Director: Brett Ratner
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.
Did I Like It: There’s so much about the film that works, I’m tempted to give the whole affair a pass, but it feels like everything that does work about the movie is left over from other filmmakers. The misé-en-scene of the X-Men cinematic universe and large swaths of the cast are remnants of Bryan Singer’s work* in the first two films. Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, and Ian McKellen—and they are really the center of the film, especially as one realizes that Famke Janssen is essentially the center of the film, but not much more than a MacGuffin with dialogue— continue to fill their roles with aplomb. The world and sets those characters occupy feel (at least occasionally) still real.
The storyline and new cast members here are largely left over from Matthew Vaughn’s (he who went on to revitalize the franchise with X-Men: First Class (2011)) abortive relationship with the film. Giving the mutants an opportunity to assimilate into the human world provides a good jumping off point for drama, and really only in a way that an X-Men story can. Kelsey Grammer is sublime casting for Hank McCoy/Beast, and I want to believe that had more to do with Vaughn than Ratner. Maybe I’m wrong.
But unfortunately, the film doesn’t end up being more than the sum of its part. It feels stripped down to fit into the shape of a pretty typical summer action movie. The pathos isn’t there. It’s too bad that it propped up the legend around Singer’s earlier work. If Dark Phoenix (2019) is any indication, the Dark Phoenix saga is probably the unadaptable story, and some of Singer’s polish might have worn off sooner rather than later…
Then again, he did make Superman Returns (2006) instead. So, maybe I am wrong.
*I feel a tad remiss in that I didn’t mention in my review of X2: X-Men United (2003) that the perceived idea of Singer’s auteur status seems like it was largely bunk, even before he couldn’t be relied upon to actually direct the films for which he received credit. Apparently he spent much of his career hiding his deep terribleness that the movies that mae him famous had to be largely completed by producers.