Good But Flawed Compared To The First Two

Rating: 5/10 (13 May 2009)

Damn, why is the third film also where things go downhill? "Mummy 3", "Spider-Man 3", "Jurassic Park 3", and now the X-Men series joins the list unfortunately. This is undoubtedly due to the absence of Bryan Singer. Singer wanted to fulfill his dream of directing a Superman film, therefore released the same year as "X3" we receive "Superman Returns". The better of the two in my opinion would definitely be the Man of the Steel. The main problem is a very rushed story given no time to develop these insane new mutants. Not to mention Night Crawler, who was such a remarkable character in the last film, is completely forgotten. At least a cameo would've been nice. Pushing that aside, this film serves up some very well done action scenes, and I love Juggernaut! The Golden Gate Bridge sequence was an amazing sight that showed us the power of Magneto. However, even here, director Brett Ratner felt it was necessary to shorten things. If you buy a copy of the DVD, as I'm sure most fans did, you'll see an enormous amount of deleted and edited scenes. All this cutting shortened the film and just took away from the depth of the characters if you ask me. Plus I was somewhat disappointed by the end battle on Alcatraz. Sure there were several baddies against a few heroes and there are some well done moments, but it felt too easy. Few of the mutants stood a chance against the formidable X-Men, making it feel as if the superheroes were up against an army of regular men and women.
In other news the score by John Powell was fantastic, but overall when the credits roll, one can't help but ask: "It's over already?"