Brett Ratner ruined X-Men. Why was this guy, who directed the crappy Rush Hour movies, entrusted with a great major franchise like X-Men? Bryan Singer must be pulling his hair out. It cost $210 million dollars to make the movie. How much of this was spent on the script? A dollar? Don't read any further if you haven't seen the movie yet. Xavier, Cyclops, and Jean Grey were killed off. Why? Cyclops' death wasn't even memorable. Storm was left in charge. Are you F'ing kidding me? No offense to Halle Berry, but she was the weakest link in the two previous movies. Beast was played by Kelsey Grammer. What?! He was too blue! It should have been toned down like what Bryan Singer did with the costumes in the first two movies. Plus, there was tension between Beast and Wolverine. Why? This made no sense and the audience was given no explanation for this. And the stupid kid locked away on Alcatraz was lame. His storyline had no real conclusion. Throughout the whole movie, he just looks out the window like, "Whoa, it's a wild world out there. I'm gonna go back and play video games." Juggernaut was miscast and dumber than I could have imagined. Ben Foster's character Angel had zero depth. He just sprouted wings, puffed out his chest, and flew around a little bit. Was there a point in having him in the movie at all? The showdown between Pyro and Iceman was a complete letdown. It was built up throughout the movie and fell flat. They didn't get creative with this showdown at all. Just a blast of fire from Pyro and a blast of cold from Iceman. Ooooh. I was hoping for a series of power tests between the two. Couldn't Iceman have tossed some icicles at Pyro, and in turn, Pyro could have thrown fire rings around Iceman? I didn't feel a big payoff when Iceman headbutted Pyro. Wolverine is the heart and soul of X-Men. No matter where the story twists and turns, it should always snap back like a rubberband to Wolverine. He's the solid, go-to guy. Brett Ratner does not realize this. He strayed and treated Wolverine like a second-tier superhero. Corny lines and cliches abounded throughout the whole movie and there were overexplanations aplenty. I hate when directors condescend to an audience. Not even Ian McKellen could save this movie. And I love Ian McKellen. He's really growing on me. He was great as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code, and of course Magneto. I only enjoyed two scenes. The first was when they went back a few years and you saw Xavier and Eric (Magneto) walking up to Jean Grey's house and knowing that these guys were friends at one time. It was nice to know that these two adversaries had a friendly history and mutual respect. That is what adds to a story, Mr. Ratner. The second scene I liked was the last scene in the movie with Ian McKellen at a chess table with metal chess pieces and he made one of them move slightly. A hint of a smile appeared on my noggin. I think the creators of this movie should issue an apology to everyone, recall the movie completely, not release it on DVD, bring back Bryan Singer and pay him twice what he made for X2, and tell everybody to just forget about the third movie and wait 2 years for the next one. Only then will I be satisified. More rants about this movie to come as I think of them.

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