After Bryan Singer carved out two great X-Men movies, Warner Bros. offered him the opportunity to make Superman Returns, and he bailed on the franchise. Still, given the critical and commercial success of X2, Fox were keen to get a third movie in the works - all they needed was a director. Enter Brett Ratner, the director responsible for the Rush Hour movies, and a guy who openly admitted he wasn't all that familiar with X-Men. Given its bombastic title and the fact that X2 had been so great, though, expectations couldn't have been higher - even with Ratner at the helm. But his inexperience with helming a blockbuster of such huge proportions is apparent from the get-go; Ratner overdoses on action and forgets to keep the movie grounded, resulting in a picture that talks the talk but barely walks the walk. The lacking story meant that this felt oddly lightweight stuff.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
