OH BRYAN Singer... if only you hadn’t scuttled away and made that hideous Superman Returns, perhaps we’d have a triumverate of tremendous X-Men films.

But no, you had to leave it in the hands of Brett Ratner. Come on, the guy directed the dumb-as-cheese Rush Hour franchise.

Anyway, the first two Singer-directed X-Men films here are good quality, knockabout fun: misunderstood mutants take sides, have a bit of biffo, and the script is pretty tight.

X-Men: The Last Stand, however, is a muddled conglomerate of storylines thrown together with a stack of new mutants, none of whom get time to develop.

Some nice effects don’t make up for the crashing disappointment.