What a waste....

Rating: 3/10 (29 May 2006)

Major disappointment.... All of the interesting themes of the previous two movies - isolation, persecution, fear - were cast away in lazy attempt to make a video game demo out of a veritable movie franchise. Rather than follow the well-established path of his predecessor, Dir. Ratner merely contents himself with some CGI mutant powers and calls it a wrap. Wasted acting talent (i.e. Famke...merely grimacing for an entire movie and...seemingly...told to mirror that girl in Species for some scenes) and wasted characters (i.e. Rogue...Iceman...Mystique...Colossus) highlight this film; does being a mutant require no introduction, or are we supposed to just assume Beast is...well, a Beast?!? Yet when Ratner opts to rely on CGI, rather that screen writing or editing, he is only too (sub)-human, as the finale was hardly a scene that will live long in the annals of superhero filmography (reminiscient of Zog and his harlot and goon fighting Superman in NYC in No. 2 for entertainment - hardly - value). Even the foreshadow (the simulated battle in the intro) was more entertaining.
So many possibilities (i.e. Magneto's employment of the mutant underclass vs. Xavier's 'best and brightest'), such waste (was there a memorable line even?!?). Makes you appreciate Singer and the forthcoming Superman Returns, or even the fact that Raimi will be doing Spiderman 3. I didn't expect Ratner to exceed Singer's performance in any way, but I had hoped he would have at least honored his predecessor by at least attempting some form of character/plot/thematic development. What a hack.