X-Men: The Last Straw

Rating: 1/10 (27 May 2006)

This movie was, to put it bluntly, awful. I knew going in that Ratner was a poor director, and my expectations were accordingly low, but I generally enjoy comic book adaptations, even the mediocre ones, so I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Too bad. The movie was worse than I had feared. It's a boring, silly movie, with any hint of the style and humanity with which Singer had imbued the series gone. Scenes that should have been powerful and affecting in the hands of a director with even the least bit of class and a modicum of talent are instead laughable -- literally. The audience was laughing in what should have been key dramatic moments. In this movie, there doesn't seem to be a reason for anything: Things happen for no reason. Characters do things for no reason -- or, worse, for no reason other than to set up some kewl special effect that's generally boring given its ridiculous context. Characters -- some of them important -- are discarded with no exploration of the consequences; other characters are added, mostly for no reason other than to throw them on the screen for a few moments. The "bad guys" in this film are the ones who are fighting the right fight this time around, albeit in a thoroughly stupid manner; the "good guys" act at best like morons and make decisions that make me question why I'm supposed to be rooting for their team. Dark Willow steps out of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and into the X-Men universe without the benefit of Whedon's punchy dialogue and humanity -- the dialogue here is so cliché-ridden that the people around me, who had not seen the movie before, were delivering lines before the movie characters and getting them word-perfect. There's no character development in this movie (though there are, to be fair, several amusing moments, mostly involving Wolverine) -- just a lot of 'splosions and effects. But as George Lucas once said and seems to have forgotten, "a special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing." Sure, on a basic level lots of water floating around and explosions and bad weather and things disintegrating look fairly cool, but without any reason to care, what's the point? Even the fight scenes were mostly unsatisfactory, with characters zipping around and the camera snapping from angle to angle and character to character so frantically, so gracelessly, that it's nigh impossible to take any pleasure from watching it. This movie is an awful mess and an astounding disappointment, even given my low expectations. It's terrible from first to last. As far as sequels go, this one's down there with Highlander 2. To be avoided.