If the first screen version of Marvel Comic's fabled First Family is a half-baked but passably edible adventure, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer turns out to be a little tastier but still far from a gourmet feast.

Story

The Incredibles had nothing on the hip, snappy, neurotic FF depicted in over 100 issues of co-creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's original, wildly inventive '60s era comic books. Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) is still an absent-minded genius who mildly neglects his loved…

Rise of the Silver Surfer is the perfect summer movie, that is if you're eight years old or under. For the rest of us, the sequel to the first Fantastic Four that miraculously amassed more than $150 million in 2005, is a plotless, brainless, witless bore. It's not egregiously awful like the first film. Just plain awful in that formula way that kills your spirit and all hope for summer movies.

This time the Fan Four -- if you need their origin stories just Google them for pity's sake -- are out…