In 2007, Fox got the band back together to try and improve on the modest profit the first FF film netted. All the pluses and minuses of the first movie (FF good, Doom is crap, some fun and action, no EPIC feel), were all copied and pasted into Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Really, they just added the Surfer to the party and he was really maybe the best thing about it. Looked great and voiced by Lawrence Fishburne. Yes, there was a bit too much goofy centered around the bachelor party and the vows, yeah -tightrope- and if you’re coming late to this blog, you can find the previous two parts right before this in the queue — but anyway, they did indeed *flirt* with some EPIC as when the Surfer arrives, it certainly feels like something big is up, but that’s as close to the EPIC feeling that we get.
The producers screw up big time here, because they try to take two incredible stories from the history of the comic and blend them together. The Coming of Galactus and when Doom stole the Surfer’s power. First…you don’t co-opt the Coming of Galactus. He IS the story, not some side effect. Doom should not even be IN this movie, especially not as when being played by Crappy MacMahon. 
In the comics, some 55 years ago, a universal force of nature named Galactus hungers, and when this happens, he sends his silver herald ahead to find a planet with the appropriate amount of life saving energy, that the big G might go there and consume it, thus destroying all life on earth. Here, amidst Doom taking the Surfer’s power and trading punches with the FF, Galactus is represented as a cosmic storm that approaches but is somehow totally repelled by the creature who serves it — the Surfer.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. When Galactus showed up — in person– in the comics, this 30 foot giant set down in mid Manhattan on a sunny afternoon and proceeded to assemble his giant devices of extermination and extraction, while the populace went nuts, as first, this was the first time there was a huge alien incursion in the MU back then, plus it kind of seemed to them like God came for a visit and it was all over for earth. Armageddon. End of days. In this movie, Galactus was a spooky storm that came and went. Misplayed and totally screwed up on this one when it came to the Big G. The whole power swapping gimmick was also unwieldy and got old quick.
Still, nice performances by Fishburne and Andre Bougher who played the general. Unfortunately, this one was not as good as the first and that was reflected in the box office too. I guess the plan was for Fox to expand and do a Surfer film. Bleh.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer – 6/10
Next, Fox really screws the pooch. And the director!
Rick Lundeen, 2020