00:00Brett Ratner is one of the many directors who gets hired to make films without a vision.
00:04Orders that simply consist of making a profit by putting bankable actors and actresses at the top of the bill.
00:10And frankly, he's made a lot of films that I like.
00:12Family Man, Rush Hour, Hercules with The Rock.
00:16There must be three of us in the world who love Hercules along with The Rock.
00:19Who has hair. There you go.
00:21What do you want ?
00:22But X-Men 3 isn't just any old movie to be directed by any old director.
00:26This is supposed to be the end of a story that has been intelligently told so far, with a real vision, substance, different subtexts and a graphic identity.
00:35All of this will of course have disappeared or at best will be poorly exploited.
00:39Let's take the introduction for example.
00:41I emphasized the importance of the intro of the first two opuses which have this strength of being ultra striking and of bringing us into the story with a certain panache.
00:48Here we are treated to two flashbacks that have nothing to do with each other and are not enough to serve as an introduction.
00:53It feels like we're seeing two scenes from the middle of the film that are there, because yes, these two scenes are important, but are very poorly exploited.
01:01The only reason they are there in the introduction is that they will summarize the two stories that the film will cover.
01:06We begin 20 years earlier, where young Charles and Eric meet a certain Jean Grey, who will become the phoenix in this opus and therefore a danger to everyone.
01:14Moreover, it should be noted that the digital rejuvenation is strangely very successful.
01:18It's 2006, I remind you.
01:19And the second scene takes place 10 years earlier.
01:22It shows a child mutilating himself in order to hide his mutation, which his father will discover and use as a driving force to find a cure for what is, for him and for many others, an illness.
01:32Same, the scene is good and it really left a mark on me when I was young.
01:35But it follows another flashback, which lessens its impact.
01:39This detachment between the two stories will constitute the film's major weak point, because it tells us two things that have nothing to do with each other.
01:46It tries to develop an arc that could make a trilogy on its own, the dark phoenix, and it deliberately weakens it, pairing it with an antidote story that is completely useless given what the development of the phoenix can bring in terms of stakes, gravity and emotion.
01:59And of course, all of this will take less than two hours, so you might as well know that it's ruined in advance.
02:04But still, if that was all there was to it, Cyclops dying off-screen, it's not possible.
02:08So much so that we are convinced that he is still alive because it makes no sense to kill him in this way if it is simply to leave him dead.
02:14This is a real directorial error.
02:16It has no impact, it's just frustrating, even if the character wasn't the most interesting.
02:21Wolverine also loses a lot of his substance, his true nature is very erased.
02:25He becomes almost an ordinary character, and he is even better than in the other films.
02:30I mean, OSS 117-style infiltration is not possible.
02:33We can also mention the lack of grandeur, particularly through photography which suddenly becomes totally insipid.
02:42Not to mention the sets which are much less inspired than in the previous installments.
02:46The climax stinks of a studio 100 km away.
02:48You can see that everything is made of cardboard.
02:50It's ugly, it has no identity.
02:52We go from the Statue of Liberty, to a filthy and disturbing roadblock, to the parking lot of a clinic.
02:57Where night falls in a cut, because well, we might as well go all the way, we're not going to be at that anymore.
03:01And where Alcatraz Island, with the remains of a disused prison, is not even exploited.
03:05It should also be noted that the budget for X-Men 3 is 210 million.
03:09Which is, at the time, the most expensive film in the history of cinema.
03:12While on the other hand, we're at 110 million for X-Men 2.
03:15And yet, it's the richest film that seems the most broke.
03:18Which proves that ideas aren't just a question of price.
03:20The film tells a story by making the Golden Bridge take off, when quite frankly,
03:28If you think about it, it doesn't make any sense, except to attract unnecessary attention.
03:32But I mean, if you're going to do it, at least fight it.
03:35There's plenty to do, and it looks great.
03:37There, we end on a pile of I-don't-know-what, with a Jean Grey who will have served no purpose.
03:41in this story, and who suddenly loses it like that.
03:44Hugh Jackman, who kills a girl he likes for the second time, and in the same way.
03:48Finally, Eric, who is no longer a mutant, but actually he is, in case we have to remake films.
03:52and bring back from the mill.
03:53Well, after that I pretend, but there are still 2-3 things to save anyway.
03:56The Malicia arc is well concluded, I think.
03:58Consistent from the start, and at least they had the merit of following through with it.
04:02Xavier's death is pretty well done.
04:04Beyond the decor, once again horribly impersonal, something is happening.
04:08This is the only time in the film where we feel the true abilities of Jean's character.
04:12Other than that, there's not much left.
04:14The new characters are underused, Angel, the Scourge,
04:18Only the wild beast is doing quite well.
04:20The storyline is marred by two narratives that collide without ever coming together,
04:24the editing juggling from one to the other without any real coherence,
04:27and the production is as bland as possible where the action scenes struggle to offer the whole
04:31the epic conclusion this trilogy deserved.
04:34This is the end of the X-Men arc in cinemas.
04:36The trilogy is concluded, the returns are quite catastrophic,
04:39and the franchise leaves the dark rooms through the back door.
04:43However, this third film is the most profitable of the trilogy.
04:46which alone grossed over $1.1 billion worldwide.
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