack down the 11th hour villainy of Dr. Doom (and for all that he's a complete asshat, I still don't get HOW we're supposed to believe that General Hager actually trusted Doom) whose clever scheme was always to get his hands on the Surfer's board.
There's some standard comic book commentary on the viability of living a "normal" life while also being a super hero, a fake out that kills off Sue for all of five seconds, and two wedding sequences, but none of it really rises above affectation. Although I did read a little Fantastic Four in my time, they were never my favorite comic book and the movies (despite the hotness of Jessica Alba and Chris Evans) have yet to do anything to change that. Kerry Washington is WASTED as Ben Grimm's girlfriend, Alicia Masters, acting as a sort of mediator between Grimm and the Torch, and Sue and Reed but without really adding anything to the plot.
Despite Sue's brief one on one with the Surfer where we learn about his mission, his job as herald and his One True Love; the movie is permeated with the sense that there's more backstory. I continually felt that there was something more to know, something about the Surfer and Galactus that just wasn't being addressed. I've never been a Silver Surfer fan, maybe having read one comic a very long time ago, so that's a really bad sign when a non-fan who knows nothing about the franchise gets the feeling that there's something vital missing.
Translating a comic into a movie is really difficult, like with any adaptation there has to be mediation between old and new fans. The Hollywood machine ever in pursuit of a guaranteed dollar has become bloated with remakes and adaptations of previously produced material. Unfortunately, that material is generally suffering for it. Fantastic Four should have been a better movie, but sadly, isn't.
