In my hurry to slag off the Odeon on Monday, I forgot to review the film I went to see: X-Men 3.
Let’s keep this one short. It’s directed by Brett Ratner, director of Rush Hour, Red Dragon and Rush Hour 2. If you’re aware of his work, that’s all you need to know.
If you’re not, imagine an “averaging device”. What’s an averaging device? It’s a thing that takes the absolute worst movies ever made and the absolute best movies ever made and then turns whatever it’s shone on into the complete average of the two groups.
Brett Ratner is an averaging device.
X-Men 3 isn’t awful. It isn’t good. It just chugs along, doing the same sort of things that the previous X-Men movies did, except you don’t feel a single thing. The effects look good, but you won’t really be wowed. The acting varies from bad to good, but you won’t care either way. Most of the major characters don’t actually get to say anything since Halle Berry stole all their lines. Some of the cinematography is interesting, but even in the most potentially shocking moments, when favourite characters get killed off willy nilly, you just won’t care. The camera angles, pacing and everything else about the movie are designed simply to get the plot from the beginning of the film to the end – nothing else.
Only the dialogue manages to escape being average and that’s by descending into complete banality. The plot, which is vaguely about a potential cure for mutants and the argument about whether they should take it or not – are they a disease or are they a normal part of evolution – could have been good. But while Bryan Singer, who directed the previous two movies, made sure his plots were reasonably smart, Ratner makes his averagely stupid. Magneto wants to take his army across to Alcatraz. Does he hire a fleet of helicopters or speed boats? Maybe use a submarine? No, he moves the Golden Gate Bridge. Looks good – well, average actually – but makes no sense whatsoever.
So save your money, particularly if you were thinking of watching it in The Gallery.
