Ratner ruins another franchise

Rating: 3/10 (31 May 2006)

***NO CRUCIAL Spoilers HERE, BUT THERE ARE SOME*** Why do these major motion picture companies continue to let Brett Ratner direct their films? First Hannibal Lecter and now X-men. Who cares if he has wanted to direct a comic book/X-men film for years? I just hope they won't let him do it again! Why you ask? because all of his films are incomplete thoughts and ideas, or scenes that are so literal you can predict exactly what is going to happen next or throughout the rest of the film. The best example of this is how characters appear in his films just to be there but serve no real purpose. For example, why is Rogue in this film? What is the point? To tell us that everyone's life is their own and they should be able to make their own choices? Excuse me, but even though the plot is paper thin, it gives the audience enough knowledge of this conflict without her even needing to appear in the film. Also, the conflict is never fully established between her or Bobby, or even Kitty for that matter. Is that because she is angry about her powers and inability to get close to others? Maybe, but even if it is, who cares? We get it! The other problem with his films are that the characters appearing will usually only serve one specific purpose to the story, such as in Red Dragon, where we get to see Mary Louise Parker a whole 3 times before the climax of the film, and one of these times she is learning to fire a gun...can you guess what purpose her character served in the end? Same thing in this film: we get new mutants to link the story together because the director and writers couldn't figure how else to do it. Example: Isn't it just a LITTLE too convenient to introduce a character that can sense another mutant's powers and strengths? I mean, really, how many times do we have to hear a location call-out to Magneto because the writers needed to link this mess together (i.e.- "she's on the far side of the building", "she's at her house", "she's in a heavily guarded trailer going god knows where!").
The scenes in his films follow no story line and might as well be pasted together in any given order. Example: one of Magneto's cohorts is turned human just to have Magneto turn his back on them because they are no longer a mutant. Is the point of this scene to establish that he is a really bad guy? Or is it a set-up for this character to betray Magneto later, just to have the betrayal result in nothing? Does this betrayal have anything to do with propelling the plot of this film forward? No. Its pointless! The rest of the film is Ratner trying to see how many new mutant powers he can show off without any real purpose except for us to watch the special effects in action. Shock waves, ramming through walls, moving at the speed of light, doppelgangers to confuse us (like we didn't see that one coming)...the list goes on. The effects are really cool and seamless, but who cares? After all this the film goes to the government trying to track down the rebel mutants in a remote forest, resulting in nothing being gained by this betrayal of Magneto's former accomplice, followed by the story moving straight into the climax...why? I assume the only reasoning for this is to once again see the "new mutants" in this franchise using their powers.
For all of the special effects and the gruesome happenings in this film, it is pretty neat to watch, but after having left the theater, it becomes less impressive almost immediately. Tons of the main characters die, people switch sides, then die, battles ensue 'just because', characters are introduced and then killed for no purpose, and the whole time the camera does nothing to capture any real emotion in which the first two films had expressed so wonderfully.
ALSO, all of the fight sequences you will have seen before, so don't expect anything new. You will see fight sequences with no real purpose, and you will see characters go "places" and get into fights with no reason, and not even to propel the plot in any way. For example: one of the characters gets into a really bad fight after having gone out to look for another and then comes back and says "She's with Magneto". Of course she is with Magneto....he took her 20 minutes ago when you were with her!!!! More violence and special effects do not compensate for a bad story and a bad director who cannot keep anything together enough for anyone who reads books to tear out the pages and put back in any given order.
Wait for DVD if you already have not seen it.