Eggers’ film drags you bodily into a world where zombie kings, eyeless witches, and the talking severed head of Willem Dafoe are as real to the characters as their windswept settlements.
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Envisioned as a haunted house psychological thriller-horror — and those elements are certainly quite good, there just isn’t enough of it — no character embodies the main antagonist. The idea that mutants are a danger to themselves and society is interpreted literally in this film. X-Men is supposed to be a reflection of what it’s to be like an outsider, but when the film traps all five mutants in one location without outside contact, they aren’t given a chance to show why they’re ostracized.
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However, while parts of the movie don’t really work, Shyamalan’s ultimate goal is to make the audience doubt the truth of the characters’ abilities. In a climactic scene outside the facility, Shyamalan uses extreme wide shots, fish-eye close-ups, and clumsy staging to strip a fight between Dunn and The Horde of the thrilling, Marvel-style grandeur we might expect from the subject matter.
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