Ok so I’m going to have to be as diplomatic as possible as I can with this one ladies and gents. After the problems this film has been through over the last few years, I was really hoping that something great would have come out of it in the end. Unfortunatley, this isn’t the case. Fear not though as this review isn’t all doom and gloom dear reader, oh no. There are moments of light, albeit, very dim ones.
I’m going to keep this as spoiler free as possible as I would rather you make up your own mind to see it or not. What I will say is that if you are planning to go and see this as you think it looks like a horror film, then you will find yourself mistaken. There was not one moment that I can say I was genuinely scared or thought something scary was going to happen. The film is more 3/4 CW teen drama and 1/4 action film with mutants.
When the film finally had some action going on in the last 20 minutes, I actually enjoyed what I was watching. That being said, for the previous 74 minutes, nothing really happens. What I was hoping for was more details on the characters. As the mutants powers are slowly revealed, you want more information on what it is their powers can do. Taylor-Joy as ‘Illyana Rasputin’ has an awesome looking armour plated arm and wields a bad ass sword. The downside to that is there is no explanation of how or why she has these powers. It was only after I got home and hit up Wikipedia that I found in the comics, she is the sister of none other than Colossus and that her natural mutant power is teleporting.
The same can be said for Henry Zaga’s ‘Roberto De Costa’. A brief read of wikipedia and it turns out he is ‘Sunspot’. When he first uses his powers he looks just like the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four. When actually he is able to channel solar energy.
I feel like Masie Williams is the one who was shortchanged the most in this film. While she does get the most interesting storyline with Blu Hunt, she is in the shallow end of the pool when it comes to her characters mutant powers. Her character has the ability to turn into a wolf but through the whole film you only see this happen once, and even then she is partially obscured so you don’t see the full transformation. While the rest of the cast have some impressive CGI done on them for their powers, Williams gets some lamb chop sideburns and some doggy contact lenses.
What I did like about the film was the last 20 minutes when the action picked up a fair bit. Anna Taylor-Joy gets to show off her mystic side when she keeps dipping in and out of limbo while fighting the films big bad. I was confused as to why her little dragon teddy bear all of a sudden comes to life during the final fight. I can only assume this is the reason why Mushu isn’t in the live action version?
For me there just wasn’t enough going on during the film to keep you engahed with anything that was happening on screen. It’s quite telling when you are paying more attention to the episode of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ that is on in the background of a scene, instead of what is being said by the characters.
All in all, I’m not angry with what I saw this evening, just dissapointed.
Rating:
