NO GREAT HEIGHTS FOR 'RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER'.

Byline: Bob Strauss

Film Critic

I'm all for having fun with movies that involve elves, space cowboys and people with extraordinary powers. They're fundamentally silly and don't deserve to be taken too seriously by anybody over the age of 9.

But why, oh why, the Fantastic Four?

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's first and best Marvel Comics creation was superhero mythmaking at its finest. And never more so than during the saga that ran from late 1965 through the first half of 1966, and

culminated with the arrival of cosmic herald the Silver Surfer and his world-devouring

master, Galactus.

The second, dumb-joke-filled "Fantastic Four" movie, "Rise of the Silver Surfer," faithfully adapts some of those mind-

blowing issues. But fanboys already know that they're going to hate Galactus' inaccurate movie depiction.

While it's a little bit better than the first FF movie, this one trivializes the epic sci-fi stature of the story with the same bad acting, witless "witty" dialogue and drama-

leeching tone. A few of the visual gags are actually funny this time, so that's an improvement. But this movie needs more work than that.

In case you didn't know, the seemingly all-powerful Silver Surfer agreed to seek out new worlds for his even mightier boss to eat, in return for Galactus sparing his own planet.

Not badly depicted here, the glistening humanoid is CG rendered from body language modeled by "Pan's Labyrinth's" Doug Jones, with voice supplied by "The Matrix's" Laurence Fishburne. Surfy has the bad manners to come to Earth just in time to disrupt Sue Storm's wedding to Reed Richards.

Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba, unconvincingly blond again), brainy/stretchy Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd), Sue's brother Johnny/The Human Torch (Chris Evans) and rock-encrusted strongman Ben Grimm/The Thing (Michael Chiklis, sporting a more Kirby-esque latex brow this time) join up with some hard-case military types to catch the nearly unstoppable skyrider.

Regular nemesis Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon) has also been dragged back to life and into the hunt. He has his own megalomaniacal agenda, of course.

Once again directed by "Barbershop's" Tim Story, "FF:SS" dwells uselessly on one-dimensional character traits. Sue just wants to live a normal life instead of this super-celebrity one, Reed loves her but would rather do science, Johnny's a fame hound, Ben says stuff like "my bad" (he was an immensely tragic figure in the comics, but don't get me started). The Surfer retains some of the moral complexity that made him one of Marvel's most-admired characters, but the superficial tone of the movie works against that coming close to its potential resonance.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER

(PG: violence, language)

Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, Andre Braugher, voice of Laurence Fishburne.

Director: Tim Story.

Running time: 1 hr. 32 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: As the end of the world looms, heralded by CGI Silver Surfer, the FF are still cracking lame jokes.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

The Human Torch and the titular shiny superhero share a very warm moment in "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer."