Hold The Brakes

Rating: 7/10 (4 June 2006)

Seems I should've stayed until the end of the credits for a final film teaser. Hate I missed that. Okay people... true, there could've been more film development, true the film moved fast. But I enjoyed the movie and am a big fan of the comics and the "original" X-men animated series. Being that as it may, I also understand that when movies are made in Hollywood, we can't realistically expect them to stay true to form. Once the simulation was over, I knew what the Danger Room was and what it was for and for those who weren't familiar, they could figure that it was a training simulation room. I was saddened a bit in the film, even shed a tear at a point. But let's all hold the brakes here. Brett Ratner can not carry the entire burden for this film not being as good as the other 2. Was the movie bad... no, I enjoyed it and it was action packed. Could a lot more have been done with character development, yes, sure. Could some of those extra characters have been left out, sure but it was nice to have some more bad guys on the scene. But let's remember, in the 1st installment, Sabretooth wasn't really "developed". He just showed up in the snow and attacked Wolverine. If you weren't familiar with the X-Men series, you had no real clue what that beef was about. All in all, Brett Ratner came unto this film 8 weeks, 8 weeks before it was scheduled to begin shooting. No wonder the film seems rushed, he didn't have a lot of time to do much of anything but shoot the damn movie. The beloved Bryan Singer dumped this film, therefore dumping the X-men fans to go do Superman Returns. Come on... he had already started working on this film then left it (taking the writers with him) in the dust for Superman. He wanted to put it on the backburner to return to at a later date after he finished Superman. Well I say, quit giving him all this praise... if he cared so much about the X-Men franchise that he developed, why couldn't Superman wait until he finished up this film. So the studio did what it had to... you have the actors, crew, and everyone ready & waiting to begin filming and the director ups & leaves in the middle of it. That's costing the studio more money on time & production. So they tried to salvage it and Brett Ratner came in to do the best he could with only 8 weeks time to work with before shooting begin. So if you want to blame someone, blame Fox for not waiting on Bryan to return... or better yet, point the finger at Bryan Singer who left the film at the last minute and in doing so, let the X-men fans down. Do you think Sam Raimi would leave Spiderman 3, his baby, to go do another film? Bryan Singer obviously didn't care about the film that much so what are you all whining about. All in all, I think Brett Ratner did a pretty decent job for what little time he had to work with so give the guy a brake. I enjoyed the film and though saddened by characters departure... it was a good ending, besides, there are going to be spin-offs, for Magneto & Wolverine.