Review: X-Men 3: The Last Stand
Hmm…. how do I do this without giving away spoilers?
This was simultaneously the coolest and weakest of the three X-men movies. It earns coolest because it had some excellent battle scenes, and took more chances, story-wise, than the other two movies. It earns weakest because I was never as engaged with this movie as the others. It never seemed to flow quite right. Even the music seemed off to me.
I really like that Brett Ratner, the director, took the chance of making the movie a little darker and grittier than fans of the first two movies may have expected. At times, though, I think he went too far. A bit too much killing for my taste, and visually it was much darker than I think it needed to be, for example. I also didn’t like the way the battles were shot, overall. There wasn’t enough focus on the characters — or maybe it was that there were too many characters to focus on effectively. The comment I made to my wife on the way home was that it felt too much like shooting a standard fight sequence (though obviously with cool effects), and not so much like the stylized fight shooting I was expecting. Too many quick cuts from stationary (or nearly so) cameras, not enough cool angles and movement.
The story itself was pretty good. If they really were looking for a plot that could end the trilogy, this is pretty close (though I still wasn’t completely satisfied). It’s certainly good enough.
This may be considered a spoiler for some (though I doubt many), so skip this paragraph if you don’t want to know anything. Sticking around? Are you sure? Okay, here goes. Jean is back, and she is (mostly) Dark Phoenix. That’s REALLY cool, and I was really looking forward to how they’d pull that off. Plot-wise, I think they did a decent job with it, though I do have a couple problems, but my biggest issue is with the special effects. When she uses her powers at full bore, she really looks nasty evil. Veins showing up, face drawn … just nasty (for Jean). This has got to be Ratner’s choice, because at the end of X-2, we get a brief look at what Bryan Singer would have done, and I think Singer had it right. In X-2, she gets all glowy and fiery. You sense the power being unleashed, and that the fire could consume her (in a good way, odd as that sounds). In X-3, there is heat, but no flame - it’s like he’s intending to show her as burning coals or searing hot embers. I understand the reasoning if that is his intent, but it is so much less visually effective, in my opinion, than the flames and beauty.
There are a couple other things I’d like to talk about, but they would be considered major spoilers, so I think I’ll keep them to myself for now.
Oh, one thing that I have a problem with over all three movies: Cyclops is seriously underused. They just never grasped his character fully in any of the movies, and he really comes off as a tool in all three movies, rather than the leader he was meant to be. And in this movie, well, let’s just say I’m completely unsatisfied with anything involving Cyclops in the plot.
This review sounds pretty harsh, but I still think it was a pretty good movie. Plus, due to spoiler issues I can’t go into some of the things I liked. It’s still worth seeing in the theater. I’m certainly going to get the DVD.
Will there be an X-4? Rumors say yes, and I certainly hope they are right, but only if Bryan Singer is back at the helm. And if that doesn’t happen, this does serve as a passable end to the series.
[Update: I forgot to mention — make sure you sit through the credits. You won't be disappointed.]
Tags: Bryan Singer, film, Reviews, x-menRelated posts
Tags: Bryan Singer, film, Reviews, x-men
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