Last night we watched the 3rd X-Men movie. It was much better than expected. It seems that there is a curse on #3s. ‘Return of the Jedi’ sucked (YES, it is a number 3, I don’t care what you say!). ‘Back to the Future 3′ sucked. ‘Matrix Revolutions’ sucked. ‘Godfather 3′ sucked. But ‘X-Men the Last Stand’ was pretty damn good.
A little “too much action-not enough plot” for me but I’m not typical. I’ve also had a lot of X-Men comics exposure so the nerd in me wants to see the comic story unfold. I used to hang out in Jr. High with Carlo and he was a huge X-Men fan. Although Fred isn’t an X-Men comic collector, I was around James’ comic shop with him enough to absorb the conversations people had about silly things like “Who would win in a fight, Wolverine or Boba Fett?” and stuff like that. Comic geeks always seem to be obsessed with pitting 2 fictional characters against each other and vehemently arguing if someone differed in their predicted outcome. Well, obsessed with that or with fictional character sex.
The X-Men universes are so screwed up that any plotline would make sense because they do the “Alternate Universe” gig whenever someone writes a new story that doesn’t jive with the existing one. There are some stories where Professor X died young so the mutants don’t have his guidance. Others where he has joined forces with Magneto. So, nothing would be too weird for an X-Men movie.
In this one, they touch on Jean Grey and Dark Phoenix but they make it look like it’s just a repressed personality, they left out all the whys and hows. Never really fleshing out the whole story. Good enough for movie work I guess. They wash it out into another plot where they have found a cure for mutation. I would rather have seen them focus on one story though. There is so much story in the “Dark Phoenix” series that it feels cheap now that the story started and ended all in one movie and most of the plot was left out. I still say she wouldn’t have killed the Professor or Scott if they had put more story behind it.
Storm cut her hair and suddenly she doesn’t look so hot any more. I heard Halle Berry wasn’t going to be in this one unless they gave her role more importance. She took over the school after Professor X died. In the comics she ran the school during his absence so it only made sense.
I was surprised to see my favorite character, Juggernaut. I always chose him when playing the X-Men RPG in Jr. High. Carlo always chose Wolverine and kicked my ass. I don’t remember Juggernaut being a true mutant though. His mutant power is sapped by Leech in the movie but I thought Juggy got his power from some magical stone? Also, wasn’t he related to Professor X? Some cousin or step-brother or something? I was waiting for them to make something out of that but they never did. Maybe I’m thinking of someone else.
Rogue is still hot but she’s barely in this movie. She’s there just enough to show why some mutants might WANT the cure. Now that she’s cured, it might be a good time to write in Gambit’s character for X-Men4. Give him the tease of being able to hold Rogue in his arms before the cure wears off. Oh yeah, if you didn’t know already, the cure is temporary, Magneto and Mystique will gain their powers back. The way they make movies, it would be hard to market a 4th installment without the Professor or Magneto.
So, overall I would say this is a good movie. It was actually plotted out well and for all the little details I saw (like the Golden Gate bridge’s shadow not moving when they moved the bridge or the fact that the bridge was moved in the daylight but in the final scene (after dark) all the abandoned cars on the bridge have their headlights on.) there were very few moments that the inner-amateur-comic-geek in me didn’t like. They killed off a lot of our favorite people; that was cool and something most Hollywood movies refrain from doing. I would like to have seen a little more emotion in Wolverine when he killed Jean Grey. It was quick and it had to be quick, but maybe a little suffering would have leant that scene a little more weight.
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