Reviews

Someone has commented in their review that this film is an insult to Roald Dahl. They are so right. The book Matilda is a beautiful story of girl lacking the love or acknowledgement she deserves. This film has none of the charm of the book, and takes gross liberties with the original text. The tale of love winning through over terror and poverty is completely lost, the wonderful characters are now compleatly unlikeable and there is really nothing to justify this film at all. Give it a miss.

...But what did you expect from Jay and Silent Bob's big send off? Smith's characters finally go out with a bang (and make a big point of saying so). It's not The Godfather, it's not even Clerks, but at least it it's better than Mallrats.

After all the reviews and the hype I was expecting something fantastic from this movie. Unfortunately it seems to be let down in several major respects. I will confess now to knowing next to nothing about the X-men, so a lot of the things I would have liked purists will probably hate.

My biggest complaint is the way that the whole film seems to play like an introduction. All the time we are expecting something climatic to happen, and it never does. The film doesn't so much leave potential for a sequel, it leaves the plot completely unresolved. Also, the subtext is a little too sub for my liking.

When we do finally get to a fight scene it looks so completely unnatural that it just doesn't carry the drama that it should, The action seems so broken that it is almost feels like frames in a comic book. I would have said this was really clever, and a good thing (it is a comic adaptation, after all) if it weren't for the fact the it is so pronounced you are expecting 60's Batman style "POW"s to appear when someone throws a punch.

My other gripe is about the characters. Superheroes should radiate cool (see Burton's Batman, The Crow or The Matrix) but these just don't seem to. Possibly Wolverine was a bad choice for a lead, he seems that he should be a much darker character than he appears, and he talks to much. Rogue was a big wet, but hopefully this will change in the sequel when she has got over the shock of being a mutant. The only character who seems to have this innate coolness is Storm (probably something to do with those white eyes), but she is let down by Halle Berry's poor delivery of every line she speaks.

Overall, it's fun for ninety minutes, with good effects, good sets and at least a vague idea of saying something worthwhile. It's just not what I had hoped.

I first saw this film several years ago when it was in the cinema and, though I thought it was quite cool, considered it somewhat of a let down after all the hype. Watching it again I realise that it is not actually a spoof of the B-movie genre, but rather a homage to it. Tim Burton has deliberately tried to make this film so bad that it's good, but unfortunately doesn't quite succeed. If the aliens had been obvious me in suits, or if the music had been just the odd chord here and there or the flying saucers hung from visible wires this would have been a fantastic film. As it is the plot is so thin it's transparent and the comic timing is completely off, both mistakes completely un-typical of Burton. He does well with the materiel available, and lets face it, if it had b-movie standard effects it would have been a box office flop.