Reviews

X-MEN 3: THE LAST STAND

 To quote my friend, Ken Mudd, the best way to sum up this movie is “It’s like having sex with your girlfriend after she has cheated on you. It’s still good, but there is something missing.”

It is obvious that this movie is going to be shit-panned by critics, mainly because critics hate Brett Ratner. I mean let’s face it, the man is not known for cinematic masterpieces. On the other hand, is 20th Century Fox going to really hand over a multi-million dollar franchise to a hack? Perhaps Ratner’s gift is that not only is he a “yes” man, but the film world’s best copycat. X-Men: The Last Stand looks like Singer, but sounds like bad karaoke.

The third film in this franchise is many things. It is definitely the shortest of the series. It has the most slam-bang action. Lastly, it has the least amount of underlying substance. The message that was subdued in the two Singer films is in your face for the third. The message of a cure for societal diseases definitely hits home with today’s headlines. The obvious question that is posed in the film is, “If given the chance, would you take a drug to make you socially acceptable?” If there were a cure for being gay, a minority, unpopular or ugly would you submit to it and deny what you truly are?

These questions, unfortunately, are answered in very glossed over ways. X-3 features an almost entirely new cast of characters. Back burners like Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) are brought to the forefront. New characters (that should have been introduced long ago) Beast (Kelsey Grammer) and Angel (Ben Foster) are introduced, and with the exception of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Storm (Halle Berry) some of the older characters are virtually passed over. I had a severe problem that long-standing cast members were made so unimportant and a young cast pressed upon us. As a matter of fact, one team member’s fate is not even resolved fully, merely assumed, until you see the headstone.

Let me get on my comic geek soapbox for a second here. There are so many mutant characters introduced in this film it can be hard for a layman to keep track here. Most of the characters that they do introduce here have incorrect powers, odd looks or really no names at all. For instance, if you have paid any attention to the trailers, you might have seen the “spiky guy” (Ken Leung). Who the hell is this guy? Never introduced, never named. Just shows up with the spikes and manages to have some dialogue. Another example is the character of Arclight. The film version has the same abilities as those in the comic, shockwave generation, but what we see I thought was a transvestite. More examples of character tampering are seen with Callisto (Dania Ramirez), Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), and finally Jean Grey/Phoenix (Famke Janssen). Don’t even get me started on how they totally glazed over a great story arc dealing with the Phoenix entity.

Though it is tempting to sit here and bitch and nitpick at the mutant soup brought before us, I have to keep in mind that Hollywood folk don’t know shit about comics and really don’t care. They pretend to care about the characters and where they come from, and they say they keep the fans in mind, but the truth is their “story” must be preserved at the expense of the characters.

Some of the bigger problems that X-3 falls under is: One, the writers found a lot of cool powers and moments in forty years of X-Men continuity, stuck them into a mixing bowl and quickly dumped them out, paying no mind to properly flesh them out. Two, this movie was too big for writers Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg to handle, as well as Mr. Ratner. Third, the whole mess felt very rushed, kind of like someone had the mind on another type of “Rush”, instead of keeping focus on the task at hand. Frankly, Fox should have just waited for Singer to finish “Superman Returns”.

All of the actors involved give the same fine performances as before. New addition Grammer was quite surprising as the verbose, animalistic Beast. I really had my doubts about him, thinking it was the biggest comic film miscast since Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, but I was gladly wrong.

Perhaps if Ratner spent more time on story, characterization and research and less time on a giant fight scene which, don’t get me wrong, was impressive, then maybe we would have been privy to a better “final” installment. My hope, one day, is that Bryan Singer will come back and do one more film. A better ending that this excellent franchise deserves.
6.5/10

George

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