X-Men - The Last Stand

X-Men - The Last Stand Date: na   —   DVD / VHS product page Rating:

I went with some friends to a midnight showing of the nex X-Men movie. First, a few words to let you know where I'm coming from. For years I read comic books and my favorite ones were Uncanny X-Men and all of the related titles: New Mutants, X-Factor, Excalibur, Wolverine, X-Force, X-Men (a new, separate title). I loved them. I haven't really followed them since sometime early in college, but like all the other fanboys, I was excited when the first movie came out. I liked it a lot, I thought they did a good job with it. I thought X2: X-Men United was even better than the first film. Although I enjoyed the newest installment, it is probably at this point my least favorite of the three.

I felt like the writing was pretty uneven. There were some good lines and there were elements of the characters that were very well-written, but at the same time there were scenes that just didn't feel right, and the pacing of the movie as a whole just didn't seem to work. It seemed a bit slow; it was really a pretty slow movie, broken up with occasional action sequences. The X-Men franchise was always pretty character-driven, and X-Men - The Last Stand tries to stay true to that. We see the complexity of the relationship between Xavier and Magneto particularly well, I thought, and the writers seemed to make an honest effort at most of the other characters too, but there are just so many of them and they're not all well handled.

The writers made a lot of bold moves, creating their own X-Men universe. Although they borrow liberally from the comics and largely keep the characters true, they were not afraid to strike off in new directions. We had a hint of the appearance of Phoenix at the end of the last film, and that threat was carried out in this film, but it was introduced in an entirely different way. We've seen over the past two movies--and continue to see--what a different character Rogue is. In the comics, she was a woman, here she's an adolescent; in the comics, she absorbed the powers and memories of a character called Ms. Marvel, so she was superhumanly strong and could fly, in addition to stealing the powers and potentially the lives of others. In the films, she's somewhere between useless as a superhero and more complicated as a character. The writers chose to kill off a number of characters--including major ones--some of whom may find their way back, but most of whom look to be pretty well and truly dead.

As minor as this may sound--no one I saw it with even noticed--I thought the music in at least one scene was completely wrong. It didn't strike--IMHO--the right tone at all. Minor, but it struck me.

All in all, if you enjoyed the first two movies and/or the comics, you should absolutely see this film (but then, if those things are true, you don't need me to tell you that). It's got action, it's got funny one-liners and good visual effects. Some of the characterization is quite good. I wasn't as impressed with it as I might have hoped to be given the previous two films, but it was worth the price of admission.

When I talked about scenes that felt wrong, one was an early scene between Wolverine and Prof. X. Xavier is chastising Wolverine for something that--as far as we can tell--wasn't Wolverine's fault. Now I know he respects Xavier, but I just don't see him sitting there like he did. It wasn't like he opened a cell door for her, she knocked the shit out of him and blasted the door off its hinges. Not his fault. Unless, of course, this is the fault of poor editing? Could there have been a 5 second snippet that gave us reason to think that he was to blame? Dunno, but it didn't work as written.

The Beast's dialog--though it made some nods to the comic book--just didn't sound intellectual enough. Sorry filmmakers, you just didn't quite get him right.

Good job with Bobby (Iceman)--nice development of him as an adolescent finding himself. And awesome when he finally "ices up" fully. At the same time, a relatively poor job was done developing his relationships with Kitty and Rogue. It just didn't work for me as presented. And why didn't Colossus have a Russian accent, damnit? He did when we saw him in X2 so where did it go?

Warren Worthington III (Angel) was a big wuss in the comic books until the Morlocks crucified him and Apocalypse gave him kick-ass metal wings. So I'm glad that he didn't get any more screen-time than he did.

I'm not entirely satisfied with the course of the whole Jean Grey/Phoenix storyline. Okay, they re-wrote The Phoenix as an aspect of Jean's personality instead of as a cosmic force. Fine, you can do that. I was disappointed that she killed Scott. I know he's a big wuss and most fans don't even like him, especially since he was made such an ass in the movies. But the relationship between Scott and Jean (and Logan's love for her as an unbalancing factor) was a central thing in the comics, and I hated to have that plot thread resolved by the Phoenix losing control and killing him. She could stop herself from killing Wolverine, but not the man who truly loved her and couldn't let go (Wolverine, after all, was ready to move on until she re-appeared)? Bogus. For that matter, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of resolving the problem of her power by having Wolverine kill her. Yes yes, it was good of her to let him--to ask him--to kill her rather than putting the whole world at risk. Yes, yes, it was good of him to love her so much that he wouldn't let her be responsible for actions that she, in her "right" mind, wouldn't want to commit. But couldn't there have been some middle ground? In Wolverine himself, we see a character who has more or less managed to tame his violent nature, to control it himself. And she can't? Given the nature of the Phoenix force in the comics--it was some sort of cosmic force from somewhere in outer space--I rather hoped that they would give a subtle nod to it by having Jean/Phoenix decide to take herself away, to wander outer space and come to grips with her complete self, learning to control herself where she couldn't hurt anyone in the meantime. Or something like that. I would have rather seen growth in her than an ultimate sacrifice on the part of her and Logan.

tags: movie and tv reviews  

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