SNIKT! X-Men 3 Review

 X-MEN 3 Review:

Okay so ... what is all the fuss about?

This movie was pretty damn enjoyable. In fact, I probably had a better time with this movie than I did with the first two. I know, I know, saying that it is apparently blasphemy to the hardcore legions of X-geeks out there who are somehow deeming this movie to be crap, but I just don't get it. You had your build-up movies. You had your slowly-paced, character-driven X-Men installments. So why would comic fans, of all people, be disappointed by the first X-Men movie to FINALLY feature the balls-to-the-wall action and truly epic nature, and oh yeah, FUN, of the comic books? I just don't see what the big complaint here is - as far as I could see, this movie rocked.

But let me address some of the common complaints that I've heard, because I honestly don't quite get where some of them are coming from ...

a.) It's not like the comic books -- What?!?! And the first two X-Men movies WERE?!?! If you want to talk about characters, than we've already gotten plenty of characters who didn't match up to their comic book counterparts. For two movies, STORM was a WEAK character - totally useless, spouting bad one-liners, nothing like the regal queen from the comics. FINALLY, here we get a Storm who KICKS ASS and uses her powers in awesome ways. No, Halle Barry is still not the old Storm we know from the comics and cartoons, but finally, here, she was someone you could root for. And that's just one example. X-3 had the best use of Patrick Stewart as Xavier thu far - he actually DID something other than being kidnapped or rendered ineffective the entire movie. And for all the comic geeks - we had friggin' Kelsey Grammar as Beast, and yes, he WAS Beast. This is pretty much as close as you'll get on screen to the Beast we all know and love- you've got to appreciate that. And how about Kitty Pride? I didn't even realize she played such a large role in the movie going in, but wow, they pretty much nailed her in the short screen time we had. While the first two X-Men movies gave us TOTALLY INCONSEQUENTIAL appearances from fan-favorite characters like Kitty and Jubilee, here we finally saw one of the best X-characters ever given life, taking on Juggernaut head-on in one of the most fun action sequences I've seen in a while in ANY movie.

And yes, the deaths.


SPOILERS A-PLENTY





Why the big fuss? Comic fans of all people should be familiar with the classic (especially in the Marvel Universe) rule that "if there's no body, they ain't dead." So for all we know Scott Summers may still be alive in the X-movie universe. But even if he IS dead, well, in the MOVIE universe, it's not that big a loss. Yes, in the comics Cyclops is the long-time leader of the X-Men and integral to many storylines, etc. But in the movies, in the FIRST TWO movies, Cyclops has not exactly been all that and a bag of chips. These have mostly been Wolverine's movies, and Cyclops has never the main character that he is in the comics. But hey, in his short screen-time in X-3, James Marsden not only gives his best-ever performance in these films to date, but Cyclops is easily the coolest he's ever been in the X-movies. So 1.) he may not even be dead, and 2.) in the context of the movies, I don't think it's that big a deal if he is.

Now, I WAS very upset about Xavier's death, even if he had a cool death sequence (the whole sequence in Jean Grey's childhood home was great). Both in the ocmics and the movies, Professor X IS the X-Men, and specifically in the movies, Patrick Stewart along with Ian McKellan has been the heart and soul, not to mention the bringer of gravitas, to the X-verse. But it is a testament to the characters in these movies that I really was upset by his death, and that in that final post-ending credits scene I was overjoyed to see that Xavier yet lived. And really, that last scene negated my one big problem with the movie's plot, and really did leave me leaving the theater a happy man.

The fact is that the first two movies, for all their acclaim, were in many ways NOT true to their source material. But worse, from my estimation, they took a fantastic, over-the-top, fun as all hell concept in The X-Men and made it boring, bland, plodding. I'm not just dissing those movies. One got the ball rolling and the second stands as one of the overall best comic book movies ever made, but they were, undeniably, missing SOMETHING. And what those movies were missing, X-3 had in spades -- a sense of scope, of fun, of adventure. It felt to me like an X-Men comic, like the over the top, crazy, mile-a-minute rollercoaster that I remembered from the comics and cartoon.

I mean, decompression is only a recent trend in comics, and one that many comic fans meet with disdain. Why do so many modern comic book storylines drag out over six, eight, nine issues when in the old days you had one issue packed to the gills with story, where crazy stuff was going on in each and every panel? So it was actually REFRESHING to me to see a blockbuster movie that was NOT decompressed, that WASN'T filled with larger than life people doing larger than life things like ... standing around and talking for twenty-minute stretches (cough*Da Vinci Code*cough, cough*everything written by Brian Michael Bendis*cough). It was refreshing to see an X-Men movie that was filled with cool geek-out moments that just felt filled to the brim with stuff HAPPENING. In that way, it FELT like a comic book.

b.) It didn't do justice to the Dark Phoenix Saga storyline - On one hand, I can see where X-fans are going with this. They see the Phoenix saga as one of the best comic book storylines ever and wanted to see it represented on screen. But I just don't see how you can quite look at it that way. I mean, yes, the Phoenix saga could have possibly been an epic three-movie trilogy in and of itself. But there was just NO WAY that was ever going to happen in movie form. I don't see where that expectation came from. As a comic book geek I'd love to see the Death and Return of Superman trilogy, or the Batman: Knightfall saga, or Kingdom Come, or Secret Wars, or Crisis on Infinite Earths. But seriously, be real here. Those stories work in COMICS, not MOVIES. They work as serialized stories that take months or even years to tell, with casts of hundreds and storylines that incorporate decades of continuity. Those types of stories are why comics are so great - ONLY comics can tell that kind of story. What we have here is an X-Men movie that is by no means the sweeping, Shakespearian epic that some fans wanted, but for what it IS it is a more than worthy follow up to the storlines that the first two movies presented. Knowing, going into this movie, that it was part three of a trilogy, why was there an expectation that it was going to be freaking part ONE of what would surely have to be a multi-part introduction to a straight-up adaptation of the work of Claremont and Bryne?

