My hair, instead of being brown and white, is black and yellow. While there is obviously a streak in it, it does not look sufficiently like the desired effect to actually be recognizeable as such. Yet it’s not quite *totally* wrong, either.
Really. The whole damned thing is like my hair: the idea is there, but something went wrong. Not critically wrong. I can’t scream and rail and be infuriated at how they screwed it up. It was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was not *good*. It was probably worth a matinee price, but certainly not worth more. It did not rise to the, “It didn’t suck!” level of X-Men; it wasn’t that good, and it sure wasn’t that *shockingly*, *unexpectedly* good. I went in with even lower expectations than I thought I had, so I’m not disappointed, because I thought it was going to suck. I’m not thrilled, either. It’s like, y’know how the first two movies obviously belonged to a similar but different Marvel universe from the comic books? Well, X3 belongs to yet another universe.
It did start out well. I thought, early on, “Hey, maybe they’re going to pull it off.” For those of you who saw Highlander: Endgame in the theatres, X3 has a similar problem: it starts out looking like it might be a pretty darned good movie, and then partway through everything inexplicably falls apart. In Endgame, the point where it all went to hell was after the sex scene.
In X3, the point where it all goes to hell is a BIG FAT HUGE SPOILER, so if you do not want to know about the BIG FAT HUGE SPOILER, stop reading now.
You’re still reading, aren’t you. Well, fine. I did warn you.
Early on, I was going with the flow. I went with the flow through the first big fat huge spoiler, which is that the newly reborn Phoenix apparently obliterates Scott Summers. I’d been warned about that, so I was prepared for it. And while I don’t think it was a good idea, I don’t actually believe he’s dead, you know, because Phoenix-force obliterations are the sort of thing you come back from.
Bizarrely, nobody in the movie seemed to give the slightest shit about this obliteration. Even so, that’s not really where it fell apart. It fell apart when Jean obliterated Xavier.
This should have been an incredibly shocking moment with huge power. Instead it’s followed by a funeral scene that totally lacked emotional integrity. Logan, standing apart from the actual funeral, was the only one who seemed affected. And things…did keep going from there, but I kept thinking I was watching six actors in search of a plot, or possibly a lot of special effects in search of a story.
Nobody seems to have much emotional reaction to anything. There’s no *heart* to it. Jean…stands around looking scary a lot, but does *nothing* else. The Phoenix effect is…cool, but there was no fiery phoenix payoff at the end, which was one thing I was actively disappointed with. Wolvie goes all Leadership Dude, which is just … weird. There were so many cameos it stopped being fun. Rogue goes off to get the cure and disappears for half a movie. I kept waiting for her to show up and help save the day. Nope. No day-saving here. Beast was…like my hair. He was big and blue and furry and didn’t use enough big words, or twinkle enough. The fastball special wasn’t a fastball special. Colossus threw Wolvie, yeah, but he spun around a couple times to do it. Shit, if you’re going to spend as much as you did on special effects, why not do the fastball special right? Angel was a *total* throwaway character. I mean, *no point at all*. It was just…
…like my hair.
There *were* some nice moments, honestly. Bobby iced up. That made me really, really happy, ’cause I’ve been waiting to see that for three movies. Jean held back Scott’s optic blasts, and we got to see the effect of her doing that, and it was really cool. Logan had some good moments. Rogue did not. Beast did say, “Oh my stars and garters,” which was nice. Kitty was pretty good. I didn’t hate it. It just…meh. Like my hair. Meh.
miles to Isengard: 46
I’m not sure when I’ll get to go see this one, but I’m sure I will. And since I haven’t followed X-Men since the 1980’s my continuity was numbed enough by the first couple of movies that I don’t think X3 will be that bothersome from that standpoint(and in my head, Jean Grey is Phoenix until AFTER the Dark Phoenix episode, Wolvie is mean and gruff (and probably smelly) and not the one for whom all women must swoon, Rogue is a grownup with a checkered past, Nightcrawler (who is fuzzy) and Kitty and Colossus are part of the main team, and Gambit is nothing more than a word chess nerds use to sound even more self-important). Honestly, I consider it a victory for fandom that characters’ names, appearance, and powers were left reasonably intact–anything they can manage to get right beyond that is just bonus.
