X-Men 3

X-Men 3
**

The first X-Men movie was decent. It was a little rough around the edges, but it did a great job of introducing the characters and the main themes that have always been at the core of X-Men stuff. Then Brian Singer took everything that working in X-Men and built off of it to create X2, which is right up there with the best superhero movies made during this recent wave of them. There were some amazing FX sequences, but at its hart, what made X2 really work was that it made you care about the characters. It did a great job of accentuating the bigotry and persecution that the X-Men have faced throughout their history, especially through Brian Cox's fantastic villain William Stryker.

Now with Singer off to direct Superman Returns, Brett Ratner has stepped for X-Men 3: The Last Stand (as a sidenote, was this honestly the best subtitle they could come up with). Ratner tries to remain faithful to the precedents set by Singer in the first two chapters, but ultimate it feels like he created "X-Men Lite." By that I mean it sets up as much if not more story than the first two, but never really lets any of it develop, instead giving way to big action scenes, which, though they look impressive, are not necessary at all in many cases. The movie only runs for about an hour and 45 minutes, almost half an hour shorter than X2, supposedly in part because of how much filiming was rushed to get the movie out in time for Memorial Day. In this short space the movie tries to tell both the film version of the Dark Phoenix saga that was hinted at by the end of the 2nd film, while also following another plot regarding a "mutant cure" being developed. The movie never really slows down to give either of these story lines the exposition they need, and the movie ends up feeling very disjointed and not very emotionally hitting.

SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON

I didn't find much of the story incredibly effective, but the entire subplot with Jean Grey seemingly ressurected as the Phoenix was a complete mess. I didn't think it was absolutely necessary for the next movie just because of the one shot of the Phoenix in the water from X2's ending, and trying to cram it into this movie when its already trying to go in a totally different direction with the mutant cure premise was clearly a mistake. None of the stuff from the original comic book version of the Phoenix saga involving aliens and spaceships was included because the audience wouldn' t buy it, but the explanation given here is no less absurd. At the showing I was at there was audible laughter as Professor X explains how Jean Grey "wrapped herself in a cacoon of telekenetic energy." He then vaults himself into a big explanation about psychic barriers in Jean's head evidently somehow giving her multiple personally disorder. All of this would've been fine with me if we were allowed to see more of what's going on in Jean Grey's head, but in the next scene we see of Jean Grey break out of the X-Men and basically totally succumb to the Phoenix side of her personality. Before she's captured, we see her arise from the water at Alkali Lake and attack Scott. We see like a 2 second shot of Scott apparently being hurt and then later an explanation by Wolverine that he suspects that she killed him, but that's it. Cyclops is the leader of the X-Men and is at the forefront of both of the previous two films, and yet he's killed in an emotionless scene maybe 20 minutes into the film. This point is entirely ignored until we see a brief shot of his grave next to Jean's at the very end of the movie. Really, the Phoenix effect didn't really work for me. They tried to give Jean a very demonic sort appearance with the help of some CGI, but I thought it was one of the least effective effects in a movie that really had some pretty good ones.

Ian McKellon is good again as Magneto, and he manages to at least keep his side of the story fairly interesting. Magneto has always been an effective villain because he doesn't see himself as one, and there are several good scenes to that effect in X-Men 3, like when he takes the stage at an underground mutant rally trying to convince its audience that the so-called voluntary mutant cure will actually be used to exterminate the mutant population. Kelsey Grammer wasn't bad as The Beast, but not much was done with him. People would weren't familiar at all with X-Men would've gotten the whole "he looks really scary, but he's actually really smart" concept, but that's about it and The Beast is a much deeper character than that.

The movie does have some good moments. The opening scene with a much younger Professor X and Eric Leinshier going to visit Jean Grey was a good scene to get the audience primed again for the X-Men universe after a couple years layoff since X2. I thought the scene where Logan fights his way up to Jean and kills her not only looked cool, but was probably the most moving scene of the movie (in comparision to Professor X's death, where he just sort of shatters into a million pieces in a fairly cheesy effect).

The movie's ending(s) in particular left a bad taste in my mouth. Firstly, we see Magneto seemingly able to move a metal chess piece just as the credits begin to roll. If you remove the last shot of Magneto moving the piece, I think it becomes an excellent scene that brings the tragedy of his character full circle. Instead it becomes a dime a dozen cheesy cliff-hanger ending. Then for good measure they added an "after the credits" scene where it is implied at Professor X is still alive. I think its also very much noteworthy that Scott's dead body is never seen, nor anything to suggest to the audience "Yeah, he's gone for good." Watching the ending I could almost hear the studio execs sitting around saying "Okay, we need to leave ourselves an out in case we want to make X-Men 4."

Is X-Men 3 a horrible movie? I would say no (I do know some people who would say a resounding yes). The climactic action sequences genuinely did hold my interest, and it retained at least a glimmer of what made the Singer movies work. But to me it was somewhat sloppily done, the focus seemingly more on cool special effects rather than fleshing about the story. I'm not going to pretend like SFX sequences don't make for an exicting movie because they do, but X-Men at its core for all its laser blasts and adamantium claws has always been a very human story, with ethical and philosophical issues. The sense of humanity wasn't there in this movie and it needed to be at least 20-30 minutes longer for any of the characters to properly develop. X2 will always been one of my favorite movies from this era of superhero movies, but oh what could have been with X-Men 3.