Saw X-Men last night. It was okay but not even nearly as good as I'd hoped it'd be. It felt like a mishmash of scenes from two or three different movies that, instead of synergizing with each other and making me go WOOOOOW and WOOHOO and Oooooh... just left me kinda unsatisfied.
Few of the actors and characters were given the space, script and direction needed to really shine. The interaction between eg. the Xaviers and the Magnetos and Mystique were not as natural or as thrilling as they have been previously, which was a bit of a bummer because most of the movie is about them whining at each other. There was way too much melodrama and forced emotion.
X the Younger was overacted and at times very poorly written. Very little about his character-arc seemed natural. Magneto the Younger was cool, but, after a strong start as a compelling anti-hero, he just turned into an annoying dick. To his credit, he did manage to be kinda menacing some of the time. Mystique, after another compelling opening, transformed into an uninteresting mopey crybaby called Raven
okay, I'm exaggerating a little, and she did redeem herself, but, all in all, I am surprised to find that I prefer Rebecca Romijn's version when it comes to costume, script and even acting. Jackman has grown into his role as Wolverine and he did pretty well, esp. when interacting with Xavier. Dinklage, to no-one's surprise, did a surprisingly good job with his character
The other mutants were given way too little screen-time, or were not particularly awesome. Beast woulda been excellent, but looked like he was lifted straight outta the original Hulk TV-series and his action sequences were a mixed bag of awesome and meh. Several of the others I'd been looking forward to seeing on-screen had a few seconds to display their mutant powers and then were shelved for the rest of the movie. The future mutants received better treatment in this respect, but only marginally. Shame, because they were pretty cool. The best of the lot was Pietro, who rocked all his scenes
The future was pretty cool, the past much less so (not nearly as enjoyable as it was in First Class, and I esp. hated one of the "surprising revelations"). I was kinda ambivalent about what they'd done with the Sentinels, but overall I think I'm okay with it because they delivered most of the non-sucky action in the movie.
With all that said, I can't say you shouldn't go see it. It was, at times, really cool. In terms of production quality, visuals etc, it was pretty solid (don't see it in 3D! The 3D in this movie is
really not worth the extra $$$). The scenes from the future were mostly cool. I liked the ending! And, guys... the post-credits scene wasn't entirely sucky
I was surprised by my negative reaction to this movie, but I wasn't unhappy while watching it.