And, like your hair, X-3 is attached to something pretty wonderful. :)
Okay, it’s a stretch, but… you sounded like you could use a complementary dose of truth. :)
Remember the end of that movie? The Enterprise gets trashed (saucer separation and controlled crash on a planet’s surface), and nobody cared. “Well, she was a good ship. Next!”
Sounds like they did the same thing here. “Yeah, let’s obliterate him. And then what?”
— Robert, ex-Evan
You read my review yet?
I really think the movie needed at least 30 minutes more. The characters didn’t have time to react to anything before they were on to the next thing. Scott’s Dead? Oh. Oh well. There are ways to come back and Fox has been backing off of the “NO MORE EVER” stance they took before.
There was at least two scenes (or extensions of scenes) I can think of in the trailers and the ads that weren’t in the end cut.
Also, the reason Scott’s death was so chumpy is partially due to studio politics.
Yeah, your review basically covered all my issues. I wonder if there’ll be a director’s cut that feels more like a story.
Yeah, I knew about the studio politics thing. I didn’t actually hate the death (because I’d been forewarned) but the response to it was bleh.
Saw it yesterday as a post-move relaxation. Without internet access prior to today, I only just got to check your journal about it. But I thought I’d pop in and comment.
…’Cause half the time Rogue had a close-up, I thought, “Hrm. I wonder what Catie thought about this?” Which I guess shows how emotionally involved I was in the movie. :T The Hubby and I went in with very low expectations (dreaded it being as different from the first two as Harry Potter 3 was from its originals) so we did actually walk out having enjoyed it. But…enh. I agree with everything you said, and add that it might have been a better movie overall had they not inserted the end bits that left it open for 4. Then we could assume, “Okay. That’s it. Everybody’s dead and the world goes on.” Now we have to worry over what they’re going to do with the next one. Sigh.
Overall, I’ve decided I liked the movie, but I didn’t much care for the story. I think…
~Holly
‘Cause half the time Rogue had a close-up, I thought, “Hrm. I wonder what Catie thought about this?” Which I guess shows how emotionally involved I was in the movie.
*laughs out loud* Honestly, I kept waiting for her to have some STORY and it never HAPPENED…! Argh!
I don’t mind them doing more Xmovies, but if it were my ball game, I would recast *completely* and tell a *totally* different story.
Ellie and I saw X3 this morning, and while I had extremely low expectations, I was still kind of voicelessly dismayed. Best points for me were “Oh my stars and garters!” (at which E and I both lost our shit) and the Snakes on a Plane trailer that preceded the film. o.O
What you said really resonates with me, that there just wasn’t any emotion. It all felt hollow–I couldn’t quite believe that Scott was dead (I hadn’t heard a thing about it beforehand), nor Chuck when he flaked away (and hey, I was right, kinda, though I’d really expected him to show up across Erik at the chess board), which didn’t help.
Scott, especially, was just WTF? I mean, there was a moment where I said, “Damn, that’s cold” when it seemed like Wolvie had just “forgotten” to bring Scott up because it meant he could have Jean instead, but then he did anyway, and well.
I dunno. There was so much more that could have been done with it. The Bobby/Rogue/Kitty thing left me totally cold (heh), and I was disappointed in the Rogue non-story, and I just don’t know. Why were there so many random mutants when they could have used some actual people from the books?
I think I need to go reread Ultimate X-men again, since that’s the alternate universe I prefer to believe in, at this point. Although seeing the opening of X2 a couple of times helped to cleanse the palate. Mmm, Kurt.
(huh. I have no X-men icon. Batgirl will have to do!)