review: X-Men: The Last Stand

[Spriggan]

I dono, I think I like this one more then X-men 2, 3 is more comic booky and I think it fits the X-men better then the other movies.  The first two were a little too self important for my taste.

[42]

This movie is more like the comic books.

Course, the comic books don't delve into themes and metaphors as deeply as they should either.

[Patrick_Gibbs]

I was about to leave the same post that Paul did. The first two are great movies, and this one, despite having a bigger budget than the first, doesn't hold a candle to it - there's nowhere near the level of skill or polish. It's a really sloppy peice of filmmaking.

I appreciate the fact that there are comic fans out there who had things they wanted to see, but to me, a great series of movies that stood on it's own was set up, and the goal should have been to make an ending to that series, and this doesn't do it. Avi Arad, Fox and Company were so preoccupied with getting Beast and Angel on screen that they shafted the characters from the first film.

I'm really annoyed at Halle Berry over this movie - her stupid tantrums were indulged, and they let her take too much focus, and they make Storm a more generic Super Hero that is assigned way too much importance but isn't nearly as good a character as she was in the second film.

I can sort of see the point about the first two being self important - they get awfully far into political issues that aren't real - but they are much more compelling than normal comic book films for doing so.

[Spriggan]

The thing I don't like about the first two X-men is they don't feel like comic book movies, like spiderman does, they feel like art house movies.

[Paul_Gibbs]

The thing I don't like about the first two X-men is they don't feel like comic book movies, like spiderman does, they feel like art house movies.

To me, the first two films were a brillaint mix of comic book and art house, which is exactly why I loved them.

"Spider-Man" is probably the most perfect realization of the comic book feel on screen, I will admit. And, with only a couple of exceptions ("It's you who is out, Gobby. Out of your mind!"), this is a good thing. But Singer's "X-Men" films are something different, and quite special. The raised the bar for the genre, and demonstrated superhero stories need not just be stories for 12-year olds about guys hitting each other. I can't agree that they're "self-important." There is a difference between self-importance and having something to say. I understand the common argument people have "I go to movies to escape", but for me, every day life is mind numbing that a movie that's actually about something IS an escape. If "X-men: The Last Stand" is more like the comics than Singer's films are, then, in my opinion, Singer's films are better than the comic books. And really, there is just as much pontificating in the third film. It's just not backed up with the thoughtfulness or or emotion of the first two.

I disagree with the idea that there is, or should be, a specific "feel" that inherently goes with all comic book films.

But that is really just one opinion, and while I don't agree with Spriggan, I do see the validity of his point. There is something to be said for goofy fun in comic book movies. This is why I will always have a fondness for "Batman Forever". Hokey as it was, it was the Batman I grew up on, the Batman movie I imagined when I was a kid ("Batman & Robin" was not).

That is why I feel it's best when there is variety in the types of comic book films. I would be miserable if they were all as vacuous and lightweight as "Fantastic Four" (which is actually mildly fun it's own dumb way), but they don't all have to be dark and brooding, either.

[caiticlu]

Avi Arad, Fox and Company were so preoccupied with getting Beast and Angel on screen that they shafted the characters from the first film.

Not that they even NAMED Angel... or if they did I completely missed it... he was barely on screen 10 minutes together....

[Spriggan]

They said his name like 5 times, they just never called him Angel.

And the reason I think they're self important doesn't have to do with the topics they cover but how it feels like whenever someone says something they turn and stare into the camera until moving on.

[stacer]

Hint: there is another scene after the credits.

I'd been avoiding this thread so I could go make my own decision on the movie, and so I missed this, dang it. We left in the middle of the credits. It was a late night and we were both tired. I'll have to see it again sometime--though I don't really think I'll go back to see it in the theater, though. I dunno. I enjoyed the movie, but it felt so rushed, without any development or face time for the characters we already knew or the ones we met for the first time.

[stacer]

Oh, and where was Nightcrawler?

And Rogue, (Anna Paquin), one of the most important characters in the first film, just disappears for far too much of this movie.

I agree. I was thinking as they set off for Alcatraz and noted that there was only six of them, that duh, they were missing a good 2 or 3 that should have been there but weren't, and it felt more an oversight than an actual plot point. The other characters were just ... lost.