- And just to go off on a tangent for a minute, I really don't get lately what thought-process is going into the formation of the geek-cannon of comic book movies. The first X-Men is considered great even though it totally deviates from the comics and is bland and boring in many ways? That first movie totally changes Rogue from the comics, craps all over Storm, makes Cyclops the lamest character ever, and totally zaps any potential coolness from the Wolverine vs. Sabertooth rivalry. And yet it's considered "great?" And the Donner Superman movies are considered stellar even though they are basically cheesy as all hell and barely even contain coherant plotlines? Let me tell you, I recently re-watched the first two Superman movies and trust me, whatever fond childhood memories you may have of them, they have their moments, but man, they are pretty bad, with pretty much the only saving grace being Christopher Reeve's remarkable performances as Clark Kent / Superman. I think that the nerd backlash against X-3 really is a turning point where people are unable to see the forsest for the trees in some cases. I mean, save your anger for the utter crapfests like Fantastic Four, Batman and Robin, and, potentially, the upcoming Superman Returns (please God don't suck!), but at least acknowledge that X-3 was leagues better than many of the sub-par comic book movies that somehow get a passing grade from the Ain't It Cool crowd.

But back to X-3, it CONTINUED in the first two movie's traditions of presenting recognizable but altered versions of some of the characters. But you know what, complain all you want about Juggernaut not having his proper helmet or being Xavier's step brother or whatever, but he was a lot of fun for what he was in this movie, and come on, who DIDN'T LOVE the pure shout-out to geeks everywhere in "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" And this movie was filled with those little shout-outs that made it fun.

Sure, some of them fell flat. One of the lamest scenes in the movie had to be the Danger Room sequence in which EVERYTHING seemed half-assed. The Wolverine-Colossus fastball special, the UNSEEN Sentinel ... that entire sequence felt rushed and cheap. But the fact is that this movie was done under rushed circumstances, but aside from some lame scenes like that one, it still came together remarkably well.

Some other complaints I had ...

- Like I said, some of the scenes were clearly rushed. The Xavier-Magneto relationship was not quite given the time it needed, and Magneto seemed a little off in his lack of remorse for one of his lifelong friend's apparent death. But due to the great acting of Ian McKellan, the actor provided some subtext through his mere expresisons that added additional layers to the sometimes flimsy script.

- I also felt that the Angel subplot was one of the other main casualties of the movie's somewhat rushed nature, and that some of the scenes with Angel (ie his big "escape" scene) were overly melodramtic to the point of being a little inadvertantly funny. Still, they managed some nice visuals with Angel, and the character served his role in the plot quite well despite being under-used.

- I also was a little underwhelmed by some of the new villains, and Psylocke, one of the coolest visuals ever in the comics, was a little disapoointing as was whoever the weird she-male was suposed to be that followed her around. Most of the visuals in the movie were great and did the job, but the character design on some of those new villains was a little bit weak.

But like I've said, I felt that the film did a really good job of giving all the characters their moments. The new characters like Beast and Kitty Pride were introduced very effectively and instantly won me over. Characters like Storm and Ice Man had more moments to shine than they had before (the Icing-Up headbutt was damn sweet). Wolverine was too jokey at times, yes, but he still kicked ass when called upon, and I thought the final scene between him and Jean was pretty friggin' intense. So what if it wasn't directly adapted from the comics, Logan marching up to Jean as she goes all Akira on everyone, constantly being torn to shreds only to regenerate himself over and over? Badass, if you ask me.

And man, as much as he was pretty much the saving grace of Da Vince, Ian McKellan OWNED it here. That line about never having another needle touch his skin as he flashed the numbers on his arm? Brimming with sheer gravitas. Everything Sir Ian did here was just kickass, and like I said he really did make the script more than the sum of its parts through the power of his acting. This really was McKellan's movie, and I loved just about every minute that he was on screen.

Rebecca Romajin (sp?) was once again great as Mystique - throughout these movies she's always been a scene-stealer, and was once again magnetic here. Forget Pepper Dennis, how about Mystique, the series?

And of course, Patrick Stewart. One of my favorite actors finally takes center stage here, and actually DOES STUFF. I don't see how anyone could be upset about the coolness that Stewart as Xavier brought to his part here.

So yeah, it had it's moments of cheesy one-liners and a few scenes that were definitely not what they potentially could have been with more time and effort. But for the most part this was a remarkably entertaining movie. Brett Ratner did his job here and gave it a sense of Bigness that the first two movies didn't always have. The action was sweeping and exciting (that bridge scene was just epic), and had a lot of fun moments, from Wolverine vs. the multi-armed guy to Kitty vs. Juggernaut to the Iced-up headbutt to Jean Grey exploding people left and right. I had a great time at X-Men 3, and as far as I can see it was a great follow-up to X-1 and X-2, a nice potential lead-in to future sequels, and a great entry into the comic book movie genre. Was it a perfect movie or even a perfect X-Men movie? No, it had its share of issues. But it WAS a movie that had everyone in my theater clapping, applauding, and enjoying the heck out of it for the duration - it was for the most part done right and undeniably a LOT of fun. I think the haters are really missing the mark on this one.

My Grade: A -