Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Directed by Tim Story

Of all the summer’s big-budget action sequels, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is the least painful. At 94 minutes, it not only gets out of your face the quickest, but it seems to have the most light-hearted approach. The band of specially gifted superheroes—stretchy Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), invisible woman Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), human torch Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) and rock-fleshed strongman Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis)—don’t have the pseudo-serious anxieties that weighed down Spider-Man and Jack Sparrow. The Fantastic Four perform their feats with the perfectly silly, casual aplomb of action figures.

Even when a new threat appears in the guise of the Silver Surfer, the interplanetary messenger who warns, “All that you know is at an end,” the mood is primarily make-believe. The CGI death-bringer flies around the globe on his silver surfboard, changing the climate and destroying famous landmarks, but the evocation of global warming (“Is this the hand of God?” asks a TV news report) isn’t somber like Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow. It’s not even very cosmic, despite a reprise of 2001’s rotating spheres. No Marvel Comics movie was ever this Disney.

Director Tim Story seems almost indifferent to how the genre usually works; what was inept about the 2005 introductory film now feels deliberately facetious. There’s not enough style or irony to be exactly playful—in fact, it seems to have been made by and for children. Alba play-acts Halle Berry’s X-Men role, Gruffudd makes Wallace and Gromitty faces and the Surfer’s resemblance to Rodin’s “The Thinker” goes unnoticed, without even a mischievous Dick Dale music cue. The closest thing to wit is Chris Evans’ juvenile flirtiness—he steps out of a shower and produces steam. It’s Han Solo all over again: A credible actor stuck in a jock persona.