06/30/2006 Archived Entry: "X3"

A bit late, but better than never. X-men 3 was a mixed bag for me. As your stereotypical summer blockbuster it succeeds; as a continuation of the film series and adaptation of the comics, it doesn’t do so hot.

X-Men 3 has a lot of spectacle, lots of great whiz-bam-boom action that’s very entertaining and it’s really just plain fun to see these characters do such unimaginable things. While the movie wasn’t made with near the same level of competence we see in X2’s prison breakout and White House breakin, I’d probably be happy with just a movie of these guys walking around doing cool shit anyways. There are all new levels of awesome when it comes to seeing characters you’ve read about since the age of 12 come to life. And the fact that it’s Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen doing said cool shit is just gravy and cheese curds.

The bad? Well, the movie fails in 1 particular area that I think superhero movies aren’t too great at so far: Logic. The plot is nonsensical, the characters stupid (not that they’re bad characters, but that they’re intellectually untalented), and the chain of events flawed. At the film’s third act, Magneto (who could just crush Alcatraz on his own) decides to re-align Golden Gate Bridge so march his troops in. Instead of first bombarding his target (like anyone with half a brain would know to do) he sends in the ground troops and THEN bombs the place. So maybe it’s just Magneto that’s stupid? But then the X-Men seeing that Magneto wants the kid that’s been weaponized to depower all mutants decide to intervene. Why? Because Magneto is evil. So they go off killing dozens of other mutants for the sake of protecting this guy. This is where the film’s way too short running time (AND change of director) hurts it, there’s no debate about their course of action, no doubts or concerns that maybe, just maybe Magneto is right. So maybe it’s all mutants that are stupid? Well, at the end of the movie we’re told that America is well on its way to embracing mutants…how come? Middle soccer-mom America just saw mutant warfare destroy 2 of San Francisco’s most famous landmarks. Maybe it’s just all Americans who are stupid. See what I mean about this movie failing at logic…

What really sucks about the movie is that it closes the door to many possibilities. By the end of X3, the majority of the mutants from the first film are either dead, depowered, or had their consciousness transferred to new bodies. The fact that the studio insists that this will be the last X-Men movie ever meant that they tried to squeeze in as many plotlines and characters as possible. That really hurts because we’ll now never get a real kickass Cyclops story (he deserves one, damnit!), a real version of Psylocke, nor a Dark Phoenix Saga (condensing THE seminal X-Men story into a 90 minute movie’s B-Plot is ridiculously ridiculous).

But honestly, that’s just the fanboy ranting, it was a fun film. It did manage to (more or less) break the second sequel superhero movie curse (see Superman, Batman and Blade 3). It just could have been, y’know, better…

Replies: 2 comments

Compared to the other two X-Men movies, this one is a disaster because it has "killed" off the X-Men franchise in my eyes. All the corny "one-liners" sucked too.

I have to agree with Thai and state that the movie was enjoyable...only because I like the X-Men so much. However, were I not to have any previous knowledge of them, I doubt I would have been so entertained.

Posted by dAN @ 06/30/2006 09:02 AM EST

Kinda off-topic, but a friend showed me these vids today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPY2BfgRgRQ&search=x-men%20anime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZwgIJiMF70&search=x-men%20anime

They're the 2 japanese intros to the american X-men series of the 90's. It's japanese artists' take on the X-men world, pretty cool animation and music actually. Enjoy.

Posted by Étienne @ 07/01/2006 07:10 PM EST