Mon, 29 May 2006 at 7:48 pm
The family and I went to the drive in Sunday night to see X-Men 3, and the Sentinel.
Review and spoilers for X-Men 3 follow, so don’t click if you haven’t seen it yet. The following review is rated R for strong language.
X-Men 3:
I was all set to make a “by the book review”, but you can get thousands of those on Yahoo. Lets get real. . .
What the FUCk were they thinking killing Dr. Xavier off? And Cyclops? I mean, holy shit, those two were staples of the whole X-Men thing, why kill them off? That sucked!!? And then to have Magneto, Mystique, and Rogue (three of the coolest characters in the movie version) lose their mutant powers?
Here’s my problem: Killing off Dr. X pretty much reduced the chances of them having a meaningful fourth movie. Oh, they may have one, but without Dr. X, they are hardly the “X-Men” are they? And without a fourth movie, then things will be left how they are. . . Rogue gave up her powers, and Magneto and Mystique lost theirs. What a sucky way to end things.
What went right: If this movie didn’t have the history of the comic books to live up to, then it would have been a fine conclusion to a terrific trilogy. It still rates as the worst of the three movies, but it wasn’t terrible, and is above the fold as far as action movies go. Also, the character of Kitty Pryde (the girl who can walk through walls) was very well done, and the actress played her with a wonderful mix of uncertainty, shyness, and great bravery.
What went wrong: Nightcrawler was absent; They killed Cyclops in the lamest possible way; Mystique lost her powers and became human; Magneto was too quick to abandon Mystique after she lost her powers; Magneto was too eager to sacrifice other mutants (which I think was against his character); Jean Gray/Phoenix was utterly boring on screen — she was either standing around passively, or floating around destroying everything. I expected a lot more from the actress (Famke Janssen) and the character; Dr. Xavier was killed; and Rogue voluntarity gave up her powers.
Thats a lot of things to do wrong. Each by themselves isn’t so bad, but all together in the same movie. . . it was just too much. Overall, I sorta liked it. But I really wish they had gone with a different script.
[tags]X-Men; movies, review, drive-in[/tags]
Janice Says:
May 29th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
TJ, thanks for the review, I’m glad I missed it then.
X-Men 1 and 2 (which I liked) were directed by Bryan Singer.
X-men 3 aka “X-Men The Last Stand,” was directed by Brett Ratner.
Brett’s mother calls him 10 times a day.. what does that tell you?
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2006/05/21/brett_ratner_brings_his_energy_to_the_x_men_saga/
J
Janice Says:
May 30th, 2006 at 9:02 am
TJ,
I thought your drooling fan club was going to have a chance to design your new banner
Here is my entry.
http://www.searchroots.com/chemistry-banner.jpg
J
TJ Says:
May 30th, 2006 at 11:11 am
whoa! Very freaky! I like it! Janice you rock. Okay, I may have to put it up for a vote. . .
Alex Says:
June 2nd, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Also, the two script writers from the first two excellent X-Men films ditched this one to work with Bryan Singer on the Superman Returns movie, which I think looks pretty awesome.
I agree with your review TJ: I was disappointed in a LOT of this film. Too many characters were killed for no real reason, and Cyclops didn’t even get the dignity of being killed ON CAMERA. Harsh. And Wolverine is talking to Jean Grey waaaaay after the fact, in the basement of the mansion, and he says something to the effect of “by the way, where’s Scott?” Lame.
Also: the lack of Nightcrawler was disturbing, as was the use of Angel. He was in all of two scenes. Colossus was shown once. Once. He’s one of the coolest mutants. Who was that super-fast mutant supposed to be? The one that became Magneto’s new right-hand woman? Caliban? Nor did they give the name of the blowfish-guy (I can’t remember it from the comics myself).
All in all, it felt rushed. I was very disappointed, although the Juggernaut was pretty awesome. And oh yeah, that bridge scene? You’re a scientist TJ; what’d you think of that?
By the way, did you stay after the credits? Professor X is apparently not dead…there very well may be a sequel. Personally, I’d rather have Bryan Singer redo this film.
TJ Says:
June 2nd, 2006 at 6:56 pm
No, I didn’t catch the very end. Now I’m even more pissed off!