Ratner turns X-Men 3 into just another crappy comic movie

Rating: 3/10 (28 May 2006)

I loved the first two X-Men movies. The best thing about them was that they both took themselves seriously, and while having people who can control fire and shoot lasers out of their eyes, the characters still seemed like real people and the plots were believable. X-Men: The Last Stand undoes everything that was so masterfully done in those films. Rather then intelligent and dramatic character development, Brett Ratner opts for special effects that were a lot more impressive back in 1999. Although I can see from some reviews that people are still amazed by big things being lifted up in the air and fire balls.
Of course, the substitute we're given for the drama of the first two movies is lots of major deaths. But, like the death of Elektra in Daredevil, they're essentially just a cheap way of keeping the audience fooled that something interesting is going on, when the truth is the exact opposite. Thrown in there also is a convoluted love story that goes nowhere and a bunch of new mutants that do nothing. Recognisable faces such as Angel and Juggernaut are comparable to the Q gadgets given to James Bond; they don't really serve any purpose except to do exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment, and then be forgotten.
Furtheremore, while there is certainly a lot of action in the film, it fails to be what trailers promised it to be. It might just be me, but I expected there to be all-out warfare between man and mutant, chaos in the streets, superpowered armies clashing for each's survival. Instead, the climax is a fight between a few dozen mutants and soldiers on an island. No character development, boring drama, bad action. Sounds like a run-of-the-mill comicbook movie to me.