Fantastic 4

Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Tim Story, 2007) - C

I cut the first one a lot of slack, but there are just too many things working against the sequel for it to come out ahead: Jessica Alba's persistent and frankly kind of impressive efforts to ruin everything she touches; the unimaginative depiction of the planet-eating villain Galactus (he's a cloud); the half-assed, techno-babbly story construction; and that's just to name a few. They do all of nothing with the near-omnipotent Silver Surfer character, a Laurence Fishburne-voiced special effect who shows up to menace the Human Torch before disappearing for a while and resurfacing to be summarily disarmed and tied to a table. And while the jokey, light-hearted tone lent the first film a goofy likability, a repeat only serves to highlight the shoddiness of this lumbering mess, which is shockingly unwieldy at only an hour and a half. Really, none of what fans had hoped would come to fruition here -- good villains, better action, less wanton stupidity -- in fact sees the light of day. Watching it made crystal-clear why the Spider-Man franchise, for all the problems of the third film, remains awesome: Sam Raimi effortlessly handles the sort of unabashed earnestness that Tim Story makes corny and cringe-worthy here. Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans are still strong links, but this franchise needs to be put out of its misery.