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By Jason Bourgeois
Not surprisingly, this month we take a look at the just released X-Men 3, or X3: The Last Stand. For those who don't wish to read through all my blabbering, here's my short, quick opinion. I liked it, but the movie was not without flaws. I'd say X-Men 2 was the best of the bunch, but the third installment in the trilogy absolutely had its moments. Keep that in mind as this review goes on, since it may sound, very often, that I did not like the film. I absolutely did, I'm just also aware that there are some problems with it.
Let's start off with the stuff I liked.
First off, I liked how they handled Phoenix in the movie. There was absolutely no way they were going to just suddenly shift the series away from your prejudical parable, and bring in space aliens and cosmic entities, and threats to the entire cosmos. So, a split personality definitely works, and actually isn't too far off with the whole Jean/Phoenix thing anyways, so it's within line with both the comics and the previous films, and ended up being very well handled. My only gripe on the handling of Phoenix was that there wasn't really any fire, which had already been nicely established in the second film.
Kitty Pryde was an absolutely joy in this film, and a lot of the reason I loved it as much as I do. She was absolutely spot on. Smart, but definitely a cute, young girl, and she had any number of good scenes in the film, particularly the rescue of Leech towards the end of the film, and fighting Juggernaut. Juggernaut himself was also very well handled in the film, better than I expected, although he was pretty much just another cipher amongst the cast, and just there for muscle, and to say a few lines, but he got better development than much of the rest of the cast. But back to Kitty, they used Shadowcat's powers very creatively, and her character got plenty of screentime and development, even if some of that was pretty typical teen melodrama.
As always, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are true masters of their art, and once again put in amazing performances, bringing the lesser script to much higher levels than it probably deserved. McKellen brings gravitas to anything he says. He could tell a knock knock joke and make you think it's a totally serious situation.
The opening scene was also very well done, with a young Xavier and Magneto, visiting a very young Jean, and setting up the conflict of those three characters, as well as laying the groundwork for much of the rest of the film. Also, the scene with a young Warren Worthington removing his wings also showed great promise for what could come, and was a perfectly touching, moving, and gripping scene.
Kelsey Grammar was perfectly cast as the Beast, the other great addition to the cast. When I heard the news, many months ago now, I felt he was great casting then. He's made a career of playing very eloquent, well-spoken, intelligent men, and that was exactly what Beast needed. When the first pictures hit the web, I was even more behind it. The man simply was Beast, in every way. They did a perfect job, and brought Beast from the comic page to life, as perfectly as they could to films, and manage to keep it from not looking too silly, and still allow Kelsey to act through the makeup. Many folks were doubtful, but the man looked like he fell right off the page, fully formed.
And now that all the good stuff is out of the way, barring a whole bunch of little moments throughout the film that were good, but either too short to mention, or I just don't remember, let's move on to some of the problems with the film. Keeping in mind everything above, and that I still enjoyed the film, despite these problems. That alone is quite an achievment.
Put simply, the film just tried to do too much. They through out plot after plot after plot, and many of them were only glancingly resolved. The whole mutant cure plot could have been a movie unto itself, and Rogue was really the only voice for the cure, and once she ran off, the cure plot fell by the wayside, simply an excuse for Magneto's latest rampage in the film. It only came back at the end as almost an afterthought, and also brought back another background plot, the love triangle between Iceman, Kitty, and Rogue, which also just went totally unresolved, after being built up for much of the film. Colossus, one of the core group of X-Men, was barely given any lines, and just as much screen time, more focus being given to the rest of the slew of characters they brought in and had to give five minutes to, so they could say their name, and do a gag with their powers.
The death of a certain character was handled very poorly. They were barely in the film, when they've long been considered one of the quintessential X-Men, and with some of the plots of this film, would have finally had the chance to show their stuff, and play off those plots. And if the death was deemed necessary, they should have been given a far better sendoff than they were given, as their death happened completely off screen, and no one even really bothered to confirm the death, it was all supposition. This fortunately makes a comeback of the character in any future films incredibly easy, but the emotional impact was completely lost, since it was never shown, or even really dealt with, a constant problem with this film.
Angel's character was also well cast, and started off well enough, creating issues with wanting to keep, or wanting to lose his mutant-granted wings, some father/son issues, and a fun new cast member, who again was dropped off the film after he established the cure, and never really dealt with any of his subplots again, only briefly turning up at the mansion towards the end, and saving his father, which is lazy filmaker shorthand for "Daddy and I are ok now!"
Phoenix also managed to be given short shrift once she came into the picture, and established herself. Once she went over to Magneto's side, she did very little except stare off into the forest, or into the fog until the movie was reaching it's end, and they had to deal with her, and they finally let her do something.
This movie went through several directors while under production, and they held fast to the launch date they set, even when they finally settled on Brett Ratner for the film. The production was rushed, and frankly, it shows. The film needed more time to deal with the cast they had, and the plots they had laid out, rather than simply focusing on the pure action spectacle, as well as more time to maybe tighten up the editing on what they did have. Some simple tweaks could have elevated the film considerably. Also, working a little more on some of the effects would have been a welcome sight.
It's somewhat amusing that the main downfall of this film, is that it emulates the comics a little too well, with a large number of plot threads that go nowhere, and are left dangling, or are hastilly resolved at the close of the movie.
Overall, the film was a welcome surprise, and certainly exceeded my expectations. There's enough geeky moments in there for the fans, and enough good superhero action to entertain, but in the end, once the movie stops being impressive, it's easy to realise that the film is made up of a lot of good or fun moments, that are stuck upon a somewhat weak framework. The movie is just lacking in heart and soul, opting to go more for the action than the characters, and the characters sufferred because of it. If you're a fan, and enjoyed the first two, I definitely reccommend seeing the movie, but keep an open mind that it's not a lot like the first two, at the same time. If you don't expect a great masterpiece, you should come out of the movie having a good time. And make sure you stay until the end of the credits, there's a special treat.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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