Too Many Plot Threads Too Much Spectacle

Rating: 6/10 (25 November 2012)

The potential of this Summer blockbuster is easily summed up in the flashback opening sequence . Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen exit from a car and indulge in some small talk . As far as I'm concerned these two great stage actors can indulge in small talk for two hours and the film would be above average for their electric screen presence alone . Their characters are there to meet a young girl who is an early mutant and a few scenes later the plot is set up of a cure for mutations . You can easily see where both the subtext and plot is going
So far so good and Hugh Jackman ( Another effective actor )as Wolverine takes center stage. Being a Summer blockbuster we can forgive the occasional explosion laden action scene that seems clumsily inserted in order to excite the audience. What becomes more and more difficult to forgive is the film's need to include more and more mutant characters who clog up a storyline that becomes more and more messy as it continues and by the time we reach the CGI climax I was lost as to who was who and why we needed so many characters in the first place
I can understand why people love this movie and it's not a bad film in the way a Michael Bay Summer blockbuster is a bad film . However you can't fail to notice much of the film's potential becomes sidelined in order to achieve spectacle and bigger and bigger set-pieces . A less noisy film with less characters would have certainly have made for a better movie