That is NOT Reed, Sue, Johnny, or Ben, and don't even get me started on Victor Von Doom.

Things I have a hard time believing: The RT consensus for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer says that it's "an improvement on its predecessor."

If that's the case, its predecessor, which I haven't seen, must have sucked beyond my comprehension. Oh, my god.



First things first: With the odd exception, nobody acts much like their characters...to be scrupulously fair, Ioan Gruffudd has a moment, Chris Evans has more. I'm prepared to believe that, given better writing and direction, they might have been able to embody their characters in Marvel's superhero quartet.

I hope Michael Chiklis made a nice piece a' change and considered it a paid vacation.



And Jessica Alba...she may be delightful to look at, but I don't know which I think the young mother-to-be has less of: Charisma or acting talent.




Julian McMahon...look, he really doesn't deserve worse--or better--than to say he's miscast. He's just not the giant, mentally (albeit twisted), militarily and physically that Doom should be.

Bending over backwards to be kind, it's impossible to know how much of his irritating performance is his fault and how much the direction and writing.

See why I asked you not to get me started?

The Surfer shows signs of being the Surfer, especially with Laurence Fishburne's voice work, but the story wastes him.

Worst of all, the film looks cheap. And I guess they must have needed money, because it tries the sleazy trick of incorporating blatant product placement while having characters fret about commmercial endorsements.

I'll stop now, to keep from boring you (I heard the ones saying "too late"). I guess it was too much to ask that I should rent two movies derived from Marvel comic books, which recieved rotten reviews; finding I disagreed with the critics on both.