XMen3 review

Rating: 6/10 (26 May 2006)

As a huge comic book fan, i tend to watch movies based on their properties on two levels, one as a fan of the original source material, and two, as a fan of film itself. On many comic themed message boards, director Brett Ratner has been accused of not respecting the original XMen comics, which i found to be completely untrue. Nevermind that Ratner is a self-professed X-Fan, the entirety of XMen3 is a massive Fangasm payoff for fans of the comic. The whole movie is chock full of fan geek out moments, and a couple really good "Holy @#$%....I cant believe that just happened" plot twists. Thus, X3 gets my whole-hearted recommendation for fans of the comic. But as most of the movie going public are not comic book readers, they might find this movie somewhat disappointing. The first two XMen films were sci-fi/action masterpieces, the third film in the trilogy (im reasonably certain the series is intended to be a trilogy) is an out and out comic book film, So expect a few hokey and over the top moments. I think that the overall story was great, but the plot itself felt a little rushed through. The filmmakers were trying to cram a lot of material into an under 2 hour film and unfortunately it shows. I surmise that the DVD will have plenty of deleted and extended scenes. For this XMen outing, the cast has been extended considerably, allowing for a lot of great scenes, which unfortunately come at the expense of any in depth character and plot development. Also, though we've seen many of these characters in previous XFilms, little or no explanation is given as to how they've found themselves in the spotlight so suddenly. I almost felt as though i was joining the movie already in progress. The movie left me wanting more, but what I wanted more of should have been in the self-same movie. So, in conclusion, X3 gets a 6.5 out of 10. It's good, but fails to live up to the high water mark left by Singer's films. If you're a long time XFAn....definitely see it, if you want a big budget, popcorn munching good time, go see it. But if you want a worthy end to an epic science fiction saga, you may find yourself disappointed.