To be fair, Reed winds up building a device that tracks down the source of the disturbance. But that this movie would even try to drum up a dilemma for Reed, however comic, speaks to the dopiness of this flimsy series: it's "Yes, Dear" in tights.
The disturbance happens to be the Silver Surfer from outer space. He's part special effect, part dude in a suit -- to be precise, it's Doug Jones , who also embodied the demanding faun in "Pan's Labyrinth ." The Surfer rides a matching board, looks like a really fit SAG Award, speaks in Laurence Fishburne's voice, and has basically come in peace. He's only following orders to season Earth to be eaten by an omnipotent dust cloud, whom fans of the Marvel Universe -- and Fantastic Four issue #48, I believe -- will know as the entity Galactus. The Surfer and his own dilemma are a fine addition to this series. He exposes everything around him as shallow.
Could there be a more inconsequential superhero blockbuster than the Fantastic Four? These are flavorless, unbearably light movies, lighter than "X-Men ," "Superman ," "Batman ," and "Spider-Man ," lighter than paper, thinner than air. Lightness might be the filmmakers' mark of distinction, an antidote for the crises of identity and existence in those other movies. But the stakes are so intentionally low that there is nothing to care about. "Rise of the Silver Surfer" revels in the celebrity of its four heroes -- Reed and Sue's nuptials are "the wedding of the century"! But no one involved has the satirical chops to say anything witty or new.
