Kinda Klunky; Good Actors Poorly Used

Rating: 5/10 (4 June 2006)

This "X-Men" is pure standard issue, the kind of comic book movie Hollywood could crank out with its eyes closed. It lacks the occasional moments of transcendent magic that have made some comic book movies special, and attract fans of other genres.
There's the by-now-standard-issue scene where an American Landmark, in this case the Golden Gate Bridge, is targeted by destructive forces. One thing we can say comic book movies and Al Qaeda have in common: they both want to blow up American landmarks in cinematic ways.
A bad guy forces the Golden Gate Bridge to perform unnatural acts. And it's an amazingly flat, uninteresting scene. Nothing like its predecessors: the blown up White House in "Independence Day," etc.
Famke Janssen, as a powerful female mutant in a very bad mood, causes a suburban home to explode, and the scene is just not very fun to watch. It just looks ... messy. Who's going to sweep up all the broken glass and toppled jelly jars? And Janssen's powers, not directed by her, but manipulated by powerful men, are ultimately pretty passive and boring. I've seen women going through a particularly bad time of the month who were more intimidating.
A key character dies; one should be moved. Uh uh.
There are many interesting characters in this movie, played by great actors: Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellan, Kelsey Grammar, Anna Paquin, Halle Berry, Shoreh Aghdashloo, etc. And the director could not care less about them. They may as well be random shoppers at a mall; they just mill around.
I was almost certain that I could sense Bill Duke, playing a presidential aid, delivering his lines with a complete sense of boredom and disdain for the jumbled nature of the scenes in which he found himself. It's as if he was just putting absolutely no energy into what he was doing, and as if he was daring the director, or the audience, to even notice his complete lack of investment.
"X-Men 3" is not a bad movie. It's reasonably fun. There's the interesting theme of Charles Xavier as Martin Luther King, and Ian Mckellan as Malcolm X. Hugh Jackman is a tremendously charismatic actor, and he makes anything worth watching.
I just wish that the director had taken the time to make the scenes stunning, rather than just serviceable, the action thrilling, rather than just standard issue, and the characters moving, rather than just disposable.