x marks the spot. this might be lengthy, so if you haven't seen the new xmen movie yet (many spoilers below), or don't care about the xmen, stop right here. first off, i enjoyed the movie immensely. if nothing else, it's still a xmen movie, which ranks it automatically as one of my favorite movies ever. having said that, the movie was a tad disappointing. it started off amazing, it was headed toward "this could be the best x movie ever" territory, and then somewhere around the two-thirds mark, it plummeted to earth and pretty much crash and burned.

things that bothered me:

(1) halle berry - they should have just dropped her after the first x-movie. she's not a good actress, that oscar means nothing, and she's no storm. plus she sort of forced storm into the story due to her real life demands for more screen time. storm is a major character and she did need to be given a bigger role, but halle is not the woman to pull off a believable storm. at any point did people think "oh, that's so storm, i couldn't even see halle berry." nope, because halle berry is no storm.

(2) the criminal underuse of angel. all this muss and fuss about angel being in the movie and then he does nothing. plus his flying scenes looked terrible. while we're at it, colossus was fun to look at but they never let the camera stick around long enough to get a good glimpse at him. any time he was armored up on-screen, they did quick action pans. i want to take a good look at colossus armored up, why not show him off a little?

(3) iceman and pyro's battle. just super weak. it's nice that they finally iced up bobby drake but the big face off between fire and ice was amazingly anti-climatic. i wanted to see pyro make some cool fire creature and iceman doing some ice sliding around. instead we got the two of them engaged in a star wars type "force fight." weak.

(4) the entire last fight sequence was kind of disappointing. here are a bunch of mutants fighting each other, why does it look like any old regular kung fu movie? show me some damn powers at work. all the morlocks can do is just jump into the fray and bullrush the xmen? they have no cool powers? don't waste my time with mere punching and kicking.

(5) the romance and motivations between wolverine and jean grey. why the hell is an xmen movie devolving into a chick flick? are you kidding me? i'll leave this alone since i could go on an endless stream about the focus on the "love story."

(6) brett ratner.

let me expand on that. while brett "rush hour" ratner didn't totally ruin the movie, it's pretty obvious that he lowered the quality of it. it's hard to blame a guy who only got hired to do the movie weeks before shooting started, but really, i have to blame somebody and why not brett? all of the good things he did, i aped from bryan singer. ratner said that he was out to make this particular movie funnier (one-liners) and to drive up the romantic element. the one-liners weren't too terrible and some of them were pretty good, but the romance bit was dramatically overdone. but fine, the xmen movies, viewed objectively, always have had some bad lines and stretched out romantic moments. still ratner really took it to the next (worse) level.

was that his influence or the team of producers and scriptwriters who worked on the film before ratner got there? hard to say. but i know that ratner fucked up the movie somehow. his pacing was a off, his intentions were off, and as my friend greg (a huge x-fan) said "so now i'm kinda mad again at (bryan) singer for ditching. i mean, just one more to finish the trilogy and then they could do whatever they want. so i'm boycotting superman unless it gets really good reviews." that pretty much encapsulates it, brett is no bryan.

aside from all of this, the movie was amazing. i loved the characters dying. i love it when films kill off main characters in general and to see it so unexpectedly was awesome. it was a wonderful shock to see character after character dispatched. sure they will probably all come back, but it's still great to see. the movie can exist in its own x-universe and doesn't have to follow the comic's continuum, so go ahead and kill people. none of these actors want to be back anyway right? the only person i feel bad about is rogue de-powering herself. she's been pretty useless in three movies (despite being one of the most powerful xmen) and i guess we'll most likely never see her powered up.

it was so brilliant of the films to emphasize casting stellar actors in most of key roles, as opposed to people who just looked the part. i recall thinking that ian mcclellan would be way too old for magneto and being unhappily surprised that kelsey grammar would be the beast. but really, having actors with the vocal gravity of ian, patrick stewart, and kelsey grammar lends authenticity and weight to what can be, at times, totally ridiculous lines and monologues. in retrospect, patrick stewart and ian mcclellan really carry these movies (along with hugh jackman of course, but it's much easier with the already popular wolverine).

i'm curious where this franchise will go next. sure, wolverine is probably going to be made. a prequel for magneto is looking like a spin-off (why i can't fathom). they could go with featuring some less famous xmen but most of the iconic xmen have already been used. who are they gonnna have left? banshee? havok? longshot? jubilee? dazzler? cannonball? bishop? that guy from lost (josh holloway) was rumored to be playing gambit in x3, which would have been great since he already looks exactly like gambit. where are they going now? will tons of xmen movies and shows be coming down the pipleline? that would be awesome. i wouldn't mind seeing another generation x show on tv, similar to how superman made the transition to smallville.

oh, and i missed the scene(s) at the end of the credits. i should probably be excommunicated from the x community for this. but i had a defense for walking out early. i think. either way, i'm sure i'll be watching the movie multiple times anyway. just watch it, you know you want to.