Hey guys, Jemma McFatBack with a review for you...
Seen the back and forth on this site and the talkbacks, so hoping to put your mind at ease. I'm sure you'll get a lot of reviews tonight - I just got back from the UK Press Screening at Empire Leicester Square and came straight home. You'll get more later when the pubs shut and the X-Fans come home from drowning their sorrows
First up - some proof. Here's a crappy phone-cam shot of my tickets. (HARRY NOTE: No Need To Publish It. It's an ugly pass)
So, how is it? Well, your 2nd review seemed pretty accurate in terms of thoughts on the film, and 100% factually accurate too. The film isn't terrible, but it's mediocre, and when you compare it to the first two, that becomes infuriating. I've heard Matthew Vaughn pulled out because he couldn't shoot the film to the deadline given. So they got Studio Yes-Man Ratner (who, aside from the shitty After The Sunset, IMO has made servicable-but-never-good films), and he shot to schedule. Which would probably explain the film's slightly skittish nature, and the nasty amount of green screened 'location' work, even where no effect is in shot. Most of the effects work here, even on the big stuff, is pretty average. Not technically terrible, just soulless.
I'd try to compare it to another film, in terms of 'goodness', and maybe Fantastic Four is a decent reference point... but then again maybe not. To explain... I'd give the films a similar 5/10 rating, but X3 works, and doesn't work, in different ways. There's good bits here, occasionally, but they're almost cases of goodness-by-leftover. Phoenix and Logan's first meeting is pretty good, as is the Jean/Prof/Magneto showdown in her old house, but mainly because these are characters we've built up an affinity for. I can't think of much that's completely new here that's very good - Kelsey Grammar as Beast is OK, I suppose, and Leech is an interesting character, but is barely involved. Further, some old stuff from the past films doesn't get developed and gets repetitive - Ice vs Fire, Metal vs Magnetic Powers, we've seen it before. Oh, and Halle's still crap. So maybe the FF comparison is pointless, but I'm searching for a better reference point. Maybe it'll come to me...
The main problem is there's nothing to care about. The school doesn't seem to live and breathe, and so that's wasted. The first major 'shock' death is strangely underplayed, so the second one loses a little of its power too (deliberately vague here). Magneto goes super-bad rather than being interestingly bad (he takes the Stryker role, I suppose, in badness, if not belief), and the big threat that drives the plot seems like nothing at all. At one point, the Pres says 'God help us', but if those doing bad at the time got what they were trying to get at that moment, I think everyone would have gone back to being at peace.
Sure, there's spectacle, but by the time it came (it's mostly at the end), I'd got a little bored. And so had the others, if the audience reaction is anything to go by. There's one-liners dotted around that are OK I suppose, and some seemed to be lapping them up. However, as the last bit of action ended, a domino effect of walk-outs started. Sure, it's Friday night, the film was late starting and they wanted to get to the cellphone collection point, but once a few stood up, many started to leave. That suggests to me that the audience was restless, had had enough and, like me, cared nothing for any of the character work in the film, which is what remained. Maybe some people enjoyed the film, and it's no catastrophe, but there's no way I'll see this again. It's T:3-2, if you see what I mean.
That's all,
Jemma.
