Spent my Monday honoring our nation’s brave soldiers by seeing X-Men 3. They would have wanted it that way, although perhaps they would have preferred I see a better movie.
My opinion? Ehh. Cool effects, lotsa fights, most everyone got a good line or two. But ultimately, ehh.
The Dark Phoenix story in the comics, before they got really stupid and kept bringing Jean back with new, soap-opera-y embellishments, was epic. She was a dark goddess, one with full control of her abilities and uncanny insight into her previous teammates. Here, she was a supremely powerful zombie-Jean who mostly stood around unless she was having a hissy fit.
I enjoyed the movie, but I doubt I’ll watch it again terribly often. Here are the things that stood out for me, pro and con (MASSIVE, MASSIVE SPOILERS, SPOILERS SO LARGE THEY AFFECT LOCAL AIRSPACE):
— I liked seeing Charles and Eric visiting the Greys. nice scene, good setup for their later differences.
— I hated the Scott/Jean/Logan love triangle, in the previous movies and especially in this one. In the comics this was a thread, yes, but it developed over years. In the movies Wolverine has spent how much time with Jean, exactly? A few days? As much as a week? How dare Wolverine compare his loss to Scott’s?
— Scott. What a completely wasted character, in every sense of the term. He’s noble, overly responsible, a master tactician, skilled with various uses of his eyeblasts, deeply in love with Jean, utterly loyal to Prof. X, and terrified that he’ll hurt somebody. Mostly we saw a whiny guy who blasted things once in a while, and I have to blame that on the writers and directors.
— Scott’s death. Well, he’s been relegated to supporting character, why not kill him offscreen? He’d just be in the way of this great Jean/Logan love affair anyway and we’re paying Jackman more, he needs more screen time.
— I liked Mystique, in all the movies. Seriously cool character. I was suprised, though… when she’s human and spilling her guts on camera, they somehow made her look frumpy. How?
— Disliked the sloppy editing. Here’s the convoy. Here’s the president. Here’s the conference. Here’s the convoy. Here’s Cyclops on a bike. Here’s the convoy. Did we need all of that?
— Liked the Danger Room sequence. About time!
— Why is Colossus super-strong when he’s not metal?
— Liked Kitty. Would have liked to see more Kitty/Peter interaction, or, you know, any.
— Really liked Beast. Kelsey Grammer was perfect, both as a dignified diplomat and as a brawler.
— Didn’t see the point of Angel, alias Plot Device Boy.
— Liked Juggernaut, and Kitty’s battle with him.
— Liked the abandonment of Mystique. “She was so beautiful…”
— Really liked Magneto’s defense of Xavier.
— In fact, liked Magneto most of the time, apart from some really stupid moves (see below).
— Didn’t like the never-before-hinted-at split personality thing for Jean. Very tacked-on feeling.
— The Rogue-Bobby-Kitty thing? Ehh. Rogue was cooler in the last movie.
— The big battle? Well… If Magneto can pick up the Golden Gate Bridge, why didn’t he just pick up the medical facility and shake it a few times?
Why did he just stand there during the battle, when he could easily have wiped out the opposing army by himself? Or, for that matter, floated around back while the army was engaged in front? Heck, why not just drop the damn bridge on top of the place?
— Hated the really sloppy editing. Magneto drops a bridge on the island in daylight. Then, in pitch blackness, he steps forward. Did he just stand there looking all majestic and stuff while he waited for the proper dramatic setting?
— Liked the fastball special(s). Yay!
— Hated the final Jean/Logan scene, mostly for the reasons above (supposed to be killed by the love of her life, not some bozo she’s known for less than the life of a gallon of milk) but also because removing all the meat from Logan’s bones wouldn’t be that tough compared to what she was doing around him. His healing ability seems awful selective as to how fast it wants to work sometimes.
— Wow, Storm sure is a cold bitch. Talking of killing Jean without appearing the last bit torn up about it, and hitting the other girl with lightning over and over and over…
— “I’m the only one who can stop her!” Really? How about that bald kid that just went by? You know, the one who neutralizes mutant ability? Even if he wasn’t powerful enough to stop her completely, he sure as heck could have dampened her somewhat.
— Xavier’s death, and subsequent post-credits revival. Guess he solved that pesky ethical problem, huh.
— Magneto’s powers returning. Bad enough that comics rarely leave a startling change actually changed. How can I feel the impact of an event when I know it’ll be reversed later? Although I’d be really interested in seeing what happens if Mystique regains her powers. Would she rejoin Eric, no hard feelings? Or would he have a much more dangerous enemy?
Overall I felt the same way I feel about Smallville: cute, fun to watch, easy to heckle, but I still feel let down that so many great possibilities were ignored for an easy and shallow story. Little shoutouts to the fans are offered instead of the powerful, multi-layered love story it was drawn from. It was an entertaining, highly profitable summer movie, and nothing more.