Easily The WORST Comic Book Movie

Rating: 1/10 (12 May 2009)

Brett Ratner needs a razzy for this one. Seriously. Or the person who hired him on needs to be fired from their job. And then fired out of a canon. Anyone who's seen any of his other films could easily tell you that this is the kind of scene capturing best left to prime time television dramas. That's right. TV. Ratner has no business directing something big, ESPECIALLY an established franchise. The filming had little creativity process involved, instead opting to go with standard angles that made the action very boring to watch. Any intensity, any emotion that may have been there was not captured with these cameras. Everything was bland and had me wanting it to be over with quick. Heck, even the locations of these action scenes were boring and aided to drive the viewer to sleep.
His soulless directing techniques even managed to make most of the performers turn out wooden and slapstick. People who should have appeared intense, intimidating, or emotional looked like nothing more stunt doubles saying the lines of a trained actor. Was this just his direction? Probably not. Was it the actors? Except for Halle Berry, who seems to want to do nothing more than play Halle Berry, the cast here had already displayed their excellent acting skills before this farce. So what happened?
Writers. Tsk. Some of em are good at their job. Not here, however. Every line of dialog spoken was forced, unnatural. Most of it didn't even fit the character who was speaking it. Heck, the characters didn't even fit the characters speaking the lines. Almost everyone here has had their role altered for the worst.
Magneto is went through the amount of change that angered me the most. He went from being someone to be feared to an old guy and a jerk. Before he hated humans and wanted them to know what it was like, wanted to make them pay. Now his hate shows irrationally, it's just there. He even goes so far as to abandon his love, Mystique, when she's cured. His decisions also make no sense whatsoever. Trying to coax Jean into unleashing her dangerously uncontrollable full potential??? I'm sorry, Eric's views are a bit skewed, but he's not a moron. It's unfortunate that the writer's chose to make him a bumbling idiot instead of someone with cunning. Heck, the change in character is even reflected in the poor choice of costume. This outfit is far more form fitting to him and closes off his neck, making his old show through even more than before. It's ash-gray color makes it look more like a Sunday suit than the uniform of a leader. What he had before gave him a much more sinister appearance.
Oh, and Wolverine wasn't Wolverine. He was too nice, too calm. Too collected. I understand he's old, should be wise, whatever, but he doesn't go from being a cranky guy to being deliverer of awe-inspiring locker room speeches realistically.
Since they butchered the established characters there wasn't really much to do for a decently dramatic story. It's chalk-full of cliché moments that they somehow managed to make MORE cliché than they ought to have been. The cure plot, done correctly, could have had you on the edge of your seat from the get-go. Heck, something like this could have spanned three movies, introducing characters we'd want to follow as they struggle with an extremely life-changing decision. We could have seen the bigoted hatred for mutants boil over into riots. More elements from the comics could have been brought in to further flesh this out: The Friends Of Humanity, Mr. Sinister or Apocalypse, SENTINALS. YES. The towering mutant hunting robots that my friends and I were greeted to when the X-Men cartoon premiered in the 90s.
Instead...the cure was introduced so that there would be an excuse for Magneto to start a war. The sad, tragic thing about this is is that war doesn't happen. What does happen is the pointless ripping away of a bridge to carry himself and a bunch of angry mutants to the island the cure is being developed on. There a battle takes place. It's not even epic. Not even pulse pounding. You would think that after a decade of great action films before it that it would be child's play filming a winner-takes-all climactic fight. The fight between Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike, a ONE ON ONE fight, was much more gripping than what happened here. I'm not even going to go into details because the whole thing was just more of a chase sequence.
Along with this crummy script came Magneto's new batch of chronies. None of them displayed any distinct personality traits like individual members of the brotherhood did in the first. The Juggernaut easily takes his place as the most annoying comic-book-based movie character EVER. That's really all there is. The others were all just like normal people, having no actual development taking place to flesh them out. Just there to take on the X-Men.
Adaptation wise, this film tore everything apart. Just assume that much and you'll be safe.
Gah, I gave this a one because it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I would have given it a negative number had it been allowed. My hatred for the shear waste of potential here, combined with the irremovable blight on the franchise's story, has made me do this. I don't even care if you read it, I needed to just rant my frustration at millions of dollars once again wasted by FOX.