[Spriggan]

In the movies Nightcrawler wasn't an X-man so there's no reason for him to still be hanging around at the mansion.   As for Rouge, I agree it would have been nice to see her more but when they were leaving for the final fight both Iceman and Wolverine new she was gone and it's not like they were going to go look for her, or anyone else, while Magneto was marching around California.

[stacer]

No, I understand that. It just felt so set-up, rather than as something that should have happened.

I had a good time--I think they did a pretty good job of it. It just felt a let-down, character-wise, after the last two.

[Spriggan]

I'm not disagreeing on the character development part, though there wasn't as much need for it on the main characters since the first two movies developed them quite well, especially for the new people (like Beast).  But I don't miss Singer when it comes to the action scenes, man he couldn't direct a fight scene worth a darn.

Edit: Also, just for fun, Boxofficemojo has this movie allready making over 100 million for 3 days (the sunday is a perdiction but without today it's at like 80 million) so it could very well make 150 million in 4 days.  I hope Superman does this well.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

I knew it was going to be a monster opening, as the lines outside the theater I went to were across the quad 45 minutes before showtime. The parking lot was fuller than I've ever seen it, except possibly for Revenge of the Sith.

Anyway, the after-credits scene is not worth going to see the movie again just to see--it's what, 10 seconds long? (And the guys sitting behind us, during the ending credits, predicted what would happen in it, though they were thinking it would be left for the sequel. I didn't guess it myself, even though I'd been told by friends as I was walking to the theater that there was a scene after the credits we had to stay for, but Karen did guess it.) Better to just check spoilers.

[Spriggan]

Funny story about how Ratner and Singer both snuk into the same theater to see the movie with real people then ran into each other afterwords.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197369,00.html#2

"He kept saying, It's unbelievable, it's unbelievable" says a source who was present at the accidental meeting. Singer, of course, must be kicking himself that he abandoned X-Men. (And who does that, by the way? What was he thinking?)

I guess we'll have to leave what "unbelievable" here means, but I have a feeling Singer wouldn't badmouth Ratner on the movie (if he didn't like it that is).  And just a little background the columnists, Roger Friedman, has talked about how much trouble WB and Singer have had with Superman which is not to say it's a bad movie but was a lot harder to get going and finished then X3 was.

[Patrick_Gibbs]

Bryan Singer did not ABANDON " X Men." He merely signed on to direct "Superman." It was his plan to make "X3" his next movie, but Fox and especially MArvel threw a coniption, fasttracked the project, and then they hired Ratner (which hardly seems like a coincidence. Why would you just happen to pick the guy that just got fired from the same A-list franchise that your first choice just left to do? Because you want to stick it to your first choice, that's why. Considering how awful the buzz was on at the time concerning Ratner, and how upset people were at the idea of him directing "Superman" (which he was fired from shortly before Singer signed on), I have come to the conclusion that Marvel chose Ratner to make the statement that Singer was not a hot property, but that X MEN was the hot property, and that they could make it successful even with a director that no one had any enthusiasm about.

Marvel brought the comic book movie back from the dead by beign savvy enough to hire interesting directors such as Singer, Sam Raimi and even Ang Lee to make their movies more than just schlock. I think that Lee's "Hulk," a film which I happen to love, and which got mostly favorable reviews, scared them away from lettign directors have control of their properties, and as such, they have gone in the other direction, hiring hacks who aren't burdened with issues like "atristic vision," who are willing to just do exactly what they tell them to. That, combined with their obsessive need to have a new Marvel movie out every six months or so, is going to kill the genre every bit as much as the increasingly bad "Batman" films and all of their imitators did in the '90's.

The only thing that can save the future of comic book movies at this point is the fact that "Superman" and "Batman" are still in such good hands, with Singer and Chris Nolan.

Now, if we can just ensure that no one EVER casts Halle Berry in one of these again (or if they do, that they keep her on a short leash), than there might still be a chance. At least Marvel still has "Siper-Man 3," but I live in fear of what they will do to the franchise when Raimi and company movie on and they start making them with a new director and new actors.