Starring Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba. Rated PG.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is a comic-book flick. The emphasis is definitely on flick, not film, just as the source material is a comic book, not a "graphic novel".

The difference is primarily one of intent. Films and graphic novels are serious of mien; they take us to dark places. Flicks and comic books just try to entertain.

This is not meant as a putdown. Although director Tim Story was excoriated in the critical press for making the previous Fantastic Four (2005) into a lighthearted, silly romp compared to Christopher Nolan's "realistic" Batman Begins, I'm tiring of the notion that all our superheroes are actually self-loathing maniacs. These are popcorn movies, summer entertainments. If you really feel deficient in cynicism and ugliness, turn on the news.

There is a bit of heaviness in FF2, in keeping with the soap-opera aspects of the source material. Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) finds it burdensome to lead a quartet of accidental gods. He is also pestered by the military, which demands the fruits of his engineering supergenius. Sue "Invisible Girl" Storm (Jessica Alba) is frustrated by Reed's inability to focus on their personal relationship and by the dawning realization that she will never have a normal life. Ben "The Thing" Grimm (Michael Chiklis) is sensitive about being gigantic and having an orange visage. And Johnny "Human Torch" Storm (Chris Evans) is bothered by nothing, which makes him the most immediately appealing of the crew.

In this episode of what promises to be a long series of adventures, Reed and Sue's frequently postponed nuptials are interrupted by another crisis. Specifically, the world is about to be eaten by a giant, angry alien named Galactus, whose coming has been foreshadowed by a silvery humanoid on a floating surfboard. Even Johnny's supernova flames and geniality are no match for the alien, imaginatively dubbed the Silver Surfer. As the world turns to the Fantastic Four for help, the overmatched heroes must turn to their greatest enemy, Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon), currently locked in a box somewhere in his native Latveria.

It's not high art, or even high camp; Story's directorial vision is apparently one of pure action, with no pauses for agonizing doubts or bathroom breaks. The movie clocks in at a tidy 92 minutes, most of it involving middling-quality CG effects interrupted by blithe quipping. There is an unexpectedly satirical subplot involving the American military's eagerness to capture and torture the Surfer, but otherwise the mind can remain pleasantly unengaged for the entire running time. Like the Surfer himself, it's all speed and hard shiny surface.